Players like to use "gray areas" to their advantage. Refs said in each case "you used your leg to block and it caused a player to fall".We saw a leg move into a lower base position. Refs didn't buy it. We saw incidental, they saw intentional.
I timed it, snap to ball hitting the ground was 5.49 seconds. That was perfect clock management and something so precise should be review-able on final plays any period. Heck add a tenth of a second on each end for human reaction time, but a half second?
It sure looked to me like the clock stopped early. The league runs the clock not the home team so maybe the guy just misunderstood, he seemed to stop it when it was out of bounds and not when it hit the ground.
Actually, it may have been both. I know Brady took the snap and took three steps back before it clicked down to 4.
The real question here is this: Were the refs justified calling those tripping penalties.
Yes of course they were. You are taking the " You don't make that call in playoff's approach" which is total BS. If it's a penalty call it, if looks like a penalty call it, if it's not or doesn't then don't.
To me it looked as if they stopped the clock prior to the Marine touching the ball. It looked to me they stopped it when the ball crossed the sideline. I think that's the complaint. Did he stop it because he thought it was out of bounds.
