Not Surprised: Chiefs roughing the passer stats only fuel playoff conspiracy
By Austen Bundy
Surprise, surprise, the Kansas City Chiefs won another home playoff game and will be participating in the AFC Championship Game. This will be the seventh straight year the back-to-back defending Super Bowl champions will play for an opportunity to fight for the Lombardi Trophy and the sixth time since 2019 they'll host it.
The Chiefs beat the Houston Texans 23-14 on Saturday afternoon in what could've been an upset in the making but it never really got off the ground. Some questionable penalties contributed to Kansas City's seeming dominance from start to finish and Houston head coach DeMeco Ryans made that well known in his post-game news conference.
DeMeco Ryans when asked about some of the questionable calls:
— Chancellor Johnson (@ChancellorTV) January 19, 2025
“We knew going into this game it was going to be us vs *everybody*. When I say everybody. It’s EVERYBODY”
He made sure to note his team simply didn’t do enough to win the game. pic.twitter.com/4ShZA7qOVD
“We knew going into this game it was going to be us vs everybody," he emphasized heatedly. "When I say everybody. It’s everybody."
The Kansas City Chiefs have benefited most from roughing the passer in the playoffs
Specifically, a very suspect roughing the passer call against Houston early on in the game kept a Kansas City drive alive when it appeared the Texans were building defensive momentum. It was a bang-bang play in which quarterback Patrick Mahomes was hit facemask-to-facemask right in front of the back judge.
Refs throw a flag already for helmet to helmet to Mahomes. Roughing the passer for the Chiefs pic.twitter.com/7RYlHeYQh4
— Rate the Refs (@Rate_the_Refs) January 18, 2025
Following the penalty, the Chiefs would continue into field goal range and take a 6-3 lead, never looking back after that.
While some may just cry it's a conspiracy theory that Kansas City benefits from the refs, there is one damning fact that cannot be ignored. The Associated Press' Josh Dubow reports that since 2022, the Chiefs' opponents have been called for five roughing the passer penalties in the playoffs. Kansas City has been called for exactly zero.
The team has won two Super Bowls in that span and several of the games that got them there involved controversial penalties. It really is something that the Chiefs' opponents have been called for five roughing the passer penalties in three playoff runs, while they only had zero. But hey,maybe it's just discipline from the Chiefs defense to not rough the opposing quarterback.
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