The officiating crew for Saturday afternoon’s Kansas City Chiefs vs. Houston Texans game took a lot of heat. But where does the NFL stand on the officiating crew led by veteran official Clay Martin?
The Chiefs topped the Texans, 23-14, at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Kansas City has advanced to the AFC Championship Game for the seventh year in a row. The Chiefs are looking to become the first team in modern NFL history to win three straight Super Bowls.
But how much was Kansas City helped by poor calls on Saturday? If you ask NFL fans – non-Chiefs fans, anyway – the answer is “a lot.” However, the NFL’s head of officiating has a different answer.
Clay Martin led the officiating crew on Saturday. (Photo by Larry Radloff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was on the receiving end of two beneficial calls on Saturday. In the first half, he was barely touched in the pocket but got a roughing the passer penalty. In the second half, he slid really late, baiting the referees into a late hit penalty on Houston’s defense.
ESPN announcer Troy Aikman was aghast at the calls. “Oh come on!” he could be heard yelling.
The NFL’s head of officiating, though, is standing by the crew. He says that based on the rulebook, the correct calls were made. The officials did their job.
NFL senior vice president of officiating Walt Anderson appeared on NFL GameDay on Sunday morning to discuss the calls and the crew.
“If there’s contact to the head of the quarterback, that’s probably going to be called by the officials,” Anderson said of the roughing the passer flag. “…On this play there was contact. … There’s one place in the rulebook that it states by rule that when in doubt, officials are to call roughing the passer.”
The late hit penalty was tougher, but again, Anderson believes the correct call was made.
“When No. 39 comes in and the hairline of his helmet strikes the helmet of the runner who is already on the ground, that’s a foul,” Anderson said. “Even if replay assist could help with that, when there’s contact like that it’s not going to be changed.”
While the NFL is standing by the officiating crew, Texans players are officially complaining.
“Everybody knows how it is playing up here,” Texans running back Joe Mixon told reporters. “You can never leave it into the refs’ hands. It is what it is. When it comes down to it, you can never leave it into the refs’ hands.”
He added: “We knew it was going to be us against the refs going into this game. I talked to you guys earlier this week. I was just saying, I’m like man, we gotta go out there and we gotta do us better. In some instances we didn’t do that, in some instances we did. We just gotta keep going man. Next offseason, getting guys together, everybody just coming together and just keep building that team chemistry and getting past this hump.”
Hopefully, there’s no controversy in the AFC Championship Game next weekend – but don’t count on it.
