{"id":267995,"date":"2025-11-03T02:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T02:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/267995\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T02:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T02:33:07","slug":"falcons-accuse-patriots-of-simulating-snap-count-on-crucial-play-they-were-clapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/267995\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcons accuse Patriots of simulating snap count on crucial play: \u2018They were clapping\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

After suffering a crushing 24-23 loss on the road to the New England Patriots, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and coach Raheem Morris expressed frustration<\/a> with what they thought was an apparent simulation of the team\u2019s snap count by the Patriots\u2019 defense on a crucial late-game play.<\/p>\n

Penix looked sharp in his return from injury, and Atlanta had the ball in New England territory trailing by one with 2:09 remaining. On a second-down play, center Ryan Neuzil snapped the ball early, to the surprise of Penix and the rest of the offensive line. Penix was immediately under siege by the Patriots\u2019 pass rush and threw in the direction of tight end Kyle Pitts but drew an intentional grounding penalty. The Falcons were later forced to punt, and that was their final drive of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were clapping, simulating our snap,\u201d Morris said. \u201cThat\u2019s why the ball got snapped early and Mike wasn\u2019t ready for the snap.\u201d<\/p>\n

The simulation of a snap count would have resulted in a 15-yard penalty if spotted by the officiating crew. Patriots defensive tackle Milton Williams denied that his squad used any sort of clapping to deceive the opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ain\u2019t hear no clap,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI\u2019m looking at the ball. The ball moves, I\u2019m gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Penix was quick to point out that Neuzil thought he heard a clap from his quarterback, indicating that he wanted the ball to be snapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupposedly they were clapping, and when I\u2019m clapping that means I want the ball,\u201d Penix said. \u201c(Neuzil) said he heard them clap, and he thought it was my clap and I wanted the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neuzil said, \u201cMy head was down, thought I heard it, it was just unfortunate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now 3-5, the Falcons face the 7-2 Indianapolis Colts in Berlin on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Penix unable to avoid intentional grounding<\/p>\n

The television replay didn\u2019t appear to show any members of the Patriots\u2019 defensive front seven clapping, but the sound could have come from a person off screen. Penix said he thought he could avoid an intentional grounding penalty throwing the ball toward where Pitts was aligned, but Pitts had already released on his route.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I was going to be OK on the grounding part but obviously that wasn\u2019t the case,\u201d Penix said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the second time this season he has been flagged for a costly intentional grounding. He also was flagged on the final play of the first half against San Francisco. That resulted in a 10-second clock runoff that prevented the Falcons from attempting a field goal. \u2014 Josh Kendall, Falcons beat writer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After suffering a crushing 24-23 loss on the road to the New England Patriots, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[1327,1815,349,99],"class_list":["post-267995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}