James Bradberry comments on controversial holding penalty in Super Bowl 57
By Josh Hill
To say that Super Bowl LVII ended on a sour note os to overstate just how disappointing it was. Not only was it rough from an Eagles perspective, which is obvious, but the way the game was influenced by officiating tainted what was an otherwise classic Super Bowl for football fans all over.
It’s not just Eagles fans who are bummed out about how things ended, it’s everyone.
With less than two minutes left in the game, which was tied, the Eagles seemingly stopped Kansas City with time left on the clock. It wasn’t much time, but it was potentially enough for Philly to either tie the game again with a field goal and force overtime or outright win with a touchdown.
That chance was never given, however. Carl Cheffers’ officiating team threw a flag on James Bradberry after he seemingly held JuJu Smith-Schuster before a Patrick Mahomes pass sailed over his head.
It looked like an uncatchable pass, but that didn’t matter since the flag was thrown for a penalty happened before the ball was in the air.
Almost no one outside of Kansas City agreed with the call, either complaining about the call being soft or the fact that the call came at such a decisive moment in the game. It didn’t decide the game, but it heavily influenced the outcome of the NFL’s biggest game on the world’s stage.
Bradberry commented after the game about the penalty but didn’t go the route fans thought he might. Rather than call out the refs for potentially blowing a call, he took responsibility for committing the foul.
“It was a holding. I tugged his jersey,” Bradberry said after the game. “I was hoping they would let it slide.”
Say what you will about the call itself, that’s an incredible stance for Bradberry to take. It would have been easy to pile on and join the rallying cry of fans on Twitter, but he didn’t do that.