Patriots Losses on Final Calls

Monday Night Football games are great. They are even better when your favorite team is playing. This Monday, the New England Patriots played the Carolina Panthers. The final score of that game, 24-20 with Carolina coming out on top.

After that loss, the Patriots are 7-3. They have lost to the Cincinnati Bengals, the New York Jets and, now, the Carolina Panthers.

Two of those three losses, however, could potentially be blamed on last-second calls to end the games.

The losses on controversial calls were against the Jets and the Panthers. Both cost the Patriots the game.

For the Jets game, the Patriots and Jets went into overtime. They were tied at 27. The Patriots' drive resulted in no points. So, the Jets only needed a field goal in order to win. So, the Patriots were able to stop the Jets and get them to 4th down. So, the Jets attempted a long, 56-yard field goal. And, Nick Folk, their kicker, missed.

Sounds like good news. But, there was a flag thrown. Patriots' Defensive Tackle, Chris Jones, got a unsportsmanlike conduct call. He "pushed" a teammate in an attempt to block the field goal. This call resulted in a 15 yard gain for the Jets, and Nick Folk then kicked a field goal to end the game.

"I was confused at first, didn’t know what was going on," Jones said. "Then I figured out what it was and I was like, 'oh, it was my fault.' Still had more football to play after that so I just had to get rid of it really quick."

"According to Fox Sports officiating expert Mike Pereira, it was the first time this season the rule had been enforced."

This rule was added to the NFL at the beginning of this year. Not a lot of people knew about it which made the call look even crazier. That one call cost the New England Patriots the game against the New York Jets.

So, as if one controversial call wasn't enough, another happened Monday night.

The Patriots got the ball with less than a minute left, and they were down by 4. Like always, since he is Tom Brady, the game wasn't over. The Patriots brought the ball up field and had time for one more play.

 

So, with 3 seconds left, Tom Brady passed to Rob Gronkowski.

 

Here is where the controversy comes in. There was a flag thrown which looked like it was going to be Defensive Pass Interference. Rob Gronkowski was basically being "hugged" by Luke Kuechly, Carolina's Linebacker.

 

 

 

But, the Referees called Tom Brady's pass, "uncatchable", and they picked up the flag. From replays and slow-motion, it clearly looked like pass interference.

 

"It was determined at that point in time that when the primary contact occurred on the tight end that the ball, in essence, was coming in underthrown and, in essence, it was immediate at that point intercepted at the front end of the end zone," referee, Clete Blakeman told us.
"So there was a determination that, in essence, uncatchability, that the ball was intercepted at or about the same time the primary contact against the receiver occurred."

 

 

There are many ways to look at this one, however. Many people say Brady's pass was very underthrown. Others say Gronkowski could have caught it.

Asked whether he said anything to the refs following the play, Gronkowski said: "When they threw the flag, that's what I thought it was going to be. And it was waved off, so I can't do anything about it."

So, the two most recent losses for the Patriots have been controversial. From a new rule call to a picked up flag, it seems that the referees are not on the Patriots' side this year.