During multiple points in Sunday’s 30-24 overtime loss to the Denver Broncos, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady appeared to be visibly upset with the officiating.
After having time to reflect, he did not appear to be any happier appearing and expressed his frustration with the officiating, particularly the offensive pass interference calls against Rob Gronkowski.
Brady gave his thoughts on Gronk calls
Brady, who talked to Patriots.com, said: “They just feel like there’s a push off. It’s obviously different than what I saw, because I’m looking at it too, but they’re the ones with the flags and they throw it.”
Gronkowski was flagged twice for offensive pass interference on Sunday though one was called back due to an offsetting penalty, and it appears to be a recurring theme with the tight end. He has been called five times this season.
The quarterback added: “You hate to see it come down to stuff like that, but there were a lot of plays last night that just didn’t necessarily end up the way we would have hoped and there were a lot of things that we could have done better.”
Gronkowski joins a list of notable injuries
Unfortunately for the Patriots, it is more than possible that the team will be without Gronkowski for a few weeks after the All-Pro suffered a knee injury in the fourth quarter against Denver and was carted off.
“Hopefully he’ll be back at some point, so we’ll see,” Brady said. “I’m not sure. They’ve got to do a lot of things today, but it’s hard to see him go down like that.”
New England have already lost running-back Dion Lewis and wide receiver Julian Edelman to long-term injuries and they also played without Danny Amendola in Denver.
Brady appeared to looked upbeat after he was told that the team think’s that Gronkowski will be “OK,” but they weren’t sure what sort of time period that he will be out for.
Losing the tight end would only further diminish an offense that didn’t have great depth in his position going into the 2015 NFL season. Brady has been able to pull the side out of sticky situations this season, but they will need Gronkowski back sooner, rather than later if they want to repeat last season’s success.