Tom Brady has been there. The quarterback has played in games with controversial calls from the officials that have either gone his team’s way or hurt his team in some fashion. Controversial calls from the referees aren’t unusual.

That was seen in Super Bowl 57 when Philadelphia Eagles cornerback James Bradberry was called for a defensive hold on Kansas City Chiefs receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster. This happened at a pivotal moment, with the game tied 35-35, on third down with 1:54 left on the clock. Had that flag not been thrown, the Chiefs would have attempted a field goal with enough time on the clock for Jalen Hurts and the Eagles to try for a tie or a championship win.

Instead, the holding call gave the Chiefs a first down. They ran out the clock and kicked the game winner. After the Super Bowl, Twitter was ablaze with rage over the call – although Bradberry admitted he held Smith-Schuster on the snap.

Brady, on his Let’s Go Podcast, said it would’ve been easier had the official not thrown the flag, but he didn’t get caught up in the penalty. That’s because he’s been around the game of football to know that the Eagles could’ve done more to not let the game come down to that moment.

“Those plays come up all the time,” Brady said. “They could be called in every part of the game, so the fact that it comes down to that one moment, I’m sure there were other holds that were let go. There’s probably a few that they called. In the end, the ref’s trying to do the best he can do. I don’t get caught up too much on one call. I’ve been in sports long enough to realize there’s lot of things that impact the game and one referee’s call, yeah, it’s important but they’re doing the best they can do and they’re not robots, either.

“Yeah, maybe, one day there’s robots calling games and everything will be perfect. It’ll be like Wimbledon – every call is perfect.”

Brady had a very rational take on the controversy. He said when it comes to defensive holding penalties, it should be clear – a cornerback shouldn’t be allowed to “impede the receiver from where he wants to go.” At the same time, he’d want to see a flag if a receiver pushed off and made the play impossible for the cornerback to cover the throw legally.

The quarterback also admitted that officials can call penalties on almost every play. He noted that offensive linemen and defensive linemen hold one another on almost every offensive snap.

“That’s the way sports are. It gives everybody a chance to talk about something the next day,” Brady said. “It’s like boxing. If you wanted to win, you could knock the guy out. Why let it go to the scorecard? … You as a player have a lot of things you can do to impact the game anyway.”