Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes Blast ‘Embarrassing’ Refereeing in Chiefs' Loss to Bills
The Kansas City Chiefs' Week 14 loss to the Buffalo Bills was a byproduct of multiple in-game mistakes, but a late penalty on wide receiver Kadarius Toney undoubtedly caused the most uproar.
With 1:24 left in the game, the home team was faced with a second-and-10 and was already in enemy territory at the 49-yard line. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes fired a pass to tight end Travis Kelce that got the Chiefs in field goal range, but the action didn't stop there. Kelce threw the ball backward to Toney, leading to a go-ahead touchdown that very well may have won the game for Kansas City. Toney was lined up offsides, however, being credited with the flag and killing the club's momentum.
The Chiefs would go on to have a few more plays on that possession but ended up losing by a final score of 20-17. After the game, head coach Andy Reid chimed in on the nature of the penalty and didn't mince words.
"It was a heck of a football game down to the end," Reid said. "Very disappointed that it ended the way it did. Normally, I never use any of this as an excuse, but normally I get a warning before something like that happens in a big game. A bit embarrassing in the National Football League for that to take place."
Reid, visibly and audibly frustrated at the podium, commented that he "didn't have a protractor" on the field to determine whether Toney was indeed aligned incorrectly. Regardless of that, he added that he'd never witnessed a penalty of that circumstance impact a game in his lengthy career as a head coach. He received no explanation for the flag, nor did Mahomes.
Following Reid in postgame media availability, Mahomes described the loss as "tough to swallow" considering everything that happened on the final drive. The reigning NFL MVP said he intentionally didn't complain about a (perceived) missed defensive pass interference call in last week's game against the Green Bay Packers, choosing to refer to officials as "human" and folks who "make mistakes" like everyone else. This week, though, he spoke up and voiced his frustrations. Mahomes was perhaps as angry at the end of the game as he's ever been captured during an in-game broadcast, with him chalking it up to Toney not being warned and instead simply penalized.
"It's the calls, man, just in that moment," Mahomes said. "It's not even for myself or for me. I know how much everybody puts into this game and for it to happen on a flag changing the outcome of the game in that moment... I've played seven years and never had offensive offsides called. That's elementary school — we talk about [it], we point to the ref and do all that different type of stuff and it doesn't get called. If it does, they warn you, and there was no warning throughout the entire game. And then you wait until there's a minute left in the game to make a call like that? It's tough, man. Lost for words, man. Regardless of if we win or lose, just for it to end with another game where we're talking about the refs, it's just not what we want for the NFL or for football."
The Chiefs appear to be less upset at the ruling of the Toney call and have more of a bone to pick with the timing and consistency of it. Receivers and officials are notorious for checking in with one another before snaps to ensure that eligible pass-catchers are lined up legally. Toney was never given a redirect, which is where Reid and Mahomes find the shortcoming. That single development wasn't the cause of the loss, of course, as Kansas City committed seven total penalties and also turned the ball over twice in the defeat.
Another reason Mahomes doesn't like the late-game situation: it wiped away what would have been one of the biggest highlight plays of the entire 2023-24 NFL campaign thus far. Kelce's creativity in that scenario was terrific, and Toney capping off the toss with a touchdown was a huge pivot point in the outing. It's secondary to everything else, but the quarterback is sad that his tight end didn't get to see his greatness pay off.
"Like I said, that's a Hall of Fame tight end making a Hall of Fame play that won't be shown because we threw a flag for offensive offsides," Mahomes said. "It takes away from not only this game and this season but from a legendary career that Travis has had. And that hurts me because I know how hard he works for it."
