Nov 2, 2025; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel high fives linebacker Harold Landry III (2) during the first half against the Atlanta Falcons at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Eric Canha-Imagn Images

Did the New England Patriots bend the rules a bit to help secure a home win over the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday?

As the Falcons were trying to drive down the field and potentially take a late fourth-quarter lead over the Patriots, Atlanta center Ryan Neuzil snapped the ball a bit early to quarterback Michael Penix Jr.

Penix immediately threw the ball to the ground and took a costly intentional grounding call in response, backing the Falcons up a good bit and essentially killing the drive. After the game, Falcons coach Raheem Morris blamed the ill-timed snap on alleged clapping from the Patriots to simulate Penix's claps and prompt Neuzil to snap the ball early.

In the NFL, you can't simulate something like a clap on defense to throw the offense off. Usually, it results in a penalty. If the officials had caught a Patriots player or players clapping, the Falcons would have gotten penalty yardage out of it instead of Penix being flagged for intentional grounding.

You can watch the play to see if you see any clapping below.

On a closer view, you can see Patriots safety Jaylinn Hawkins (a former Falcon) make some motions with his hands that could hypothetically be seen as clapping... maybe? No other Patriots players on the field make any such move.

For Neuzil to hear Hawkins clapping that far back in a loud stadium to the point of snapping the ball early doesn't really compute, even if Hawkins was indeed clapping. The whole situation seems fuzzy, and you could believe just as much that Neuzil got thrown off by the crowd noise and just got the snap off too early as a response.

Maybe Hawkins did bait an early snap, but you're not going to be able to tell definitively from the video.

For his part, Patriots coach Mike Vrabel denied there being any mischievous intent on New England's side.

At this point, you just shrug. It's probably not going to ever be fully clear if the Patriots got away with one here or if they're just an easy scapegoat for an operational issue from the Falcons. Such is life in the NFL in a close loss.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Did the Patriots' defense illegally clap to trick Falcons on key play?

Reporting by Cory Woodroof, For The Win / For The Win

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