Forget Tom Brady. There’s A $1 Billion Reason For NFL Refs Throwing Flags Around QBs

Let’s be honest. Jerome Boger’s blown call Sunday in Tampa was mostly about the $1 billion the NFL had to shell out six years ago for concussion lawsuits, but it was partly about the question the league referee almost answered.

Almost.

After Boger threw a flag on Atlanta Falcons defensive end Grady Jarrett at Raymond James Stadium in the fourth quarter of a tight game for a roughing the passer infraction that never happened against Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady, pool reporters asked Boger something like this: Were you in blindfolds?

If not, did your NFL bosses tell you to watch for takedowns along the lines of Jarrett barely slinging the 45-year-old Face of the League to the ground?

Were you ordered to penalize aggressive yet legal defenders such as Jarrett due to the Tua Rule enacted the day before?

Well, it’s not the Tua Rule, but it seems that way since NFL officials huddled Saturday with leaders of the NFL Players Association to approve new guidelines after visibly woozy Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was allowed to stay in a game against the Buffalo Bills in late September.

The next week versus the Bengals, Tagovailoa departed in the middle of the game on a stretcher to a Cincinnati hospital. That was after he laid on the artificial turf for the longest time after the blow he took from a tackle left him with contorted fingers that wouldn’t snap back into place.

Surely, when Boger threw that flag with the Buccaneers leading 21-15 inside of the final four minutes to negate a Falcons sack and a Falcons interception that followed, all of the Tagovailoa stuff was ratting around Boger’s head.

Right?

“No, not necessarily,” Boger said to those pool reporters, but his “not necessarily” meant the Tua Rule had at least some effect on his decision.

Then again . . .

The week before the Jarrett-Brady mess, Boger made another bizarre call involving the Baltimore Ravens and the Buffalo Bills. He flagged Ravens cornerback Brandon Stephens for roughing the passer with barely two minute left in the game to help the Bills creep closer to a game-winning field goal.

“What I had was forcible contact in the head/neck area of the quarterback with the helmet,” Boger told pool reporters later, but few outside of Boger saw what he said he saw.

Here’s the truth of the matter: This is what the NFL wants. According to the league’s rule book, “When in doubt about a roughness call or potentially dangerous tactic against the passer, the Referee should always call roughing the passer.”

Why does the NFL want this from its referees? Well, league officials enjoy making a few bucks, and Boger’s erroneous flags the last couple of weeks were about that $1 billion. To keep his bosses happy, he was going to follow every syllable, letter and punctuation mark of the league’s mandate to give quarterbacks the benefit of every doubt to the extreme.

The same goes for those other questionable calls by NFL referees involving quarterbacks not named Brady.

Did you see what ranked among the worst of the all-time worst of these calls during Monday night’s Kansas City Chiefs-Las Vegas Raiders game? Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones was maybe the first person ever flagged for roughing the passer (against the Raiders’ Derek Carr) while grabbing the ball.

This $1 billion thing goes back to December 2016, when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the NFL to begin paying thousands of players for lawsuits they filed against the league for concussion-related injuries over decades.

There also was the NFL’s “race-norming” controversy surrounding the $1 billion settlement. According to that practice, Black players were assumed by the league to have lower cognitive functioning than their white counterparts. It made it more difficult for Black players to qualify for parts of the settlement’s awards.

After a public lashing from just about everywhere, the NFL agreed in the summer of 2021 to end the practice.

To translate: The NFL wanted no more issues involving concussions and settlements, especially since Sportico reported this summer the league made $18 billion for the 2021 season. The website said the NFL’s distribution formula divided $11.1 billion between its 32 teams. As a result, each team will receive around $400 million during the next round of media contracts in 2023.

More concussion lawsuits would chew into that revenue.

Even though Boger won’t say as much, he knows as much. He has to, along with other NFL referees since they keep acting as if they do.

“I saw that one (against Brady) being called,” Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles said afterward. “I saw it against Tua since he got it. I saw it in the London game this morning (between the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers). So I think they’re starting to crack down on some of the things, slinging back, I don’t know. Right now, the way that they’re calling it, I think a lot of people would have gotten that call.”

Boger defended his call, saying to pool reporters, “”What I had was the defender grabbed the quarterback while he was still in the pocket and unnecessarily throwing him to the ground. That is what I was making my decision based on.”

Uh. OK.