Chiefs hope to survive three straight after AFC Championship win vs. Bills
The Kansas City Chiefs are headed to New Orleans for their third straight Super Bowl appearance.
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The NFL has desperately needed electronic spotting for years. Now, with the AFC Championship in the thick of things, the NFL must make winning this season a top priority. Don’t send it to a committee where it will get buried or languished. Don’t say you “try it”.
get What did it do?
Unless, of course, the NFL cools down with fans believing in the league and refs putting their thumbs on the scale for Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City Chiefs And increasingly questioning whether this $20 billion industry is more real than WWE. Unless he wants to continue living in the dark ages, the days of leather helmets he worked with.
Clinging to a 1-point lead early in the fourth quarter, the Buffalo Bills went for Josh Allen on a sneaky fourth-and-1. It seemed as if Allen was down first — by several inches, no less — before being rear-ended.
One of the line judges appeared to agree, trotting onto the field just above the first down line. But not one more, coming down the field, and the initial call was that Allen didn’t have a first down. Which, well, is fine. It’s not always easy to tell in the moment when there’s that big pile of bodies.
But then the call was upheld on review, and CBS rules analyst Gene Stratore spoke for anyone who isn’t a Chiefs fan.
“I felt like he got about a third of the football,” said Stirtur, an NFL official for 15 years.
And this from a guy who needed one once Index card First to call down!
“I thought he had,” Bill Head coach Sean McDermott said after the game. “Just short of the line was the first down, that’s what it looked like to me, when it was sitting next to me with the marker. Right inside it was the first down of the white stripe. It looked like he got it. That’s all I can say.”
Five plays later, Mahomes reached for a score that gave the Chiefs a 29-22 lead. The Bills would tie the game again, but Kansas City kicked a field goal and Buffalo couldn’t answer. The Chiefs won, 32-29, against Philadelphia to reach Super Bowl 59.
Now, there’s no telling if the Bills would have won the game if Allen had gotten it earlier early in the fourth quarter. There were still about 13 minutes left in the game, and the Chiefs were nearly impossible to beat at home. They are also close to losing in big games, reaching the Super Bowl for the third straight season.
Bills also had their faults. He failed twice on two-point conversions. Needing a field goal to send the game into overtime, Allen was 1 of 4 on Buffalo’s final possession. But it’s also really hard to see the Bills’ momentum in the moment and not think the refs took it away from them.
“Of course it (matters). Well, it is,” McDermott said. “It’s a possession. We’re one point at this point. Chance to go by maybe one score at that point. That’s a big call.” It’s a big call.”
And really, whether or not that call made a difference in the outcome is beside the point.
The NFL is extremely sensitive to anything that calls into question the integrity of the game. This is the reason why many players have received heavy suspensions for gambling. Yet there is a growing number of fans who believe the NFL is partial to Mahomes and the Chiefs and have let the refs know it. The thinking is that because Mahomes is the face of the league and because Travis Kelce’s romance with Taylor Swift has brought a legion of new fans to the NFL, it’s best for everyone to end up on the winning side. .
In every game, the Chiefs have a gripe about giveaways. The calls were made in their favor. Calls are made against your opponent. The penalty was ignored. A fine was assessed. Earlier in Sunday’s game, The refs ruled that Xavier Worthy made a 26-yard catch When replays showed possession was debatable. Two plays later, the Chiefs scored.
Electronic spotting will not eliminate all suspicion. But when the NFL’s credibility is being called into question, even a partial solution is better than the status quo. The technology is there. The NFL has the money for that. All it needed was a goal, and this game certainly provided it.
Follow USA TODAY sports columnist Nancy Armor on social media @narrmore.
