Tom Brady knows NFL referees often give him the benefit of the doubt, but not in the way you might think.
The majority of football fans love to complain about how a defensive player will be flagged merely for putting their hands on Brady. Well, it might surprise you to learn that last Sunday marked only the second roughing-the-passer penalty on a play involving the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback.
As such, the roughing gripe from fans never has made sense to Brady. But he does acknowledge he receives special treatment from officials in one regard.
“Yeah, I always hear that to different degrees about getting penalties and so forth and roughing the passers,” Brady said on the latest “Let’s Go!” podcast. “I think that speaks to it because they say that and I’m always in my mind going, ‘I don’t remember the last time I got a roughing the passer.’ I think we should look that up. Over the last 10 years, who’s got the most roughing-the-passer penalties? I hope it’s not me because then I just put my foot in my mouth. I don’t feel like I get them as much as people may think that I get them. I do know that they probably let me get away with a lot of unsportsmanlike conducts. You know, talking smack to the other team and talking smack to the refs when I don’t think I get the right call. I’m kind of a pain in their ass if you don’t already know that.”
We likely will see plenty of trash talking this Sunday when the Rams visit the Buccaneers. Los Angeles has a number of charismatic players, and avenging their Super Bowl LIII loss to Brady’s New England Patriots likely will be on the minds of Aaron Donald and Co.
