Will the NFL address officiating issues after latest Chiefs controversy? | Sunday Night Blitz

Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz and Frank Schwab discuss Kansas City’s offside penalty in their loss to the Buffalo Bills, the state of officiating in the NFL, and a theory behind Patrick Mahomes’ outburst on Sunday. Hear the full conversation on “Sunday Night Blitz” - part of the “Zero Blitz” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

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JASON FITZ: I saw the offsides penalty and people are freaking out. Kadarius Toney lined up offsides. He was not, according to the Chiefs, warned by the officials. Nobody told him he needed to get back.

It was called on a beautiful lateral play that resulted in a touchdown that would have likely won the game. But instead, because the offsides was called on the offense, very rare, all of a sudden, that play didn't count. Of note, the NFL has already come out and said, look, that very play has been called 11 times this year. It was a point of emphasis for the League.

So there is some point here, though. We saw Mahomes take a very-- I'll use a wrestling analogy, take a very heel turn here. Because we're used to seeing Mahomes, the good guy. He was absolutely livid with the officials on the field, off the field, at the podium.

FRANK SCHWAB: I kind of get, we're going to warn you about it. But that does it give you, you could do this once per game and have a get out of jail free card. He lined up offsides. I don't even know how they could argue this. He was lined up offsides.

Barely, maybe, but it happened. I don't think you could argue this. I don't think anybody who looks at that screenshot or the angle or whatever and says, he wasn't really offsides. I think he clearly was.

He was. Not by much, but he was. So for Mahomes, my theory on this-- I have a theory. Is Mahomes is so fed up with his receivers.

He can't show them up. He can't yell at them. He can't go to a press conference and rip them. But you know what he could do? He could have an absolute tantrum against the refs and just take out his frustration.

I don't think that was really about that call. I think Mahomes is just fed up. I think he's really frustrated and it just came out that way.

JASON FITZ: All they have to do is start publishing the accuracy percentage of officials. Over time, we would learn, oh, well this official gets 82% of his calls right. If they are judging it, which we know they are, if they are grading it, which we know they do, and if they are tracking every call, which we know they do and they give them out to the teams in advance to study to know how they call, why not give the fans that information?

So coming in, I know, oh, this is a good officiating crew. They call holding a lot and they're about 80% accurate. That would end all of this discourse.

FRANK SCHWAB: These players who get fined five figures for socks too low or some dumb celebration, they're out on Front Street all the time. We're criticizing everything they do. But yet, if the officials screw up, we rarely hear about it. The officials have been bad. It's been a bad season.

Here we are. We're talking about one of the games of the day, not Vikings-Raiders, and what have we talked about this entire time? We haven't talked about Josh Allen being Superman.

We haven't talked about the Chiefs issues. We're sitting here talking about officiating and that is such a shame for the NFL, that every week it seems to be this way. Whether we're talking about MVS not getting the pass interference call against Green Bay, or whatever calls are missed on a game by game basis. NFL officiating is not getting better and it's a real problem for the league.