The most talked about play from Week 14 of the 2023 NFL season came late in the fourth quarter of Sunday's matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills.
The Chiefs trailed most of the game but appeared to take a late lead when quarterback Patrick Mahomes completed a pass to tight end Travis Kelce, who threw a lateral to wide receiver Kadarius Toney that resulted in a touchdown.
Fans at Arrowhead Stadium went wild in celebration, but the emotions quickly turned from jubilation to frustration after it was revealed Toney lined up offsides and was penalized.
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The Chiefs weren't able to tie the game or go ahead and lost 20-17, dropping their record to 8-5 and decreasing their chances of earning the AFC's No. 1 seed for the playoffs.
Toney was clearly offsides, so the call was correct. But that didn't stop both Mahomes and Chiefs head coach Andy Reid from complaining about it during their postgame press conferences.
One argument Reid made is that usually referees give the head coach a warning if one of their players are lined up offsides. They don't always go straight to throwing a flag on certain pre-snap penalties.
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick was asked about this aspect of the Toney play, and pre-snap penalty warnings in general, during his Monday morning interview with WEEI's The Greg Hill Show.
"I think that probably varies from crew to crew. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don't," Belichick said. "Sometimes, it probably depends on what the official sees. But I really think you'd have to talk to the officials about that. I'm not going to get into how the game should be officiated. That's their job.”
Chiefs-Bills referee Carl Cheffers spoke to a pool reporter after the game and was asked about a warning.
“Yes, ultimately, if they look for alignment advice, certainly we are going to give it to them. But ultimately, they are responsible for wherever they line up,” Cheffers said. “And, certainly, no warning is required, especially if they are lined up so far offsides where they’re actually blocking our view of the ball. So, we would give them some sort of warning if it was anywhere close, but this particular one is beyond warning."
Makes sense.
If you look at all the available angles, Toney is so clearly offsides that a call absolutely had to be made. It's not like he was just a few inches offsides. In that case, a warning would have been fair. But like Cheffers says above, Toney was so far offside that it was beyond a warning.
Luckily for the Chiefs, their next matchup is a very winnable one against Belichick's Patriots, who sit at the bottom of the AFC standings with a 3-10 record.
