The legend of Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew II grew on Thursday against the Titans. No, it was not because of any particularly impressive play—though he certainly had a couple of those—but instead it’s because he’s already getting the kind of calls you’d expect a future Hall of Famer to receive in just his second game as the Jacksonville starter.
As the growing ratio of that tweet indicates, there are many people who appear to disagree with the legitimacy of that kind of play being penalized in the NFL. Among those who voiced their displeasure on Twitter was Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Seriously.
This kind of nonsense would already be annoying given that one of Brady’s late-game drives against the Chiefs in the AFC Championship game last season was aided in due part because of a very soft roughing the passer call—calling it a bop on the head might even be an understatement—but it’s especially frustrating because he was the beneficiary of this kind of stringent officiating as early as this past Sunday against the hapless Dolphins, according to the Miami Herald.
Per Barry Jackson’s report:
Dolphins linebacker Raekwon McMillan had just hit Patriots quarterback Tom Brady – a perfectly legitimate play, mind you – when the referee working Sunday’s game said something that surprised him.
“Tom didn’t say anything but the referee said, ‘Stay off Tom.’ I put my hands up in the air and said ‘I got you.’”
Is this a case of Brady lacking any sense of self-awareness, or is it just that the people running the quarterback’s Twitter account have never actually seen a single game of his before? Personally, I’m leaning towards the former.
