Chiefs 31, Bengals 34: The Good, The Bad, and The Refs

There are usually several games each year that leave a bitter taste in your mouth. Maybe it’s because of how your team played, just losing a big game, or losing to a hated rival. Usually, about once a year, there’s a game that it’s fair to say you lost where officiating was a major factor. Some of those games are isolated calls, but they are still impacting.

The forward progress playoff game against the Titans where Derrick Johnson hit Marcus Mariota into next week causing a fumble that would have iced the game and an official whose name we won’t name here, who actually retired after the game, stated that the quarterback’s forward progress was stopped so the fumble didn’t count. Even though the quarterback was not going forward and it looked exactly like any other of the thousand sacks in NFL history.

Sometimes it’s similar to recent games the past few years against the Chargers or Raiders. In that Raiders game they were given an enormous number of untimed downs at the end of the game where a piece of yellow went into the air after literally every play. The game against the Bengals was like the latter two. It was not just one call, but a series of calls that had a drastic effect on the outcome.

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The Good

Frank Clark was left alone with a Tight End on the first play of the game, and was able to sack Burrow for a nice loss. Our defensive line got pressure all day and it was great to see. 

Andy Reid with a nice early challenge where he didn’t have much time to look at it. Live it looked like the ball was well short of the first down marker, so I was shocked when the Bengals lined up to go for it thinking it was 4th down. Clutch move to throw a timely flag and get that call overturned.

Losing Orlando Brown Jr. right before the game felt rough. Having Niang his replacement go out early felt devastating at the time.

The Chiefs put Nick Allegretti in at Left Guard, and slid Joe Thuney out to Left Tackle and didn’t miss a beat, looking great all day. What a genius move by Brett Veach to bring in a guy (Thuney) who can play every spot on your line. It offers so much flexibility. 

Blake Bell had a nice downfield grab making up for a holding penalty that set the team back to 1st and 20. Love to see our guys make nice catches, too often this year it seems we miss those.

Derrick Gore’s first run was a thing of beauty. Newsflash: he’s been our most explosive back all year. 

Mecole Hardman had a beautiful downfield catch. That is what we expected to see when he was drafted, but sadly they are few and far between.

I love when Spags brings pressure. He seems to always wait to dial it up at such critical times, and more often than not, it gets home.

The play Byron Pringle made to punch out a ball that would have been intercepted was clutch.  Patrick got away with a couple balls today that should have been intercepted.

The running game in the 3rd quarter and for other spurts of the game seemed really strong. It seemed we could get 6 yards at will.

Ja’Marr Chase was the best player I’ve seen all year. I want one of those. Charvarius Ward played a heck of a game and was in tight coverage on most every play though, but he’s just not the athlete Chase is to go up and get those balls. Chase makes Joe Burrow look a step better than he really is. I could throw up some of those balls, the guy is just a beast.

The defensive stand at the game’s end was a thing of beauty. We will discuss later why it fell short, but we were not about to let the Bengals into the end zone under any circumstances we could control.

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The Bad

This might be a bad time for the reminder that I hate Byron Pringle bringing the ball out of the end zone since he almost took one to the house, but still we risk turnovers and penalties. Our starting field position after kickoffs was short of the 25 and we seem to do nothing but give our offense the ball in a bad spot. The risk is just too great for the reward.

Tyreek Hill had 2 drops today. It amounted to 10 points. Thankfully we still got 7 of those points as the drive continued, but the 3 points are gone forever and ended up being the difference in the game. Tyreek is fast, super human fast, but he is not a great receiver. When you watch him compared to Ja’Marr Chase, and the way he goes up and gets the ball, as well as the way he also runs after the catch, it’s not hard to see. Tyreek is the best receiver this team has ever had, but he’s not one of the top ones in the NFL. 

Chase is all world, but he is not a running back. We had way too many missed tackles on him. 

I have no idea what Rashad Fenton was doing when he kept seeming to celebrate each time he was called for pass interference. He’s good no doubt, but man that rubs me the wrong way. 

Travis Kelce had a drop that stalled a drive. No idea what is up with drops this season, there just seem to be so many. This game was over early in our favor if we had held onto all of them.

Our offense scoring only 3 points in the 2nd half was unacceptable. Sure a time or two there were uncalled penalties that should have extended drives, but at the end of the day how can you score 28 in the first half and only 3 in the 2nd? 

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The Refs

Zayne Anderson getting his name called today may have been a first for him. Sadly it was not a good first, as it wiped out a long touchdown return by Byron Pringle. It was in fact a hold as Anderson was shoved to the ground and on the way down decided to bring his buddy with him, but it’s also the sort of hold you see on literally every kickoff return. 

I don’t understand the lack of adjustment to what the Bengals were doing. Throw the ball high and deep to Ja’Marr Chase, let him come down with it in one on one situations. It happened all game long. At least force the Bengals to do something, anything different to beat you. A very perplexing play came at the end of the game on 3rd and 27, where if the Bengals didn’t convert they would have been forced into a field goal try, leaving the Chiefs with plenty of time to either drive for the tie or the win.

I don’t honestly mind the pressure called on the play, get there quick, disrupt, make the field goal longer, etc, but what I don’t understand is putting your cornerback out on an island again against the best receiver I’ve seen in a long time. Make them go somewhere else. When you send pressure like that, where do you think they will go with the ball. So I’ll give some of the blame to Spags for not making adjustments.

The Bengals had been bailed out all game long on 3rd down calls to extend their drives. Most of them looked legitimate, and as we discussed Fenton even seemed to enjoy the attention, but the call late on Sneed was not even close to a pass interference, and it gave the Bengals a first down when they should have been making a 4th down decision instead. 

Then the horse collar that was called. It appeared to me that the hand was not in the area where that is typically called. Again, a drive was extended when it would have been stalled. Later a false start on Burrow was missed and instead an offside was called on Jones. A quarterback is not allowed to lunge forward like he did to draw the defense off. 

I could not see the hands to the face that was called at all on the replay. Shoulder maybe, neck even, but not something that is normally called in that situation. It was a 4th down and goal from the inch line and the Chiefs should have been rewarded there with a stop to turn the momentum of the game, but after watching the rest of the game you just knew the yellow was going to fly deserved or not. And this was after a defensive hold was called that we were never shown a replay of that gave the Bengals yet another down. 

Another missed call on the goal line stand was when the entire Bengals line jumped early but it was not called. On this call and about 3 others the Chiefs players were livid with what was going on, and this is not a team that complains much. Andy Reid was red with frustration, and that’s a rare sight for him.

This was the worst officiated game since the Super Bowl, and to even be in the conversation compared to that one, says a lot. 

After the game Joe Burrow, who I really like, was interviewed. Twice in that interview he said, “we got some calls.” He was not prompted about calls, so I was shocked he said that. He just offered it up and said, “we got lucky,” as well. Guy is super honest and you have to respect that. Earlier in the week Spags compared him to Tom Brady. Perhaps from a talent perspective that could be said, but Brady would never have been honest after a game like that and called it like it was. He almost seemed embarrassed to win that way.

We were told during the game that this was a special NFL officiating crew thrown together at the last minute. I think it’s safe to say they can be thrown out for future games.

It wasn’t only referee Ron Torbert who was swapped out. Three other members of Torbert’s crew were substituted on John Hussey’s crew for today’s Chiefs-Bengals game. Torbert’s crew was schedule for the week off, this ended up a blended crew. Haven’t seen explanation from NFL yet. – Matt Derrick

Also, after the game my wife Missy stated, “that was a really bad ending,” and went on to talk about how it just seemed something was off with the officiating in the 2nd half. I can’t quite get her to acknowledge the conspiracy theories many people have, but I don’t think I’m far off.This way the NFL gets one more game, possibly in the playoffs with Mahomes on TV, and we know the ratings bonanza that will always be. My wife literally never complains about officiating, and thinks people are weak who do so, so the fact that she said it was horrible really says something.  

Overall I’m not at all disappointed in how the Chiefs played today. And we still have everything in front of us. But when a game is taken out of your team’s hands like that it’s hard to watch.  Hopefully they will be stronger because of it… and hopefully that’s our one loss where refs helped determine the outcome this season.

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Shawn Sorter — ArrowheadOne

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