Tom Brady wants to make it clear that he’s not blaming the referees for the numerous penalties called during Thursday night’s game between the Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars.
Brady sent a pair of critical tweets during Thursday’s game, which was marred by constant flags, some of which were definitely questionable. On Friday, Brady sought to clarify them, stating that he wasn’t blaming the referees for their performance.
Brady said he wasn't criticising officiating in his tweets last night. Said he's very "pro-ref."
— Doug Kyed (@DougKyed) September 20, 2019
Essentially, Brady is blaming the NFL for having officials call things more tightly. And he has a point: per NFL.com’s Judy Battista, offensive holding penalties are way up in 2019 compared to where they were the year before.
From @judybattista: there has been a 64% increase in offensive holding penalties (from 70 to 179) through the first two weeks of the season compared to last season. https://t.co/TsePYYSGMc
— Patrick Crawley (@pecrawleynfl) September 20, 2019
We saw this coming during the preseason, and perhaps we should’ve worried then. Many fans would agree with Brady, though. Parts of Thursday night’s game were very difficult to watch because of all those flags.
