ESPN's Dan Orlovsky proves that the Chiefs were wronged in Week 14
The list of grievances for the Kansas City Chiefs in the Week 14 loss to the Buffalo Bills keeps getting bigger and bigger. As the debate surrounding the erasure of Kadarius Toney's go-ahead touchdown rages, ESPN's Dan Orlovsky provided proof during his appearance on "NFL Live" of a new issue. Toney wasn't just offside during […]
The list of grievances for the Kansas City Chiefs in the Week 14 loss to the Buffalo Bills keeps getting bigger and bigger.
As the debate surrounding the erasure of Kadarius Toney's go-ahead touchdown rages, ESPN's Dan Orlovsky provided proof during his appearance on "NFL Live" of a new issue. Toney wasn't just offside during that one key play, but he was aligning offside all night and never received any sort of warning from the officials.
Orlovsky went back and watched every single snap during the game from Toney, finding multiple instances of him being aligned offside. According to Orlovsky Toney never checked with the officials to see if he was properly aligned all game long, which is a problem. But there is also an established precedent that the referees will warn players if they're doing something incorrectly, and Toney was never warned after being improperly aligned all game.
Check it out:
"Never once in that same alignment did the official ever warn him, 'Hey, you have to get back.' So is he offside on that final play? Yeah, he probably is and he was three, four, five other times in that game. So it's incumbent upon the officials in that situation to make sure he gets warned because that final play happened multiple times within that football game."
Now, other NFL fans will probably growl and say, "Well, all this proves is that Toney got away with a penalty all night long."
But that's exactly the problem.
The lack of consistency from NFL officiating is a big problem and spreading like wildfire across the league. It's not just a game-to-game issue either. Plays are inconsistently officiated across a single game, and then when a penalty is called in a big moment, it steals all the focus away from the game that everyone loves.
It's very understandable why Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes were so heated after the game with this extra context. A simple warning from Carl Cheffers' crew could have saved the NFL a lot of grief and given fans the finish to the Chiefs-Bills game that they deserved.
Chiefs WR Kadarius Toney’s offensive offside penalty among NFL’s most infrequent
Kansas City Chiefs WR Kadarius Toney also might be the unluckiest guy on the planet.
