Look, the Kansas City Chiefs knew what they were getting when they traded with the Giants last season for wide receiver Kadarus Toney — an electric player who, when he’s not injured, is just as likely to make a bonehead play (or drop easy passes) than win a game.
He scored a touchdown against the Eagles in the Super Bowl in February and then set up the championship-winning field goal with a 65-yard punt return late in the game.
On second-and-10 at the Bills’ 49, the Chiefs appeared to have pulled out a victory over the Bills on Patrick Mahomes’ pass to tight end Travis Kelce, who threw an overhand lateral to Toney at the Bills’ 24. The wide receiver ran the final 24 yards for a touchdown that would have put the Chiefs ahead with 1:12 remaining.
But.
Toney, a slot receiver on the play, had lined up in the neutral zone. The penalty erased the touchdown and the Bills eventually regained the ball on downs and won, 20-17.
CBS analyst Tony Romo went nuts when the play appeared to be a touchdown.
“This is not a designed play!” he shouted over the crowd noise. “Kelce is always looking around like he’s a quarterback. He does this, and I can’t believe it.”
Then Romo heard the penalty call.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the former Cowboys quarterback moaned. “It can’t happen. These receivers just can’t get out of the way of hurting the team too many times at the end of a game.”
The Chiefs, who have lost three of their last four, are now 8-5. The Bills, who are 7-6, stayed alive in the AFC playoff hunt.
Rules analyst Gene Steratore said refs were forced to make the call because Toney was so blatantly lined up. In fact, he might have been totally offsides.
“He’s clearly in the neutral zone,” Steratore said. “It’s not a play that you want to split hairs with but when he’s that clearly in the neutral zone, you have to call it.”
Mahomes, who went berserk on the sidelines and was shouting at officials as teammates restrained him in the final seconds, wasn’t buying it — at all.
“It’s tough to swallow,” Mahomes said via ESPN’s Jeff Darlington. “Not only from me, and football in general, to take away greatness like that, for a guy like Travis to make a play like that, you want to see the guys on the field decide the game. They’re human. They make mistakes. But every week, we’re talking about something … It’s the call. Just in that moment. Not for myself. To have a flag change the outcome of the game. I’ve never had offensive offsides called. If it does, they warn you. There wasn’t a warning the entire game. And then you make a call like that in the final minute? Another game, we’re talking about the refs. It’s not what we want for the NFL. It’s not what we want for football.”
“Let us play the game,” Mahomes added. “Then whatever happens happens. That’s why last week, I didn’t say anything. Let us play. You want it to be about your team and their team — and see what happens. I want to go play… then see what happens at the end. Then, I can live with the results. The flag today was tough. Offensive offsides. You point to the ref, you’re good or not good. You have a discussion. That’s the ref’s job. For him to throw that flag, no explanation or anything. I saw the picture. He’s barely offsides. It didn’t affect the play at all. At all.”
Toney played 12 games for the Giants and missed 12 games because of injuries before being dealt to the Kansas City Chiefs right before the trade deadline this season. He left the Giants without ever having scored a touchdown. The Giants received third- and sixth-round draft picks for him.
