When it comes to controversy, Tom Brady has seen it all. The quarterback has played in games with controversial calls from the officials that have either gone his team’s way or hurt his team in some fashion.

Controversial calls from the referees aren’t unusual, but it can suck when it happens on the biggest stage. That was seen in Super Bowl 57 when Philadelphia Eagles cornerback James Bradberry was called for a defensive hold on Kansas City Chiefs receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster.

That call allowed the Chiefs to run the clock down to about eight seconds to kick a game-winning field goal. Had that flag not been thrown, the Chiefs would have attempted a field goal with enough time on the clock for Jalen Hurts and the Eagles to try for a tie or a championship win.

Brady, on his Let’s Go Podcast, said it would’ve been easier had the official not thrown the flag, but he didn’t get caught up in the penalty.
“Well it’s always, I think, easier not to call it,” Brady said, via FOX News. “The hard one is when you do call it because there’s a lot of scrutiny with that call. And I think the point is at least from a receiver/(defensive back) standpoint, if you’re not gonna cover him, let’s say, within the letter of the law and you’re gonna tug at him, you can impede the receiver from where he wants to go and create an almost impossible throw-and-catch by the quarterback. And at the same time on the other side of the ball, if the receiver pushes off, there’s really nothing the [defensive back] can do in order to make the play. So it’s such a hard situation ‘cause you don’t know how the game’s being called all day long.”

After the game, Bradberry admitted that he held Smith-Schuster but he had hopes that the officials would let it go. Head coach Nick Sirianni made it clear that the game was not decided on that one call.

The Chiefs won and are now getting set to have their parade on Wednesday.