Eagles' James Bradberry Admits to Holding Penalty Amid 'NFL Rigged' Narrative

After the 2023 Super Bowl, many fans were fuming at one pivotal call towards the end of the game.

If you don’t know or didn’t watch the game, here’s some backstory: the Kansas City Chiefs were marching towards the end zone to score on 3rd and 8. At that point, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw a ball in the direction of his receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster. Eagles cornerback James Bradberry was covering JuJu and was called for defensive holding. All of this happened with less than 2 minutes to go.

Basically, a defensive holding penalty is often called when a defensive player holds the jersey of an opposing player.

Referees during the game called defensive holding on Bradberry, and thus, the Chiefs were given a fresh set of down to get down to the endzone. If this penalty had not been called, it’s possible the Chiefs would have been forced to kick a field goal, giving the Eagles another chance at scoring offensively. Since the penalty was called, the Chiefs were able to score a field goal and prevent the Eagles from being able to score again, effectively ending the game.

In addition, on replay, many fans did not see Bradberry committing a blatant penalty, and after the conclusion of the game, #rigged and #NFLrigged were trending on Twitter. The hashtags are still trending and fans are fuming over this.

After the game, Bradberry himself responded to the call.

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“It was a holding. I tugged his jersey. I was hoping they would let it slide,” James said after the game.

Head coach Nick Sirianni also responded to the call, saying, “It always appears to be one call. … That is not what it is. So many teams contribute to the result of the game. Today they were better.”