Skip Bayless thinks there might have been some funny business going on during Sunday night’s New England Patriots-Denver Broncos game.
The ESPN “First Take” host discussed a few iffy calls on the Patriots late in the game — an offensive pass interference call on Rob Gronkowski and a holding call on safety Patrick Chung — and he believes they were a result of the officials trying to get revenge on quarterback Tom Brady.
“My final score of that game was Refs 30, Tom Brady 24,” Bayless said Monday. “It began to feel, to me, in the fourth quarter and overtime as if this crew of referees was trying to get even with Tom Brady for beating the NFL in court over Deflategate. That’s just how it felt, that’s just my two cents from a distance.”
Well, that’s a theory all right. Co-host Stephen A. Smith agreed with Bayless to a point, but he thinks this one is on the NFL, and not the refs.
“You’re absolutely right about that, Skip Bayless,” Smith said. “There’s no disputing it, there’s no doubt about it. But I don’t think it’s about the officiating. I think it’s about the league office and the ticky-tack manner in which they’re now forcing the officials to officiate the game. … I think they were penalties, but it’s penalties based on what the officials are being forced to call by the NFL league office as opposed to the officials just making bogus calls.”
There’s been some questionable officiating throughout the NFL this season, so it might be a stretch to say the referees were targeting the Patriots. But either way, it sounds as though Bayless will be keeping his tinfoil hat close by.
Thumbnail photo via Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports Images
