James Bradberry and the Pivotal Holding Call in Super Bowl LVII

GLENDALE, Ariz. – There’s going to be a lot of anger in the Philadelphia area over the holding call on James Bradberry that allowed the Kansas City Chiefs to run the clock down to 11 seconds and kick a 27-yard field goal to beat the Eagles, 3-35, in Super Bowl LVII on Sunday.

There are two schools of thought on this.

One, it was a hold.

“Yes, one hundred percent,” said JuJu Smith-Schuster, whose jersey was being tugged by Bradberry. “My route was to strike in and strike back out, Philadelphia cornerback James Bradberry is a good player but someday the call is going to be called.”

That someday was in the final two minutes of the biggest game on the NFL calendar.

And that is the second school of thought - should it have been called at that point in the game?

The penalty came on third down and with 1:48 to go in a 35-35 game. KC would have kicked a field goal and the Eagles would have had a chance to win or tie.

The way Jalen Hurts was humming, the Eagles win.

Frankly, as painful as it may be to admit, yes, it was a hold, and it's unfortunate that it was called when it was.

Imagine if A.J. Brown or DeVonta Smith had their jersey pulled and a flag wasn't thrown?

Bradberry was asked in the postgame locker room if he held Smith-Schuster.

“Hmm, that's not up for my judgment,” he said. “I was hoping that he would let it go. But of course, he’s a ref. This is a big game. And it was a hold, so they called it.”

Sounds like maybe a subconscious admission that it was a hold, and, the fact is, it was, by letter of the NFL law, a hold, especially when a ref sees the jersey getting pulled.

“The receiver went to the inside and he was attempting to release to the outside” said referee Carl Cheffers who was interviewed by a pool reporter afterward. “The defender grabbed the jersey with his right hand and restricted him from releasing to the outside. So, therefore, we called defensive holding.”

An obviously disappointed Nick Sirianni said the same thing about an official’s call that he has said all year when controversy arises, and that is it’s a tough game to officiate. He never calls out an official, and he didn’t in this moment, either.

“It’s not my job to - you’ll see me on the sidelines,” he said “I’m going to argue with different things of calls here and there, but it’s not my job to make the call. Those guys got to do that in split-second scenarios.

“That’s what he saw, and he called it. I know it always appears to be that it’s one call that makes that game. That’s not what it is. There are so many plays that contribute to the ending result of the game and today, they were better than we were.”

Sirianni is right.

Jalen Hurts had a costly fumble that was scooped up and returned 36 yards for a touchdown.

The punt return unit gave up a 65-yard return to the Eagles’ 5-yard line.

The defense didn’t have a sack.

“I’ll trust the refs,” said DE Brandon Graham. “The refs are going to make the call in the moment of the game, and that one stung, but we shouldn’t even have put ourselves in that position.

"Jalen owned his stuff. We all owned our stuff, because there was a lot of stuff that we didn’t like that we wish we could have taken back, Jalen for sure. He was like, ‘it’s on me for the fumble,’ and it’s like, ‘no, we’re all together.’ We can start (pointing out) plays, but we know all that stuff matters and it adds up.”

And the total of the addition was another Super Bowl loss, leaving the Eagles 1-3 in franchise history in the big game.

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.