FOXBOROUGH, Mass - The play that knocked New England Patriots rookie quarterback Drake Maye out of the game was a very controversial one.
Maye was scrambling out of the pocket for some yards, but when he saw linebacker Jamien Sherwood closing in, he started to slide. At the same time, Sherwood wanted to make sure the quarterback was down.
Many believed that the result of the play was a helmet-to-helmet hit, but it was not flagged or called that by the officials.
And soon after, Maye was ruled out for the remainder of the game with a concussion.
A to Z Sports spoke with Sherwood after the game about this controversial play, and he was very honest about how it looked from his point of view.
"If it was helmet to helmet, the ref would have called it for one. He just scrambled the pocket," Sherwood said. "At the end of the day, I'm trying to get to the ball and him as a runner, he just has to do a better job of protecting himself just like I'm trying to do a good job of protecting myself and him as well. I feel like in that moment, I did a great job by going over top of him. My shoulder pad might have hit him in the head, but that's not intentional.
"At the end of the day, we're both competing. He's a great player. I'm trying to become a great player. So all prayers to him. I hope he's great. I hope he's healthy and can play next week. Nothing's intentional at the end of the day. He's a competitor. I'm a competitor, and doing what I can for my team and just try to win at that."
Watching a play like that in slow motion allows fans to be extremely critical. But when it happens in a game, it's basically like the blink of an eye. So that's why Sherwood doesn't listen to the outside noise.
"Yeah, most definitely. That's why I pay no attention to it. It is what it is," he added. "At the end of the day, people who sit on the couch and watch TV. I don't know how to do their job and they don't know how to do ours. So it's just like, they're gonna say whatever. I might see stuff on Twitter. It is what it is at the end of the day.
"Like I said, I knew in my heart what I tried to do and that's keeping him healthy. I pray he's healthy."
And when the play happened, Sherwood was actually kind of surprised to see how shaken up Maye was. According to Sherwood, he didn't feel any hit to his helmet in that moment.
"When he got up, I saw that he was dizzy, and I was surprised. I was thinking maybe he hit his head on the ground actually," Sherwood explained. "But we didn't have any helmet to helmet as he was sliding.
"Because I've had situations like that before, when quarterbacks saw it late so I'm trying to go over top of him because I don't want to put my team in jeopardy from getting a penalty like that. That's a lot of yardage. So I did my best going over top of him. And then even when he did slip, I could feel my hands go around him. Like I definitely whiffed."
His message to others:
"So I would just encourage everybody to rewatch that play and actually take a good diagnosis of it because, again, I'm not a dirty player. I want him to have a long career. Concussions are serious, so I definitely did not try to hit him."
