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The Tom Brady Rules applicable to his effort to have his team and comment on it prevent him from, among other things, “publicly criticizing game officials and other clubs.”
Brady, a Raiders owner, tested the limits of that restriction on Sunday after the league office ejected Lions safety Brian Branch for an illegal hit on a defenseless receiver.
“I don’t love that call at all,” Brady said after the penalty morphed into a disqualification. “I mean, obviously that’s a penalty. But, to me, that has to be serious intent in a game like this.”
Fox rolled out a bucket and a mop later in the broadcast, with rules analyst Dean Blandino explaining that intent isn’t a factor, serious or otherwise. Of course, that only underscored the fact that Brady: (1) criticized the outcome; and (2) misstated the standard.
So we asked the league on Monday whether Brady had landed on the wrong side of the line regarding “publicly criticizing game officials.”
Here’s the response we received: “The concern would be if Tom was egregiously critical of officiating or called into question the integrity of an official or the crew. That did not occur in this instance.”
The standard, as reported by multiple outlets but never reduced to writing by the league, didn’t use the word “egregious” or “egregiously.” And that word has never been used when others were fined for publicly criticizing game officials.
In 2006, the NFL fined Steelers owner Dan Rooney for publicly criticizing an excessive-celebration penalty called against Pittsburgh.
“Those officials should be ashamed of themselves,” Rooney said. “That last call, you don’t get that kind of call.”
Egregious? Regardless, it cost Rooney $25,000.
That same year, the NFL fined former Titans coach Jeff Fisher for saying this as to a dispute ruling regarding a fumble: “We all saw it. Everybody saw it. I hope they hear me in New York, because that was field position, and we lost by a point.”
Egregious? It cost Fisher $12,500.
In 2018, the NFL fined Steelers…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl-wont-fine-tom-brady-155044044.html
Author : ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports
Publish date : 2024-11-05 15:50:44
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