Richard Sherman Criticizes Super Bowl Refs For James Bradberry Penalty

Richard Sherman believes the Super Bowl LVII referees should not have penalized James Bradberry late in Sunday night’s game at State Farm Stadium.

The holding call on Bradberry effectively was the final nail in the Eagles’ coffin. The infraction allowed the Chiefs to burn almost all of the remaining time left in the game and set up a chip-shot field goal to win the 2022 NFL season finale. Bradberry clearly tugged on JuJu Smith-Schuster’s jersey, but if you ask Sherman, it wasn’t egregious enough to warrant a flag at that point in a tie game on football’s biggest stage.

“If the call’s debatable, you do not call it,” Sherman said on The Volume Sports, as transcribed by FOX News. “In the National Football League, in the Super Bowl, if the call can be debated after, you do not make the call. New York should’ve called down and said, ‘Hey, wave that off. We’re not letting the game be determined like this.’ And they did not and that’s two mistakes in one play.

“Instead, we sit there and watch them run the clock out and kick a field goal. It just doesn’t feel right.”

Folks on Sherman’s side have an argument. The refs were exceedingly lenient with their whistles Sunday, so consistency would have called for the officials to let Bradberry’s minor grab slide. That said, it’s tough to strongly defend that take when the Philly cornerback himself admitted it was a penalty.

Regardless, Kansas City played a nearly flawless second half in Arizona, so it was a deserved champion when all was said and done.