Should officials have thrown a flag on the fourth-down pass to Rob Gronkowski that fell incomplete late in Sunday’s AFC Championship Game? Gronkowski sure believes so.
“Was I held? I don’t know,” the New England Patriots tight end told reporters after the game, which ended in a 20-18 loss to the Denver Broncos. “I felt like I was, because I couldn’t even jump.”
On a fourth-and-6 with 2:25 remaining and New England trailing by eight, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady tried to find Gronkowski amid triple coverage in the back of the end zone. Brady was unable to hit his target, and Gronkowski was visibly upset over what he believed to be an unpenalized hold committed by former Patriots teammate Aqib Talib.
“I felt like Aqib had me,” Gronkowski told reporters. “He’s going to probably text me later and be like, ‘Yo, I was holding you, Rob.’ I felt like he was, but sometimes you go back and you look at it and he wasn’t. So, it is what it is. I think the ball was going out of bounds anyways, too, on that. But we fought on the next drive, and we did what we had to do to score.”
The Patriots forced the Broncos into a three-and-out following the turnover on downs, and Brady proceeded to march New England down the field on an eight-play, 50-yard drive that culminated in a 4-yard touchdown pass to Gronkowski with 12 seconds left to play.
Talib broke up Brady’s pass on a potential game-tying two-point conversion, however, and Denver survived to punch its ticket to Super Bowl 50.
Gronkowski finished with eight catches for a game- and season-high 144 yards in the loss.
Thumbnail photo via Kevin Jairaj/USA TODAY Sports Images
