Patriots had a few calls go their way vs. the Jaguars, and everyone is in conspiracy mode again

Jaguars players know that officiating isn’t the reason Tom Brady and the Patriots pulled off that comeback win in the AFC Championship game. But they’re still not happy with the referees.

“You all see it,” cornerback A.J. Bouye said of the officiating, via Michael DiRocco of ESPN. “I got players hitting me up in the NFL saying the same thing.”

The Patriots were flagged only once the entire game, for a hold on a kickoff. That’s happened just one other time in an AFC Championship — and guess which team that was?

Bouye said the Patriots should have been penalized on a few plays when the refs left their flags in their pockets.

“I was pissed because I seen (Danny) Amendola head-butt the hell out of (Tashaun Gipson) in front of the ref, and you all don’t call nothing?” Bouye said. “It don’t make no sense, man; it’s a lot of stuff that don’t make no sense.”

A Bill Belichick team is nothing if not disciplined. The players don’t make a ton of mistakes or commit many penalties. But a few iffy calls had Patriots conspiracy theorists out in force.

Myles Jack forced a big turnover after a slick Patriots trick play where Brady threw a backward pass to Danny Amendola, who then launched one to running back Dion Lewis. Lewis rumbled for 40 yards before Jack brought him down and snatched the ball right out of Lewis’ hands. Officials blew the play dead right away, but Jack may not have been down:

If Jack wasn’t touched after he actually got control of the ball, then this is a live ball, and he should have been able to advance it. Based on where Patriots players were at the time, Jack might have turned this into a scoop-and-score. But a hasty whistle kept those points off the board for the Jaguars.

Pass interference is a judgment call, and refs are making those decisions in split seconds in real time. They didn’t call many in this game, but it does stand out that the Patriots had zero pass interference calls go against them.

The Jaguars got hit with two defensive pass interference penalties over the course of the game, one of which — on Jalen Ramsey, who mauled Brandin Cooks — was legitimate.

This one, on Bouye, was ticky-tack. There’s mutual contact between Cooks and Bouye, and it’s pretty minimal. The ball also looks to be uncatchable. But the call put the Patriots in position to score with less than a minute left in the second quarter. The Patriots went into halftime down 14-10 instead of 14-3 — and they won, 24-20.

On the other hand, the Patriots should have been flagged for a couple of plays in coverage on tight end Marcedes Lewis:

Both came in the second half when the Patriots were in the process of surging back.

Some Jaguars fans thought officials were a little too buddy-buddy with Brady and the Patriots. They were not impressed.

A referee, surrounded by Patriots players, was grinning from ear to ear after a New England score. We have no idea what was said or done to make the ref smile. All we have is this photo, which admittedly lacks context:

And an official patted Brady after the quarterback locked up the eighth Super Bowl appearance of his career with the Patriots’ win:

Brady has been in the league for 18 seasons, and that’s a whole lot of opportunities to get to know officials and be on cordial, professional terms with them.

The idea that everything is rigged for the Patriots is a favorite complaint of pretty much every NFL fan outside of the greater Boston metro area. But just because a ref smiled or acted friendly toward a player doesn’t mean the fix was in here.

Even Bouye knows it.

“But at the end of the day, we can’t put the blame on (officials),” he said. “We didn’t execute good enough. (The Patriots) executed good enough.”

It hurts to come so close and miss out on a Super Bowl, especially with a few questionable calls along the way. But there are some bad calls in every game. There is no NFL conspiracy to make sure the Patriots keep winning Lombardi Trophies. The reality is that Brady just got it done this time, as usual.