On Sunday afternoon, the Kansas City Chiefs suffered a tough 28-21 loss to the Buffalo Bills — but a questionable officiating mistake in the second half may have had a major impact on the result.
Midway through the third quarter, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was flagged for intentional grounding on a crucial second down after appearing to toss the ball away under heavy pressure. The issue? The call shouldn’t have stood.
As the replay showed, Buffalo defensive end Michael Hoecht managed to get a hand on the ball at the line of scrimmage, changing the course of the ball and leading to what looked like a throw to nobody. As a result, it should not have been intentional grounding. Despite that, the officials missed the deflection and threw the flag anyway.
To make matters worse for Kansas City, head coach Andy Reid tried to challenge the decision — only to learn that the play wasn’t reviewable. It was an unusual and costly mistake — one so rare that longtime CBS rules analyst and former NFL official Gene Steratore admitted he had never encountered anything quite like it.
“It’s very unique, Jim,” Steratore told Jim Nantz during Sunday’s CBS broadcast via Awful Announcing. “We know that you can review a pass interference if the ball is tipped. In this scenario, Hoecht definitely touches that pass, and we see a receiver breaking to an area that looks like Patrick Mahomes is throwing to.
“I don’t see why we would not be able to review something there, because where this football lands is related directly to the fact that the ball got tipped. So in the area that gets moved around now because of the tipped ball, and I think that’s what Andy is pleading to with Carl Cheffers right now.”
Steratore went on to suggest that this type of play should be reviewable in the future.
“Yeah, with the intentional grounding,” Steratore said. “You know, Jim, I’ve been around for almost 30 years in this business, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen a play like that. My question would be, though, if you’re throwing the ball in the area of a player and tipped football changed that, I would like for it to be reviewable, if it’s not in fact at this point.”
Instead of continuing the drive, the Chiefs were pushed into a third-and-long situation and failed to convert, ultimately punting the ball back to Buffalo. The Bills then took advantage, scoring on their next possession to stretch the lead to two touchdowns — a momentum-shifting sequence that changed the course of the game.
Unsurprisingly, the missed call set off a wave of outrage from fans online.
“If Carl Cheffers refs a #Chiefs game you know the Chiefs are going to get at least one bad call like the intentional grounding on a tipped pass,” one fan wrote in a post on X.
“I cannot stand the KC Chiefs but the NFL officiating is a joke. Look at this tipped ball and they call intentional grounding. What is replay assist for? How can the league blow obvious calls in an era of gambling discrepancies?” another fan added.
“This definitely needs to be addressed. The idea that ANY call isn’t reviewable is asinine. That said, this play didn’t cost the game,” someone else wrote.
“I’ll never understand why they can’t reverse such an obviously bad call,” another person added.
Clearly, fans were not pleased with how the situation was handled.
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