Expert Analysis
2/4/25
5 min read
Stop Blaming The Referees for Kansas City Chiefs' Recent Success
You’re better than that. Or at least you should be better than that.
That’s my message to everyone who continues to blame the officiating for the success the Kansas City Chiefs have enjoyed in recent years. Frankly, it’s a loser’s mentality, and I despise it. It goes against everything I was taught about personal responsibility and accountability growing up.
Without relitigating every questionable call that has gone the Chiefs’ way in recent years, let’s use their last game against the Bills in the AFC Championship Game as our example since it is still fresh in our minds.
People focused on two debatable calls that went in the Chiefs’ favor after yet another Super Bowl-clinching victory, their fifth in the last six years.
The first was whether or not Chiefs rookie WR Xavier Worthy completed the catch after wrestling the ball away from Bills rookie safety Cole Bishop.
The second was the controversial spot on the Bills quarterback sneak on fourth and 1 in the fourth quarter, while Buffalo was driving with a one-point lead.
I have two separate yet equally important thoughts about both of these judgment calls.
The first is that in both instances, the play was reviewed. Bills coach Sean McDermott challenged the first one, while the second one was an automatic booth review on the change of possession — neither was overturned.
That means that even after a thorough replay review using technology, neither call was egregious enough to merit changing the call under the “indisputable visual evidence” standard. Frankly, that’s good enough for me.
Do I think Josh Allen got the first down on the sneak and that the original spot was poor? Absolutely. Do I think it was a clear-cut no-brainer that the replay officials should’ve definitely overturned? Probably not.
The point is, it’s not like these were plays that couldn’t be reviewed, like the two questionable roughing penalties on the Houston Texans for hits on Patrick Mahomes in the Divisional Round.
I didn’t like either of those calls, but I would submit that Mahomes did a terrific job “drawing” the foul in both instances. On the helmet hit by Will Anderson, Mahomes snapped his head back like he had whiplash in a 60MPH car accident, knowing the referee was right behind him.
In the second one, Mahomes didn’t even really slide; instead, he just dropped his hind end at the last second as two Texans defenders converged on him.
Stylistically, I despise the Soccer-ification of football that Mahomes’ actions bring, but it is hard to blame him for doing everything possible to try to win. Ultimately, it is up to the officials not to reward that behavior.
The point is that the Texans had more to be upset with on those penalties because, unlike the two in the Bills game, neither flag was eligible to be reviewed. The Bills got a second look at both “horrible” calls, and neither one was changed. That’s where it should end.
More importantly, why isn’t anyone talking about the Bills' culpability in these plays and more in that game? If Bishop doesn’t allow Worthy to rip the ball out of his hands, we won’t be having this conversation.
If the Bills offensive line got more push on the sneak, and Allen clearly got past the 40, this is a non-starter. Or maybe if Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady had called a quarterback power, counter, or sweep, something that would give the 250-pound Allen a head of steam, it would have been different.
Really, any play that didn’t put the onus on two officials more than 25 yards away attempting to spot a ball while impossibly trying to look through an 18-person mass of humanity. Why is everyone talking about the officiating when Brady called a play that had already been stopped twice in that game?
I know that is what I’d be thinking about if I were a member of the Bills, which incidentally is my favorite of the five teams I played for. I’d be frustrated that we didn’t get the job done upfront on those sneaks.
I’d be frustrated that we didn’t have a better plan for Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo's blitz on the last offensive snap of the game or that TE Dalton Kincaid didn’t catch the ball on that fateful play.
How about when Allen and Curtis Samuel didn’t connect when the latter was wide open on a crossing route that would have netted at least 30 yards? We didn’t have a better plan for the two Mahomes rollouts to the right that CBS analyst Tony Romo correctly predicted, either.
Remember when we didn’t have anyone covering Isiah Pacheco or Samaje Perine on the game-ending first down conversions late in the game? Or that we allowed Chiefs punt returner Niko Romigio to have a big return that led to points.
The list goes on and on.
Like all teams that play the Chiefs, the Bills had their chances. However, they couldn’t make the plays necessary to win.
Have there been a few calls that have gone the Chiefs' way in recent weeks? Sure, but it seems like that stuff happens to great teams, and we notice it more because they don’t subsequently make the mistakes that cost them the game after that. The other team does.
That’s why I implore you, Eagles fans, and everyone else who wants to see the Chiefs lose, to stop embarrassing yourself with ridiculous conspiracy theories involving gambling or Taylor Swift that have zero logic behind them and are hilariously impractical and instead do what these other teams have been unable to do — play better.
