On Jan. 26th, the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs faced off in the AFC Championship game. The Chiefs were able to squeak out a win with the game ending 32-29, sending the Chiefs to their third straight Super Bowl. Tensions have become high after fans and players were not happy with the referee’s officiating during the game.
Before this game started it has been going around the league that the Kansas City Chiefs tend to have many calls go their way. Bills head coach Sean McDermott even talked about it during his end-of-the-season conference.
Previously in the Chief’s last playoff game, the referees made a roughing the passer call that people seemed to think was not fair. At first glance, it did seem that Patrick Mahomes was hit up high, but after replay, it was shown that not much contact was made. This ended up giving the Chiefs 15 yards and a first down.
The first action that gave fans speculation in the AFC Championship game was when the Bills were called back on five total first downs. In live time the ball carrier was called down past the yard to gain which resulted in a first down. As the officials ran across to discuss where the ball should be placed, all five times the referees decided that the ball carrier was short.
This caused very high speculation because this was in the Chief’s favor every time.
In live time during these plays, commentators Tony Romo and Jim Nantz believed that the Bills should have ended up with a first down.
One example is when Buffalo Bills player Dalton Kincaid was called short of the line to gain but in review it was shown that he was actually ⅔ of the ball past and was still ruled short.
One NFL fan named Brandi expressed their feelings on the social app X by tweeting, “Can we all agree to just boycott the Super Bowl until the NFL finds a way to hold NFL officiating accountable for erroneous and missed calls?”
Another call that was controversial was Chiefs wide receiver Xavier Worthy’s catch. The two questions on the call are if Worthy had control of the ball on the way down and if the ball ended up hitting the ground.
In the review video, it was shown that the ball did hit the ground and neither player had complete possession of the ball. The referees still ended up ruling the play a catch and it was a Chiefs first down.
Again the referees made another controversial call on fourth down later in the game. The Buffalo Bills had about a yard to go to get the first down. The Bills decided to run a quarterback sneak with Josh Allen and the play was stopped right away.
The question fans and announcers had was if Allen made it because the ball was very close to the first down.
The officials ended up spotting the ball short and even after the replay it was decided that he was short of the line to gain.
All of these bad calls in this game combined with previous games that have seen to go the Chiefs way, has caused some people to think that the NFL is rigged or is trying to help the Chiefs win games.
A thread on XML football said, “The Chiefs are heading back to the Super Bowl after one of the worst officiated games in NFL history”.
Another tweet said, “Then they actually get the first down, refs try to say they are short. Review it, he’s clearly ⅔ ball past & they keep the call. Unbelievable #Rigged”.
There has been some speculation that a total of seven referees have been suspended after the Chiefs vs Bills game. It is official that the rumor is false and nobody has been suspended for the game.
Snopes.com said there was another rumor about the game that stated, “A separate false claim also circulating on Facebook said Bills owner Kim Pegula called on the NFL to replace referees and reschedule the game over “match-fixing allegations.” According to a post, the matter involved Chiefs head coach Andy Reid “and his close-knit officiating crew.” A Google search uncovered no evidence of Pegula making any such statements.”
The next game, the Super Bowl, will be the Kansas City Chiefs versus the Philadelphia Eagles. The game will be highly anticipated and people are wondering if the referees will make more bad calls or not.
