NFL officials denied Kadarius Toney a touchdown with a minute to play due to an offside call against the wide receiver as the Kansas City Chiefs were beaten by the Buffalo Bills on Sunday to fall further behind in the race for the No 1 seed in the AFC playoff picture.
Monday 11 December 2023 12:37, UK
The Kansas City Chiefs thought they had won it against the Buffalo Bills with a Kadarius Toney touchdown in the final minute at Arrowhead on Sunday. Only until they hadn't, prompting a furious Patrick Mahomes.
With the Chiefs trailing 20-17 after Tyler Bass' go-ahead field goal, Mahomes marched his side downfield before connecting with Travis Kelce, who proceeded to throw a lateral to a wide-open Toney, leaving him clear to walk in for a 49-yard touchdown.
Chiefs joy was short-lived, however, as officials pulled the play back after Toney was deemed to have been offside at the line of scrimmage pre-snap.
The hosts would eventually fail to convert on fourth-and-15 as the Bills ran out winners to keep their playoff hopes alive.
"It's the call, and just in that moment, I mean, it's not even for me; I know how much everybody puts into this game," said Mahomes afterwards. "For it to happen, for a flag to change the outcome of the game. And that moment, I mean, I've played seven years and never had had offensive offsides called. You learn that in elementary school.
"We talked about, pointing to the ref all that different type of stuff, and if it doesn't get called me, if it does, they warn you. There was no warning throughout the entire game.
"And then you wait; there's a minute left in the game to make a call like that. It's tough, man. I'm at a loss for words because regardless of whether we win or lose, just at the end of the day, another game, and we're talking about the refs, Not what we really want in the NFL for football."
It marked the latest instalment of a frustrating and mistake-ridden season for the Chiefs, who were again marred by key drops from wide receivers alongside Toney's costly, no matter how marginal, offside error in the closing exchanges.
"I'm very disappointed that ended the way it did," said Chiefs head coach Andy Reid. "And normally I never use this as excuses. I get a warning before something like that happens. It's a bit embarrassing in the National Football League for that to take place.
"So defensively I thought we played well. Offensively, we're getting better. Second half was obviously a little bit better there. And so we're actually making progress through this and that's what's disappointing in this. And we've got a good team. We're going to go play this next week. So we'll learn from this and we'll move on."
The defending champions have lost three of their last four and now sit two games off the No 1 seed in the AFC with four games to play in the regular season.
"We gotta do whatever we can to flip the script on our season in this middle part," said Mahomes. "And that's going to be going to New England and trying to play a legendary coach and a football team that's playing better football these last few weeks. So it's going to be, to me, a great challenge for us.
"But I was proud of how we guys played today. Hopefully, we can just move on and keep it going throughout and try to flip the script for the rest of the season."
