The game was rigged, the ref got tricked
The wrong ones think they’re right
You were outnumbered, this time
—Taylor Swift, “Only the Young”
Major League Baseball foolishly allows all its superstars to sign with super-popular superteams in Los Angeles and New York. The NBA has engineered yet another lopsided trade for the benefit of the Lakers, pairing LeBron and Luka in La La Land and putting a team with 17 NBA championships in the running for an 18th. But according to the conspiracy theorists, the NFL has apparently decided to rig everything for a team based in Kansas City, Missouri, America’s 31st-most populous metropolitan area, for a franchise that experienced almost no success for the vast majority of the league’s history.
The nefarious plan makes too much sense. The league wants to protect the Chiefs, who have become a ratings behemoth. Their star tight end is dating the most popular singer in the world, allowing the league to unlock the female demographic it’s been missing. Their star quarterback is in 73 percent of commercials on TV. That same star tight end is in the other 27 percent of commercials, including one for COVID vaccines. You can just picture Roger Goodell, Taylor Swift, Jake from State Farm, and Dr. Anthony Fauci meeting up at an Illuminati bacchanal at one of Kansas City’s famous landmarks, like that barbecue place that used to be a gas station and still has the pumps out front. They’re clinking their champagne glasses while eating succulent, fall-off-the-bone ribs, and they’re toasting to their insidious new plan: for officials to make an iffy defensive holding call at a critical juncture in the biggest game of the year.
The story goes that the Chiefs are a Donaghy dynasty. Their three recent Super Bowl wins (and counting) are not due to their hyper-talented passer or genius head coach but a level of referee bias unseen since the NBA needed to destroy the Sacramento Kings. And we see it in front of our very eyes: Time and time again, the Chiefs’ opponents seem to have stopped them in a critical moment, but Patrick Mahomes points, a flag flies, and it’s first down again.
The premise that the league is rigging things for the Chiefs is so widespread that Goodell was asked about it at a pre–Super Bowl news conference Monday, responding, “That’s a ridiculous theory for anybody who might take it seriously.” Swift, Fauci, and Jake from State Farm could not be reached at press time.
So, it’s time to investigate: Do the Chiefs get all the calls? Looking back at the data over the seven years since Mahomes became Kansas City’s starter in 2018, the answer is … not exactly. They’ve actually been penalized more than their opponents in that time frame during the regular season, but the numbers flip in the Chiefs’ favor in the playoffs.
Since the start of the Mahomes era, the Chiefs have been called for eight more penalties than their opponents in the regular season, and 21 fewer if we include postseason games. They have been penalized for 954 more yards than their opponents in that span in the regular season—the yardage equivalent of a full Travis Kelce season. In a couple of those seasons, they’ve gotten less help from officials than just about any other team in the league. In 2018, the Chiefs led the league in total penalties, with 163, nearly a penalty per game ahead of the team in second place. And last season, Kansas City’s opponents were flagged for just 95 penalties in 17 games, the third fewest in the league.
In sum, the officials have slightly hurt Kansas City. The Chiefs lost win probability from enforced penalties this season. The Chiefs played 12 one-possession games this season, including the playoffs; in the final five minutes of those 12 games, the refs threw five flags against Kansas City’s opponents. Meanwhile, the Chiefs defense was called for five penalties in those scenarios, including three that occurred on a single drive against Atlanta. And yet here they are in the Super Bowl, looking to three-peat.
There’s a broad assumption that officials are trying to protect Mahomes, the league’s chosen one. But according to my personal favorite single-purpose website, nflpenalties.com, which maintains a page on drawn roughing-the-passer penalties—“You’re probably here because of a social media spat about Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes”—Mahomes gets a high but not ridiculous number of roughing calls. Among active quarterbacks, Mahomes ranks below Josh Allen, Jared Goff, and Kirk Cousins in career roughing penalties, roughing penalties per game, and roughing penalties per 100 passing attempts. Mahomes is fourth in the sample size in roughing penalties per sack, but he’s wedged between Goff and Jimmy Garoppolo, hardly indicating he’s getting particularly special treatment.
One of the NFL’s most costly penalties in terms of its impact on win probability is defensive pass interference, which automatically gives the offense a first down and moves the ball to the spot of the foul. Kansas City has been called for 43 more defensive pass interference penalties than its opponents since 2018, even though the Chiefs have had about 200 more passing attempts than their opponents in that span. (My theory as to Kansas City’s lack of DPI calls: Its receivers are generally too open to be interfered with.) In 2022, the Chiefs not only led the league in DPI penalties called on their defense (15, almost one per game), but they tied for last in DPI calls drawn by their offense (three). Kansas City won that season’s Super Bowl anyway.
So what’s causing our eyes to lie to us? Why do the Chiefs have a reputation as Roger Goodell’s Special Little Guys when the data says they’re getting the same calls as everybody else—if not slightly worse treatment than everybody else?
I have three hypotheses:
They will make you hold them.
Who’s gonna hold you like me?
Nobody, no-fucking-body
—Taylor Swift, “The Tortured Poets Department”
If I had to construct a conspiracy out of one penalty, it would be defensive holding. While everybody’s eyes are on the quarterback when he draws a roughing-the-passer call or the receiver who is impeded by pass interference, defensive holding happens where your eyes aren’t. It’s a small tug by a defender, likely outside of the part of the field you can see on the television broadcast. It’s not a blatant foul preventing a big play but often a subtle explanation for why the big play didn’t happen. It’s only a 5-yard penalty, so fans might not get as worked up about it as a 30-yard pass interference penalty—but it gives the offense a free first down. It’s a penalty that exists in the shadows.
And sure enough, the defining penalty of the Chiefs dynasty has been defensive holding. There are seemingly two types of pass plays in Kansas City’s offense: the ones where a receiver gets open and the ones where a receiver is allegedly prevented from getting open by a hold. Since 2018, Kansas City has benefited from 86 total defensive holding penalties in regular and postseason games, the most in the league by a massive margin—Houston is second, having benefited from 59. In four of the seven seasons of the Mahomes era—2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023—the Chiefs were at least tied for drawing the most defensive holding calls in the league. If each defensive holding call was a catch by a Kansas City receiver named Defensive Holding, DH would rank 13th in receptions in the Mahomes era, between Isiah Pacheco and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. (Plus, unlike MVS, Defensive Holding never drops catchable balls.)
Many of the highest-impact calls that have directly led to Chiefs victories have been holding calls on defensive backs. When Kansas City trailed the Chargers late in a Sunday Night Football game in 2022, a holding call on Derwin James Jr. turned a third-and-4 incompletion into a first down; three plays later, Kansas City scored a game-winning touchdown. The Jets were in position to pull off a huge upset during a Sunday Night Football game against the Chiefs last season when Michael Carter II picked off a third-and-20 pass by Mahomes, but officials flagged Sauce Gardner for a hold on Valdes-Scantling, giving Kansas City a first down and allowing it to run out the clock.
And the biggest holding call of all came in the closing moments of the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win over the Eagles two years ago. With the score tied and under two minutes remaining, officials called a nearly imperceptible hold on the Eagles’ James Bradberry, erasing an incompletion on third-and-8 and giving Kansas City a fresh set of downs in field goal range. Had there been no flag there, the Eagles would have had a chance to answer Kansas City’s go-ahead kick. Instead, Philadelphia got the ball back with just eight seconds remaining, and Jalen Hurts threw one of the funniest Hail Mary attempts ever. (Please, Philadelphia, get the ball across the 50-yard line in this scenario this time.)
It makes sense why the Chiefs draw so many defensive holding calls. They pass a ton, and they’ve had exceptional receivers for much of the Mahomes era. Many a defensive player has held Kelce as he switches directions; the smart move for cornerbacks who realized Tyreek Hill had a step on them was to hope to get away with a grab rather than allow Mahomes to complete an easy touchdown.
And the plays where defensive holding calls are most likely to occur—slow-developing pass plays to receivers downfield—often take place on third-and-long. And Mahomes is a master at those, keeping the play alive for an extra beat, getting into scramble drills, forcing defenders to stick with their receiver just a tick longer than they can handle. It’s really no surprise Kansas City’s opponents get called for holding so frequently.
But I don’t think fans will ever get used to watching Kansas City’s opponents force an incompletion on a seemingly well-covered receiver only for Mahomes to get a first down for an infraction that we didn’t even see on TV. By the time they show the replay, we’re already mad.
The refs are clutch.
I think I’ve seen this film before
And I didn’t like the ending
—Taylor Swift, “Exile”
The refs might not be making more calls against the Chiefs’ opponents than the average team, but holy hell, do they know when to make them.
Mahomes is credited with 30 game-winning drives in his career, per Pro Football Reference. On 12 of those, the opposing defense was flagged for at least one penalty. That’s 40 percent! (As a comparison, there were 1,454 defensive penalties called on 5,819 offensive drives this season, a roughly 5-to-1 drive-to–defensive penalty ratio.)
Six of the penalties on Mahomes’s game-winning drives were what I’d call drive-saving penalties—plays where a turnover or failed third- or fourth-down conversion attempt was wiped out. On four of them, the Chiefs received a first down. And three of those drive-saving plays on game-winning drives have taken place in stand-alone, nationally televised games. After a full Sunday of watching football, the last thing we see is Kansas City nearly losing before a penalty saves its ass. Then we’re mad about it from Monday to the next Sunday.
Remember how I said it’s been rare that a penalty was called on the Chiefs’ opponents in the final five minutes of one-possession games this season? There was a pretty big one in Week 2. Trailing with 50 seconds left against the Bengals and facing a fourth-and-16, Kansas City was bailed out by an iffy pass interference penalty on Cincinnati’s Daijahn Anthony:
And remember how I pointed out that the Chiefs’ opponents have benefited from more penalties than they have? That’s just in the regular season. In the playoffs, the Chiefs have netted 29 more penalties than their opponents and gained 288 more yards than their opponents on penalties.
Two years ago, Kansas City’s knack for receiving game-changing, last-minute calls combined with its knack for getting calls in the postseason, as the Chiefs’ opponents were flagged on the final drives in both the AFC championship game and the Super Bowl. We’ve already talked about the holding call on Philadelphia that helped the Chiefs lift the Lombardi, but Kansas City was also helped by a call late in the game on Cincinnati’s Joseph Ossai for hitting Mahomes out of bounds after a scramble, which set up the game-winning kick in the conference title game:
It’s possible this is just a result of circumstance. Kansas City has played in 78 one-possession games since 2018, the most in the league. It’s also played in 20 postseason games since 2018, the most in the league. If the Chiefs are playing more close games and more postseason games than anybody else, it stands to reason that they’ll be in the most big-time games affected by big-time calls.
But if you’re looking for evidence to back up your Chiefs-get-all-the-calls claims, here you go. Nothing suggests officials call the Chiefs differently from other teams in the vast majority of scenarios, but in the biggest moments and in the biggest games, the Chiefs absolutely do draw a disproportionate number of penalties.
Then again, the Chiefs lost their first shot at a Super Bowl during the Mahomes era in the AFC championship game against the Patriots when Dee Ford was, like, 8 inches offside. Maybe their entire dynastic run has been karmic payback for that.
Andy Reid is a replay savant.
I rewind the tape, but all it does is pause
On the very moment all was lost
—Taylor Swift, “Evermore”
Week after week, we see the corruption in plain sight. A play ends, and it’s bad for Kansas City. Their players and coaches start complaining. Andy Reid throws something onto the field. A call goes to the league offices in New York City. We sit and watch the replays, filled with a creeping sense of dread that they will once again get their way. When all is said and done, the protest is successful: The Chiefs’ tantrum is rewarded, and the call is overturned.
Of course, I’m just describing the league’s replay review system, which all teams are entitled to use every game. However, Reid is much better at using it than most coaches. He’s just one overturn away from being 50-50 in his career on challenges—73 out of 147, or 49.7 percent. But according to ESPN, the all-time record on coaching challenges is about 40 percent. Reid is close to the top of the all-time success rates, and most coaches ahead of him have challenged only a handful of calls, while Reid has challenged nearly 150.
And in the Mahomes era, he’s been a savant. He was right on 72 percent of challenges from 2020 to 2023, including a perfect 5-for-5 record in 2021. He’s 21-of-35 in games Mahomes has started, or 60 percent, way higher than the league average. Meanwhile, Kansas City’s opponents were 0-for-5 when challenging plays this season. (That’s zero percent.)
The Chiefs also benefited from at least two high-profile replay reviews not triggered by a coach’s challenge: the fourth-and-inches call on Josh Allen’s quarterback sneak in the AFC championship game and the overturned game-winning touchdown by Baltimore’s Isaiah Likely with no time remaining in the season opener:
But the logic that these games are rigged for the Chiefs doesn’t exactly track when we look at challenges and plays that are overturned after review. These are plays that require increased scrutiny and objective evidence to get results, like Likely’s foot clearly stepping over the line. That’s not rigging! That’s just the correct call!
And if Reid is regularly getting calls overturned, that means the league’s on-field officials are regularly making inaccurate calls that harm the Chiefs, which sort of negates the entire premise that the league’s officials have been given the directive to favor Kansas City.
But of course, this isn’t really about logic. This is about reverse engineering a way to invalidate the league’s best team. We’re in year seven of watching Mahomes’s team be better than our favorite teams, and at a certain point, it’s easier to imagine a vast conspiracy than to admit that our teams can’t beat these guys.