Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs were left reeling and raging after a perfectly good game-winning touchdown was ruined when one of their players was offsides.
That play resulted in a victory for the Buffalo Bills at Arrowhead Stadium – as the Chiefs were unable to score a touchdown after the penalty call.
Brittany Mahomes, the wife of Chiefs superstar QB Patrick Mahomes, was one of the angry Kansas City fans in the crowd – as she took a video of a referee and sarcastically captioned it ‘MVP’.
In one of the final sequences of the game, Mahomes found Travis Kelce wide open downfield. Kelce, in a moment of brilliance, evaded tacklers then found receiver Kadarius Toney open. The tight end lateraled the ball to Toney, who found open space and ran into the end zone for what would be a touchdown.
However, the play was called back because Toney lined up in the neutral zone – with his feet clearly on and ahead of the line of scrimmage.
Mahomes was irate after the game – blowing up in a way that was uncharacteristic of him. He was seen screaming at the officials and was complaining to Bills QB Josh Allen – calling it the ‘wildest f***ing call I’ve ever seen.’
While Mahomes’ anger may come from a frustration at the result – a 20-17 loss to a team that they’ve battled many times – the anger at referees for making what was objectively the right call may land him in further trouble. That’s especially the case when he spoke about the call in his post-game press conference saying the referees are ‘human, they make mistakes. But every week we’re talking about something.’
The Chiefs appeared to be angry at the referees because they did not give them a warning that Toney was offside.
However, as former NFL referee John Parry told ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt, the call was correct and the onus is on Toney to check with the line judge.
‘His right foot is ahead of the ball and ahead of the center’s head, so he’s clearly offside,’ Parry said – adding that if Toney simply checked, then he’d likely make the adjustment.
Referee Carl Cheffers said after the game that while a warning is customary, ‘no warning is required, especially if they are lined up so far offsides where they’re actually blocking our view of the ball.’
CBS Rules Analyst and former NFL referee Gene Steratore tweeted, ‘When an infraction is so egregious and obvious, a flag has to be thrown. Kadarius Toney is blatantly lined up offside and in the neutral zone.
‘You rarely see an offsides penalty on the offense, but that is not because this play in #BUFvsKC isn’t a foul. It is because a receiver rarely lines up offsides.’
