Sports

Terrible Officiating Takes Over Chiefs-Packers Sunday Night Football Late In Game

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Patrick Mahomes

Getty Image / Patrick McDermott


There are few things Americans love more than football, and few things they like less than referees making incorrect calls at huge moments of games. And, that’s exactly what happened on the final drive of the Sunday Night Football clash between the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers.

And, it wasn’t just one play, either. There were four suspect calls in a span of six plays in the game the Packers won, 27-19.

It’s not even that one team was screwed over more than the other. To be honest, two of the calls went in the favor of Green Bay, and two in the favor of Kansas City. But, all four were bad.

To set the stage, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs got the ball back after a Packers field goal with 1:09 left on the clock down eight with no timeouts. After a five-yard penalty on the kickoff against Green Bay, the Chiefs started from their own 30.

And, just a few plays into the drive, Mahomes scrambled for a first down and was hit near the sidelines. Despite clearly still being in bounds, this was flagged for a late-hit.

Pretty bad, right? Not as bad as the next blown call, which was a clear missed pass interference that would’ve set the Chiefs up with a great opportunity to score.

I mean, what are we even doing here? That wasn’t even close.

But wait, there’s more! A few plays later, this play was ruled to have ended out of bounds to stop the clock, when forward progress was clearly stopped in bounds and the clock should’ve kept running.

And, on the game’s final play, Travis Kelce was clearly pushed in the back on a Hail Mary attempt. This is the most defensible of the four, as this is almost never called on such plays. But, by the letter of the law, it’s definitely pass interference.

Yikes. Just terrible. Those four plays happened in a span of a half-dozen plays during the most-watched television program in America. The league has to figure out its officiating crisis, which seems to get worse every year, and sometimes every week.

None of this should take away from a tremendous performance by the Green Bay Packers, who have now won four of five games and are now at 6-6 and the holders of the 7th seed in the NFC playoff standings.