Going into the fourth half with a score of 21-0 is not the best strategy.
For most of the Atlanta Falcons’ Week 5 games against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they looked as dominant as many would expect. The Falcons look like their immediate future includes a top pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, while the Buccaneers will be working hard to land their second Super-Bowl in three seasons.
To be fair to the Falcons, they don’t have Kyle Pitts – who doesn’t get enough goals while he’s on the field – and the NFL’s fourth top driver – Cordarrelle Patterson. However, they still managed to get back into the game in the final inning. They scored 15 points, which included two conversion points.
Just over three minutes into the game when Grady Jarrett fired Tom Brady on Tuesday and Thursday. It’s the kind of handling that can only happen to those with the strength of an NFL defense. Jarrett grabbed 6-foot-4 Brady around the waist and threw him like a bunch of clothes into the dryer. It wasn’t gentle, but he didn’t land on him, or make physical contact in any way. However, Jarrett was still required for his rough handling of passersby, granting Buccaneers 15 yards and automatically taking out the first one.
The penalty placed the Buccaneers at the Falcons’ 32-yard line as opposed to the other side of midfield, and the defense had only one timeout.
Again, no one told the Falcons to lay a goose egg in three quarters. Even without the two key contributors, these are still NFL-level players who have shown they are capable of scoring. After the Buccaneers touched the ball in the first series of the second half, they didn’t add any points for the rest of the day. Where was that effort in the first half?
That’s not why the Falcons lost. They will still have to go down the pitch in front of one of the best defenses in the league, score a goal and transfer more points to win. But all that said, the sport wouldn’t be football if Jarrett’s actions deserved punishment. Remove the pads, destroy the flags, and fire all people in line. All you need is a tackle to count to four Mississippis before slamming into a passerby.
Official Team Leader Jerome Boger actually told the media“What I had was the defender grabbing the midfielder while he was still in his pocket, and unnecessarily throwing him to the ground.”
So if Boger is running a game, defenders should treat it like a wits between teams in training camp. They should imagine that the red stop sign shirt is in midfield and run after him, arms up in the air and not making contact.
This is the second week in a row that Boger has made such a call during a pivotal moment. At the end of the Buffalo Bills’ 23-20 win over the Baltimore Ravens in Week 4, a rough call against Raven’s Brandon Stephens turned 1 and 15 from the Ravens’ 41-yard line into 1 and 10 from 26.
The call doesn’t decide that game either. The Ravens allowed the Bills to drive to their 3-yard line and kick a chip to win, but the umpire’s job was not to impede, but to enforce the rules.
Two weeks in a row Boger failed in critical moments, and made the game unnecessarily difficult for the other team that was playing the game the way the rules dictated it should be played. If he keeps stumbling across teams like this, he might as well wear a green outfit and change his title from main official to turf monster.
