There seems to be a disagreement between Bills coach Sean McDermott and the NFL regarding the hit that knocked Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen out of Sunday's 16-10 loss to New England.
Early in the fourth quarter Sunday, Patriots safety Jonathan Jones lowered his body to hit the scrambling QB, who was in the process of being tackled by Duron Harmon, New England's other starting safety. When Jones lunged forward, his helmet made contact with that of Allen. The hit left the QB down on the ground — he is now in the concussion protocol — and drew a penalty for unnecessary roughness.
WATCH: Full Bills-Patriots game highlights
Because of an offensive holding penalty on the same play, the unnecessary roughness call was offset. But that's not what bothered McDermott, who wondered why Jones was not ejected for the hit.
"There's no room in football for that," McDermott said after the game, via ESPN. "It's a shame to see a player like Josh, or any player, to go down from a hit like that.
"I asked for an explanation, I thought he should've been thrown out. Other than that, I'm not going to get into it. That's for the league to get into."
Yeeesh. pic.twitter.com/07ukS0FRyy
— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) September 29, 2019
The league did just that when pressed about the play after the game. NFL senior vice president of officiating Al Riveron said Jones' hit was not egregious enough to warrant an ejection.
"The player actually turns," Riveron said of Jones. "Obviously, there is helmet contact, but we have standards for an ejection, and this did not rise to that standard; therefore, we did not eject him.
"There was a foul called and obviously the penalty stood, but we did not feel this contact rose to that level."
When asked whether the fact that Jones was penalized for unnecessary roughness had anything to do with the decision on an ejection, Rivera said no: "This contact, whether another team got penalized or not, has no bearing on how we look at the level of the foul when we get to disqualification."
According to the NFL rule book, an act of unnecessary roughness can result in the player's ejection "when flagrant."
MORE: Josh Allen injury update
After the game, Bills safety Micah Hyde raised an interesting hypothetical: Would a defender have been ejected from the game had he hit Tom Brady the way Jones hit Allen?
"That was the first thing that came out (of) my mouth on the sideline — if one of us did that to (Brady), we wouldn't have been in the game anymore," Hyde said. "There's no way we would've been able to continue to play in that game, even with the holding penalty offset.
"To see that happen — Josh didn't slide but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it's a running back, you can't hit head-to-head."
Brady hypothetical aside, Hyde is correct about the hit itself, which is why Jones was flagged for unnecessary roughness. And while the NFL would agree with McDermott in that there is "no room in football" for violent, helmet-to-helmet hits, it recognized there was no need for additional punishment in this case.
For his part, per NESN's Doug Kyed, Jones said he did not intend to hurt Allen. Jones also told ESPN he intended to reach out to Allen to make sure the Bills passer is OK.