Getty Image / Kevin Sabitu
Down by 2 in the 4th quarter on Sunday, the Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs faced a pivotal 4th down with the game against the Bengals on the line. Mahomes threw it down the field and Bengals rookie Daijahn Anthony was flagged for pass interference, giving Kansas City the first down and the Chiefs’ Harrison Butker would eventually kick the field goal and win by 1 go move to 2-0 on the season.
In the immediate aftermath of that, there were many in the NFL world who believed Patrick Mahomes was ‘bailed out’ by the refs. Then, a stat went viral on social media which appeared to show that Patrick Mahomes is bailed out by the refs more than any quarterback in the NFL since 2018. There were many but this post on X alone was viewed 2.5 million times:
Patrick Mahomes just threw his 17th INT that was called back due to defensive penalty. Most in the NFL since 2018.
— Tweets by Sneaky Joe (@SneakyJoeSports) September 15, 2024
Here at BroBible we even pounced on that news yesterday. But as it turns out, that stat was very misleading.
ESPN staff writer Bill Barnwell posted a thread to X calling out how the data used to claim Patrick Mahomes was bailed out by the refs was incomplete and misleading. In fact, Mahomes wasn’t even the quarterback *IN THAT SPECIFIC GAME* who has been bailed out the most by refs in recent years, that honor goes to Joe Burrow.
Barnwell began the thread by pointing out that since 2018, no other QB comes close to Mahomes in terms of passing attempts. Jared Goff (3,508) is the only QB within 300 passing attempts of Mahomes in that time span (3,608).
He then astutely points out that ‘Offsides’ is a penalty that frequently wipes off interceptions in the NFL. When Mahomes spots the offsides and get a ‘free play’ he is then free to chuck it down the field and make a risky play as the INT will be wiped off the board.
For Patrick Mahomes, 8 of the 17 interceptions that refs wiped off the board came on this type of free play. Bill Barnwell correctly notes that “those obviously aren’t bailout calls.” He then adds that 1 of the 17 times refs ‘saved’ Patrick Mahomes the interception wasn’t even wiped off:
One of the 17 didn't actually wipe off an interception – Matt Judon was flagged for unnecessary roughness during a return, and the Ravens still took possession of the football, which leaves 16 picks. (It's possible I'm missing one, but the stat in the tweet isn't sourced at all.)
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) September 18, 2024
So, including the 1 play from last Sunday against the Bengals, the 8 where a defender was offsides, and the Judon play, that leaves 8 interceptions from Patrick Mahomes that came down to defensive pass interference, roughing the passer, etc. Barnwell points out that’s roughly 1-in-every-452 passes that Patrick Mahomes has thrown since 2018 resulting in the refs overturning an INT.
On the other side of the field on Sunday was Joe Burrow. Joey B’s had 8 INTs overturned during his tenure with the Bengals. Barnwell notes that they were caused by “two offsides, four DPI, an illegal use of hands, and a defensive holding.”
That means Joe Burrow has had 6 judgment calls in 1,966 passing attempts for an average of 1-in-every-327.7 passes thrown:
In other words, Mahomes wasn't even the quarterback who had been bailed out by judgment calls from referees most often in the game he was playing on Sunday, let alone league-wide.
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) September 18, 2024
I won’t hold my breath waiting for the NFL world to apologize to Patrick Mahomes for pouncing on the claim that he is bailed out by the refs more than any other player in the league. But I have a sneaking suspicion that if anyone were to dive deeper into these numbers there are a LOT of QBs who have benefitted from circumstantial calls by the NFL’s refs and Barnwell is correct, Patrick Mahomes is an outlier because he simply throws more passes than any other player in the league since 2018.