Poor Patrick Mahomes. He was robbed.
Unless he wasn’t.
Another Kansas City Chiefs loss on Sunday was marred by more self-inflicted mistakes but the MVP quarterback – and his typically mellow coach, Andy Reid – opted to shift the blame to the officials.
It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. And I’m not talking about the rulebook.
What an embarrassing shame.
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Kadarius Toney lined up offsides – grossly offsides – to negate what might have been a classic, go-ahead touchdown. But somehow, Mahomes and Co. felt entitled to blast referee Carl Cheffers and his crew for calling the penalty rather than looking in the mirror.
Mahomes, the brilliant face of the franchise and the entire NFL, provided not-so-great optics with his hold-me-back tirade at the end of the setback against the Buffalo Bills. But I’m guessing the blow-up wasn’t merely about one call that didn’t go their way. Maybe it was the frustration that has been mounting all season, where the Chiefs – and especially the receivers who have perfected the art of the dropped pass – have shot themselves in the foot with one mistake after another.
Rather than go off on Toney – who again, skipped out the proverbial back door after the game at Arrowhead Stadium and left it to others to address the media – Mahomes and Reid diverted the frustration to put it all on the officials.
Good that Mahomes, having cooled off, came back on Monday during a radio interview and expressed regret. He’s not perfect.
Yet the damage that fueled such intense reaction across the NFL landscape was already done.
Imagine this: If a Bills edge rusher, maybe Von Miller, had lined up offsides and registered a game-ending sack and Cheffers and his crew ignored the violation, what would that uproar have looked like? The Bills Mafia would have been beside itself.
Shoot, there may have been a proposed rule change to incorporate instant replay in such cases because one of the game’s marquee players didn’t have a shot at slinging a winning pass.
Instead, the officials are such easy targets. No, they don’t always get it right. The consistency from one crew to another can raise doubts. The judgment calls always leave somebody mad.
It is so ridiculous that for all the grief the officials get on a regular basis, they drew heat in this case for making the right call.
And this business about the Chiefs should have been warned? Garbage.
Sure, in-game culture includes warnings from the refs. But not always. There’s no rule ensuring that. Ultimately, it is on the players and teams to align themselves properly. In Toney’s case, he could have done what just about every receiver in the league does on every down: check to see if you’re on the line of scrimmage….or beyond it.
That clips from the game shown on ESPN on Monday revealed that Toney lined up offsides on multiple plays underscores an issue with the discipline of the player and the details that Reid and his coaching staff apparently have become sloppy with.
Maybe it’s related to the NFL-high number of dropped passes, at least 33 and counting, that the Chiefs have committed.
No, the Chiefs have no grounds for blaming the refs. Instead, the ire should be directed at themselves as fuel to clean up their mess…and not leave the outcome in the hands of the refs.