Not much was made of Jonathan Jones’ punishing hit on Josh Allen.
The New England Patriots defensive back laid a high shot on the Buffalo Bills quarterback in the fourth quarter Sunday afternoon at New Era Field. Jones was tabbed with an unnecessary roughness penalty for the questionable hit, but it was nullified due to an off-setting Bills holding infraction. Allen, meanwhile, was forced to exit the game and never returned, which proved costly in the Patriots’ narrow 16-10 win.
Micah Hyde understandably was upset about the lack of discipline given to the Patriots. The Bills safety believes the referees would have handled the situation much differently had a Buffalo defender laid a similar hit on Tom Brady.
“That’s the first thing that came out of my mouth on the sideline. If one us did that to 12 (Brady), we wouldn’t have been in the game anymore,” Hyde said, as captured by WKBW’s Matthew Bove. “There’s no way. There’s no way we would have continued to play in that game. Even with the holding penalty that we had, offset, no — there’s no way. Obviously, that’s our quarterback. We ride or die with him. To see that happen, you know, Josh didn’t slide, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if it’s a running back, you can’t head-to-head. So that’s when the confirmation review that it was head-to-head, because I didn’t get a good look at it. But like I said, if that was their quarterback, there’s no way that you could continue playing.”
It’s tough to disregard Hyde’s take. The unfortunate reality across all major sports is different rules apply to top-tier players. Hyde also isn’t the first player to call attention to the referees’ apparent preferential treatment of Brady. Miami Dolphins linebacker Raekwon McMillan claims he was told by officials to “stay off Tom” in the Patriots’ Week 2 win in South Beach.
As for Allen, Sean McDermott noted after the game the second-year signal-caller currently is in the concussion protocol. The Bills coach, like Hyde, also bemoaned what took place, saying “there’s no room for that kind of play in the NFL.”
