Mike Pereira: Numbers Dictate Brady Is Not Given Any Extra Advantages

Here we go again.

When Atlanta’s Grady Jarrett was called for roughing the passer when he sacked Tom Brady in last weekend’s loss to Tampa Bay, Falcons’ coach Arthur Smith buried his face in his hands in disbelief … and he wasn’t alone. Millions of TV viewers did, too, causing outraged conspiracy theorists to roll out a familiar complaint.

All together now: Refs protect Tom Brady.

“You can’t tell me,” host Mike Greenberg said on ESPN’s “Get Up,” “if that call gets made if the quarterback’s name is anything but Tom Brady.”

“No,” said former coach Rex Ryan. “I don’t think it does. There’s a problem here.”

Well, responded FOX rules analyst and the NFL’s former head of officiating Mike Pereira, Ryan has it half right.  There is a problem, but it’s not with Brady. It’s with the call. It was a mistake, and it shouldn’t have been made. But it was not, Pereira insisted, made because it involved Tom Brady.

“Protecting one quarterback more than another is a myth,” Pereira said on this week’s “Eye Test for Two” podcast. “The numbers dictate that Brady is not given any extra advantages at quarterback.”

Look no further than last weekend for proof.

In Cleveland, the Chargers’ Sebastian Joseph-Day was called for roughing quarterback Jacoby Brissett when he pushed him in the chest, compelling Brissett to tumble backward. ESPN’s Anthony McFarland called the Brady foul “maybe the worst call I’ve ever seen,” but he’s wrong. It wasn’t even the worst call of the weekend. Brissett was never tackled, tossed to the ground or struck in the helmet.

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He was pushed.

“That looked like a strong wind off Lake Erie,” broadcaster Greg Gumbel said.

Then on Monday night, the Chiefs’ Chris Jones was flagged for roughing the passer after a strip-sack of the Raiders’ Derek Carr, a penalty that compelled another enraged head coach – in this case, Kansas City’s Andy Reid – to howl in disbelief.

The call stood.

Then there was Buffalo’s Josh Allen the previous weekend in Baltimore. With the game tied and just over two minutes remaining, Allen was knocked down after releasing an incomplete pass. Nothing unusual there, except for what followed: The Ravens’ Brandon Stephens was whistled for roughing the passer.

Result: The Bills won on a last-second field goal.

So there you have it. Three quarterbacks not named Tom Brady were the beneficiaries of bogus penalties … in the space of nine days, no less. So Ryan is right. There is a problem. For whatever reason, roughing-the-passer penalties have gone off the rails. But when Brady is involved, the fouls somehow seem more personal, more outrageous and more wrong.

“Brady, Brady, Brady,” said Pereira. “This goes back for years. Everybody thinks everything is about who is successful. So the Patriots have been a target. Brady has been a target. And so you have enough — gosh, do I say it properly? — jealous fans out there that, anything that happens to Tom Brady, they think that the league is making that happen because the league likes Tom Brady and all that stuff. That’s just been the way it is; that he drives the needle when it comes to what fans talk about.”

Pereira suggested the Brady hate dates back to the first week of the 2008 season when Brady was submarined by the Chiefs’ Bernard Pollard — a blow that crippled the quarterback and ended his season. It also resulted in a rules changes, with defenders no longer allowed to hit defenseless quarterbacks below the knees.

In truth, however, the history of Brady venom probably goes to the 2001 AFC playoffs when he was the beneficiary of the infamous Tuck Rule. What appeared then to be a Brady fumble was overturned because the quarterback’s arm was moving forward when he dropped the ball.  So what seemed like a game-clinching lost fumble was — at least according to the existing rule – actually an incomplete pass, and the Patriots retained possession.

You know the rest. The Patriots wound up beating the Raiders in overtime and a conspiracy theory was born.

“That one play,” said Pereira, “really turned around an entire franchise. I get it. Listen, there are so many myths that surround officiating. The make-up call is a myth. Protecting a player is a myth … an individual, not a player. Protecting the quarterback is not a myth. But protecting one quarterback more than the other is a myth.

“The one thing that you, as an official, don’t want to do is make a mistake. If you make a mistake and you get downgraded, your chances of getting to the Super Bowl have just about gone out the window.

“So in terms of make up calls, why would you want to make a second bad call to make up for a first bad call? Then you get two down grades in one game, and then you’re out of playoff contention. There are so many myths, but the game happens too fast to favor one player over the other. “

So let’s set the record straight once and for all: Contrary to what Rex Ryan, et. al. contend, Tom Brady does not get preferential treatment from NFL officials?

“Absolutely, he does not,” said Pereira, “and, Rex, enjoy your time in the studio.”