The Kansas City Chiefs fell to 8-5 on Sunday afternoon after a 20-17 loss to the Buffalo Bills in a critical game for AFC playoff positioning. The win moved the Bills closer to the Wild Card, while the Chiefs fell to just a game up on the Broncos in the AFC West.
The way the game ended was particularly wild, as a go-ahead touchdown for Kansas City on an incredible play by Travis Kelce to lateral the ball to Kadarius Toney got called back for Toney being lined up offsides at the snap. It was very clear that Toney was lined up with his foot across the ball, and for most in the moment, there was no real controversy over the call. However, Patrick Mahomes lost his mind on the sideline and torched the refs after the game, along with Andy Reid, for making what was a pretty obvious call.
It was a rather bizarre hill to die on, that the refs should have not made the call in that spot or should have warned the Chiefs sideline he was offsides — the latter especially because Kansas City was in a hurry-up so they wouldn’t have had time to fix it anyways. Toney was, quite literally, looking at the ball while he was offsides and never bothered to look to the sideline and check with the line judge to make sure he was good before the snap.
On Monday morning, that play was a hot topic of conversation, but even in the world of sports debate TV, you couldn’t find many willing to side with Mahomes and the Chiefs’ frustration. On Undisputed, Keyshawn Johnson, Richard Sherman, and Michael Irvin provided an excellent breakdown of why that was all on Toney, with Irvin and Sherman being particularly appalled that the Chiefs tried to blame the refs for the call.
As Johnson notes in the above video, you’re taught since high school that when you are the X receiver (meaning on the line, not off the ball) you always check to make sure you’re good with the line judge and they will tell you yes or no. That’s the basics of playing the position, and Sherman piggybacked on that saying it’s the same for corners and made a salient point that with all the advantages given to the offense nowadays, to complain about being called for an obvious violation of one of the few rules that can work against the offense is ridiculous.
From there, Irvin spoke about the Chiefs receivers having a general lack of focus all year on drops and this was an extension of that, noting Eric Bieniemy’s departure is an underrated aspect of the Chiefs struggles this season, pointing out that in Washington the frustration has been how hard he’s on them, but that’s what’s needed to demand focus on the details like lining up properly. He also echoed Sherman in his disappointment with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes calling this a referee issue, when it was a clear penalty.
For how often sports daytime TV can be people yelling about nonsense, this is a really good conversation and breakdown of the basics of the position from some of the best to play it and provides valuable insight to fans about the biggest play of the day in the NFL.