PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – How about it was a pair of players from Philadelphia who showed us all about what accountability is.
It would have been easy for Eagles cornerback James Bradberry to blame the refs. ‘The refs suck’. ‘How could they do this to us?’ Or something even more inflammatory. Fans would have rallied to his defense. He would have been a martyr in Philadelphia. Instead of any blame, it would have reaffirmed the refs lost Philly the game.
It was third-down with 1:54 remaining in the fourth quarter in potentially the biggest game he will ever play in. The Chiefs had the ball third-and-eight from the Philadelphia 15 yard-line. Kansas City had missed a field goal earlier, so a stop could have potentially led to no points. KC’s Patrick Mahomes lobbed a pass to JuJu Smith-Schuster in the back of the end zone, missing him by a couple of yards. Incomplete, worst case the Eagles would get the ball down three with plenty of time.
Wait, as Mahomes pointed, there was a flag on the field. Bradbury was called for holding. Chiefs were able to nearly run the clock out and kick the game-winning field goal.
Bradberry then had a decision when facing reporters after the game.
"It was a holding," Bradberry said. "I tugged his jersey. I was hoping they would let it slide."
Wow, accountability.
Then his head coach, speaking in a completely different area not knowing the account from his defensive back, said this when asked if that cost the Eagles the game.
"There's gonna be calls that are gonna get questioned, right?" Nick Sirianni said. "Not only by the referees, there's going to be questionable things that I do, or questionable things that (the defensive coordinator) does or (the offensive coordinator) does. Or Jalen (Hurts) does.”
"We understand that. But it's never about one play. They got to make that call in a split decision. I'm not here to debate whether it was the right call or the wrong call. Of course, sometimes I'm like, 'well, hey, it went against us, of course I don't like it.' But they got to do a hard job in split-second decisions. But it never comes down to one play. Even though at times it perceives to.”
“And that's the parity of this league that you can always think, 'Well it's just this play.' And that's just not the case. There's however many plays that we had on offense. There's however many plays the Chiefs had on offense. And then there's all those special teams play, too. Again, like I said, they have a hard job to do. Split second.”
“I haven't seen all the clips, but that's not what wins or loses the game."
Would have been easy for either to just blame the refs. They didn’t. There is the lesson from the end of the Super Bowl.