By CIAN McKEOWN
As we stand on the precipice of the end of the NFL season, the yearly conversation always comes around. It has ramped up in recent years, perhaps a logical starting point is the Super Bowl matchup two years ago, the same two teams we will see face off on Feb. 9, 2025, next Sunday. With under two minutes left in the fourth quarter, the score tied 35-35, Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Juju Smith-Schuster went out for a pass, with Eagles cornerback James Bradberry IV in coverage. Bradberry tugged slightly on the corner of Smith-Schuster’s uniform near his left hip at the top of his route. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes then slightly overthrew Smith-Schuster and the ball fell incomplete.
Surely such a marginal and ticky-tac holding call would not be made following an astounding Super Bowl game thus far that was surprisingly physical, and one in which the referees surprisingly swallowed their whistles. Immediately after the play, the FOX cameras showed Mahomes livid, jumping up and down, pointing towards Bradberry, and expressing his incredulity directly to the officials. After a few seconds, a flag was tossed onto the field, and a hold was called on Bradberry. The ball was then moved to the Philadelphia ten-yard line, and Kansas City was allowed to run down the clock significantly with a minute and forty-eight seconds remaining on the game clock and kick the game-winning field goal. It felt to many fans like a deflating ending to what was a close game and an exciting match-up. Others smelled foul play. Social media and some mainstream sports media outlets like The Pat McAfee Show began to discuss whether the outcome of the game was rigged by NFL officials.
Throughout the following two seasons, this has been a narrative that has followed the Chiefs ever since. Many in NFL Media circles have dismissed such postulations as poor sportsmanship on the part of fans, claiming that they are simply biased against Kansas City and jealous that their team is not the one on the biggest stage. Although when such conversations are dominating many NFL-related spaces, they need to be paid serious attention.
The public outcry reached a fever pitch last season when Kansas City Chiefs Tight End Travis Kelce began dating music superstar Taylor Swift. Some viewed this as an insidious ploy by the league office to bring in a new source of revenue for the game. Others saw it as simply a hallmark-esque love story(no pun intended), a typical Hollywood power couple. All that aside, the Kansas City Chiefs in 2023 simply did not look like the dominant team they had been in years previous, with Patrick Mahomes throwing a career-high fourteen interceptions, and the Chiefs finishing with a measly 11-6 regular season win-loss record, hardly a powerhouse. Not to mention the fact that throughout almost the entire season, Chiefs receivers struggled with dropped passes and in-game blunders. Unsurprisingly, the Chiefs went on a miraculous post-season run, defeating conference heavyweights like the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens en route to a second straight Super Bowl appearance.
This time, they faced an equally stout NFC opponent, the San Francisco 49ers, who had captured the conference’s number one seed and contained two MVP finalists in quarterback Brock Purdy and running back Christian McCaffery. After an exciting back-and-forth Super Bowl matchup, the game went to overtime. Then, with the game on the line on the biggest stage, several 49ers players and coaching staff admitted after the game that they were not exactly sure how the league’s new playoff overtime rules worked. The 49ers preceded to kick a field goal on their first possession of overtime and handed the ball right back to the Chiefs to put together a game-winning touchdown drive on the following possession. While this game was not filled with questionable calls and moments, it felt oddly like a setup considering Kansas City’s uninspiring regular season performance, and the newfound mainstream media attention lavished upon them.
However, right from the start, the 2024 season did not fail to deliver such devise moments, in a week one game versus the Baltimore Ravens, when Ravens Tight End Isiah Likely dragged his toes at the back of the endzone for a circus catch that would have sent the kickoff game to overtime. After an intense video review, it was determined that Likely’s toe was slightly touching the white end line and the touchdown was taken off the board. Fans were outraged with how such a close call could decide a game, and that the play would have been called a touchdown if not for Likely’s massive size fourteen cleats. During the rest of the regular season, the Chiefs continued to pull out unthinkable one-score wins against teams in the fourth quarter, each game seemed to go down in the same way every week.
Mainstream NFL Media circles dismissed such fluke performances as the Chief’s simply “finding a way to win” while some fans saw the games as manufactured for the sake of television viewership and media coverage. An opportunity came to dispel the narratives in Kansas City’s ninth game of the regular season in week ten against division rivals the Denver Broncos. With Kansas City leading by a score of 16-14 with a single second left in the game, Denver lined up for what would have been a game-winning thirty-five-yard field goal. The kick was blocked, resulting in a Kansas City win. KC soon eclipsed the 2022 Minnesota Vikings record of eleven straight wins by a margin of one score(the Vikings suffered an embarrassing first-round playoff loss to the New York Giants that year) and by the end of the regular season they had won a record fourteen one-score games, seventeen straight counting the end of the previous season.
The Chiefs marched into the playoffs this year as the number one seed, facing the Houston Texans at home in the divisional round following their first-round bye. While the Chiefs seemed to have the upper hand for most of the game, there were two notably questionable calls. The first came in the third quarter when Patrick Mahomes was hit as he threw, and a penalty was called for roughing the passer on Texans defensive end Will Anderson Jr. Speaking to the media after the game, Anderson Jr. expressed his frustration and the sentiment of many fans, saying: “We knew it was going to be us against the refs going into this game.” Amid rampant allegations of rigging, former vice president of NFL Officiating from 2013-17 Dean Blandino has spoken out, saying via TMZ Sports that: “If there’s a room somewhere in the NFL offices where they were writing the script, they never invited me, and I was the head of officiating,” further commenting: “… Do teams get breaks at times? They do. And not every call is right. And sometimes that happens.” Another regrettable penalty came later in the third quarter when Mahomes scrambled out of the pocket for a short gain before sliding. Two Texans were called for a hit on a defenseless player when they essentially collided with one another, barely brushing the crown of Mahomes’ helmet as he slid. This call was so egregious that ESPN’s Troy Aikman, the color commentator for the broadcast, chimed in, expressing his displeasure.
Whatever lucky breaks the Chiefs had gotten before, their time was seemingly up leading up to their AFC Championship matchup with the Buffalo Bills, a team they had faced and beaten three prior times in the playoffs but a team that had delivered them a loss in the regular season. A classic typical of any Allen-Mahomes matchup ensued, with the game nearly tied going into the fourth quarter.
Then the penalties came. On a fourth down and one, Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills plunged forward into the pile and believed he had gotten the first down after the play. CBS cameras even caught Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones looking distraught and defeated as he readied himself for the next play. Miraculously, forward progress was not awarded, and the Chiefs took over on downs. Another divisive call came when Patrick Mahomes flung a jump ball toward the right sideline intended for wide receiver Xavier Worthy. Bills safety Cole Bishop and Worthy both leaped for the ball at the same time and it seemed like they both came down with it, with the ball seemingly unmoving as it struck the turf, pinned into Worthy’s elbow but with Bishop’s hands clasped around it. The play was called a catch and a Chiefs first down. Many have argued that Worthy would not have secured the ball if it weren’t for Bishop’s control, and therefore the call should have gone the Bills’ way. The game resulted in a Chiefs win and their accession to a third straight Super Bowl, a feat never before accomplished in NFL history.
Currently, the discourse around whether or not the league is rigged in favor of the Chiefs is one of dejection and acceptance that this may be the cold reality that NFL fans must live in. Some hold out hope this new-look Philadelphia Eagles squad, outfitted with 2,000-yard running back Saquon Barkley, must be the ones to dethrone the evil empire. Others are unsure that the Eagles will pull it off. Vegas thinks so too, with Kansas City favored by a point and a half on the money line. If the Chiefs end up hoisting their third straight Lombardi Trophy this Sunday, much to the chagrin of the rest of America, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Featured image: Vivian Kopka’27
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