Chiefs' Kadarius Toney offsides flag, Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, etc...

[SeeingEyeDog]

Full disclosure...I am not a Bills fan but, I have been married to one for 23 years.

I just want to take a moment to review the facts and of course offer some half-baked "NFL fan sitting on the couch" speculation...

Toney was clearly offsides; multiple angles show this. There is no dispute of this. Even Reid and Mahomes in their arguments at no time have said it was a bad call. Mahomes paraphrasing, "Errrrr yeah dawg, that's a no for me dawg...that play was so awesome that even though there was a penalty, they should not be calling that there, dawg...that's a bad look, dawg..." Reid paraphrasing, "You know...I guess I'd appreciate a heads up there or something because we are the elite NFL team that deserves to get every call and this is a bad look for the NFL."

Having watched the game for nearly 50 years now, I am aware that players can inquire to the referee pre-snap if there are on-sides or not but, I do not comprehend why this is permitted at the NFL level. To borrow from Our Game, "The referee will let you know you are offsides when he throws a flag..." Further, what Reid says privately is his business but, for him to get up in front of the cameras and mics and state he deserves a "heads up from the refs there" is a bit rich. Is he really suggesting that pre-snap a referee should race over to him or in this case Toney (who was lined up in the slot and not near the sideline) and tell him they are offside? Again, I have seen wideouts near the sideline checking with the LJ or HLJ about their alignment but, I don't recall seeing slot receivers do this. Additionally, I heard Gene Steratore (the retired NFL official) say that yes, these kinds of offsides infractions have not been called consistently in the past and for 2023 these offsides calls are a POE in their rulebook.

In closing, I can't ever support an owner, executive, coach, player or any team employee questioning a sports official's judgement publicly and I fully support fines for Mahomes and Reid here. Can someone (preferably a football official) explain what exactly an NFL official's responsibility is pre-snap regarding potential offsides or neutral zone infractions, etc.?

~Dawg

[BLWizzRanger]

They have Toney looking at the sideline ref asking if he is ok and then almost instantly (ok, a half beat) turning away - probably of habit to only give a quick glance that way and assuming they are on sides.

If you are going to hang the refs out for the player's mistake, I can see the rest of the year a POE that the sideline ref will no longer give any help here.  Good luck with that.

Either way, the refs let the players decide the outcome.

[kylehutson]

Speaking as a Chiefs fan, even through the Matt Cassel years (shudder).

I have exactly zero NFL experience aside from sitting in the stands a few times and watching on TV. I only played one year of football in Jr. High. However, I did run "the box" (aka the down marker) for the school where my wife taught for several years, so take this for what that's worth.

When running the box, frequently (not every play, but maybe one every 3 downs on average), a player would look at the sideline and say "I'm up" or "I'm back" and the official would either tell him he's good or would say "you're too close", or "you need to move up/back", or something similar. A few times a player would be too close, the official would tell him, and then the player would not move. The official would repeat it a few times, loud enough the player could hear and most of the time they would then move. If they didn't the flag would come out, and I've heard the official tell the coach "I warned him 3 times" (or something similar).

I don't know, maybe NFL stadiums are loud enough such communication isn't possible (especially in Arrowhead), but it certainly seems reasonable to me.

FWIW, Mahomes is walking back his behavior. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/chiefs/2023/12/12/patrick-mahomes-apologizes-kadarius-toney-penalty-chiefs-josh-allen/71890965007/ - I think it was less about that actual penalty and more about the frustration of this being the second game in a row where a last-minute call was big and the Chiefs lost both.

[SeeingEyeDog]

1 hour ago, kylehutson said:

When running the box, frequently (not every play, but maybe one every 3 downs on average), a player would look at the sideline and say "I'm up" or "I'm back" and the official would either tell him he's good or would say "you're too close", or "you need to move up/back", or something similar. A few times a player would be too close, the official would tell him, and then the player would not move. The official would repeat it a few times, loud enough the player could hear and most of the time they would then move. If they didn't the flag would come out, and I've heard the official tell the coach "I warned him 3 times" (or something similar).

I don't know, maybe NFL stadiums are loud enough such communication isn't possible (especially in Arrowhead), but it certainly seems reasonable to me.

FWIW, Mahomes is walking back his behavior. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/chiefs/2023/12/12/patrick-mahomes-apologizes-kadarius-toney-penalty-chiefs-josh-allen/71890965007/ - I think it was less about that actual penalty and more about the frustration of this being the second game in a row where a last-minute call was big and the Chiefs lost both.

Yeah, I did hear Mahomes' apology and thought it was spot on. That is how you issue an apology, people. And other than this thread, nobody is talking about this anymore.

I get what you're saying from your experiences running the box, Kyle. To draw a comparison to baseball, we talk all the time on here about things that in the rulebook and how they are officiated at the different levels of ball that all of us work. We don't call balks for instance, the same way in youth, HS, college and pro ball and...we shouldn't be. If we called MLB balks at the 13U level, we'd never get through 2 innings.

Nobody asked me but...I don't think at the NFL level, again...the HIGHEST level of American football on the planet that a player should be allowed to turn to an official during the game as he is lining up and establish that he is legally lined up. I don't even think they should be allowed to do that at the high school level. PeeWee or whatever they call 8U football? Yes. The kids are still learning the game and football is very complex when it comes to knowing where to lineup, formations, etc. Thoughts, anyone?

~Dawg

[Biscuit]

From what I understand, the frustration is in the enforcement. Apparently, the way its done at the NFL level is the linesman will note it and, after the play, go to the head coach and say "clean this up". If it doesn't get fixed, it gets called. That didn't happen here. What coach Reid was saying was "in my *insert a big number* years of coaching, this is never how it has been enforced. There has always been a warning, and there wasnt." After this, Von Miller fairly obviously was offsides, and it wasn't called.

It's kinda like holds. If you call every hold, there will be a flag on every play. I don't work football, but I get the sentiment from basketball. There are a lot of travels, fouls, and violations that we pretend to not see because they just don't matter. If it becomes a pattern, I'll tell them "hey, change this or I'm gonna call it." Already this year, I've had a couple kids have their toes on the line while lining up for a free throw. In between the first and second shot, I'll tell them "watch your toes". COULD I have called a violation on them during the first shot? Yes. But they stood there and watched the shot. They didn't effect anything. I was able to get it cleaned up in a quicker, less obvious, and equally fair way. 

In conclusion, if a warning truly is the way it has always been officiated and is expected to be officiated, this is a miss bu the refs. If not, well, line up onsides.

[SeeingEyeDog]

2 hours ago, Biscuit said:

From what I understand, the frustration is in the enforcement. Apparently, the way its done at the NFL level is the linesman will note it and, after the play, go to the head coach and say "clean this up". If it doesn't get fixed, it gets called. That didn't happen here. What coach Reid was saying was "in my *insert a big number* years of coaching, this is never how it has been enforced. There has always been a warning, and there wasnt." After this, Von Miller fairly obviously was offsides, and it wasn't called.

It's kinda like holds. If you call every hold, there will be a flag on every play. I don't work football, but I get the sentiment from basketball. There are a lot of travels, fouls, and violations that we pretend to not see because they just don't matter. If it becomes a pattern, I'll tell them "hey, change this or I'm gonna call it." Already this year, I've had a couple kids have their toes on the line while lining up for a free throw. In between the first and second shot, I'll tell them "watch your toes". COULD I have called a violation on them during the first shot? Yes. But they stood there and watched the shot. They didn't effect anything. I was able to get it cleaned up in a quicker, less obvious, and equally fair way. 

In conclusion, if a warning truly is the way it has always been officiated and is expected to be officiated, this is a miss bu the refs. If not, well, line up onsides.

And this is precisely my point...if they are not going to call it to the language of the rule book then they need to communicate clearly to coaches and players how they're going to call it. Regardless of how I or anyone else feel about this call, it is clear that the referees, the league and the coaches and players are not on the same page with this.

~Dawg

[kylehutson]

2 hours ago, Biscuit said:

After this, Von Miller fairly obviously was offsides, and it wasn't called.

I've watched this in slo-mo, and I disagree (yes, even as a Chiefs fan, but even more as a proponent of fairness). Miller tried to time the snap and was off by a tiny bit. He does start moving before the snap, but doesn't actually move into the neutral zone (except maybe his hand - is that legal? I dunno) until after the ball is snapped.

[kylehutson]

18 hours ago, SeeingEyeDog said:

I don't even think they should be allowed to do that at the high school level.

I could get with that if fields were always marked well. The field I ran the box on didn't have any yard markers other than the stripes every 5 yards. And I've seen "yard lines" that varied at least 2 ft from a straight line.

One other question (again, legitimately asking) - is there any reason why "offensive offsides" shouldn't be blown dead immediately like a false start, rather than played out? If that was the case here, I'm pretty sure the situation would have been "that sucks...moving on" rather than the frustration we saw.

[Velho]

4 hours ago, kylehutson said:

is there any reason why "offensive offsides" shouldn't be blown dead immediately like a false start, rather than played out?

I don't do football but asked myself the same question. Self responded that the play could result in a turnover, sack, etc. that the defense may want to keep (like Catchers Interference doesn't kill the play)

[BLWizzRanger]

illegal motion has a risk of injury if someone has a running start toward someone and gets a hit on them.

Offsides doesnt have that risk but it doesnt take away the others team a chance to score or get a turnover.

Just some guesses.

Sent from my SM-F721U1 using Tapatalk

[Mad Mike]

Our football commissioner gave us some good advice to avoid flagging for an offside penalty: If it is a regular play, warn the player and let the coach know. If it continues, a flag will have to come out. However, if it is a trick play, then the offense has to execute perfectly.

So, for example on a kickoff, let's say the kicking team boots it deep. If they have a gunner a yard beyond the ball before it is kicked, we will notify the special teams coach that # so and so was offside. If he does it again, we get that one. 

On the other hand, if the kicking team executes an on-side kick, the free kick line is treated like a pane of glass-nobody better be off-side. They have to execute trickeration perfectly to avoid a foul being called.

In the Chiefs case, they ran a trick play......and did not execute perfectly. Frankly, Andy Reid should know better and so should the players. If this had been a run of the mill play, I would bet money no foul would have been called....unless Tony and/or the Chief's coaches had been previously put on notice. 

[Velho]

11 hours ago, Mad Mike said:

In the Chiefs case, they ran a trick play......and did not execute perfectly. Frankly, Andy Reid should know better and so should the players. If this had been a run of the mill play, I would bet money no foul would have been called....unless Tony and/or the Chief's coaches had been previously put on notice. 

Appreciate the insight @Mad Mike. With this being a non-obvious trick play at snap and the flag being dropped at the snap, you think they'd pick it up if there hadn't been a lateral? I imagine we'd have the same overall hubbub - if not stronger since the proactive picking up of the flag after a TD is something for conspiracy folks to sink their teeth into.

[kylehutson]

On 12/17/2023 at 12:56 AM, Mad Mike said:

In the Chiefs case, they ran a trick play......and did not execute perfectly. Frankly, Andy Reid should know better and so should the players. If this had been a run of the mill play, I would bet money no foul would have been called....unless Tony and/or the Chief's coaches had been previously put on notice. 

I'm not buying it for the same reason @Velho said. It wasn't even a planned trick play, and the flag was already out well ahead of that.

[SeeingEyeDog]

On 12/17/2023 at 1:56 AM, Mad Mike said:

Our football commissioner gave us some good advice to avoid flagging for an offside penalty: If it is a regular play, warn the player and let the coach know. If it continues, a flag will have to come out. However, if it is a trick play, then the offense has to execute perfectly.

So, for example on a kickoff, let's say the kicking team boots it deep. If they have a gunner a yard beyond the ball before it is kicked, we will notify the special teams coach that # so and so was offside. If he does it again, we get that one. 

On the other hand, if the kicking team executes an on-side kick, the free kick line is treated like a pane of glass-nobody better be off-side. They have to execute trickeration perfectly to avoid a foul being called.

In the Chiefs case, they ran a trick play......and did not execute perfectly. Frankly, Andy Reid should know better and so should the players. If this had been a run of the mill play, I would bet money no foul would have been called....unless Tony and/or the Chief's coaches had been previously put on notice. 

We talk a lot on here about what our commissioners/[insert people of authority here] have to say to us about HOW we go about the business of officiating a game. The messaging varies wildly from region to region and it is what is. We get our orders and we do as we are told and we avoid doing things in the course of a game that we cannot then explain back to our superiors. My hope with all of that is...the ADs and Coaches at the high school are also being told how we have been instructed to call things so, we're all on the same page.

Mike, pardon my ignorance, what level football are you working? This business of allowing it in certain circumstances and following up with the position coach and THEN throwing a flag if it happens again and or adding in the "is this a trickeration play?" factor surprises me. Do you think that's appropriate direction given the level of ball you are working? If you were commissioner, would you continue to instruct your officials to call it that way? Not a criticism, I'm just insanely curious about these mechanics...

~Dawg

[Mad Mike]

@SeeingEyeDog

High school level. Our commissioner is a college official.

I understand the point's above about the timing of the flag. What we don't know is if this guy had been warned earlier in the game and/or his coach. Since he didn't even look over at the official, this is more than likely going to increase the chance of a flag being dropped.

[SH0102]

Dan Orlovsky on “Get Up” showed video of Toney lining up offsides 5 other times in the game.  He used it as an example of why it shouldn’t have been called out of the blue, but perhaps those warnings were given on those , and also, those 5 were not so egregious as the last one.

Also, someone mentioned he looked and pointed at official but looked away quickly, not only that but he moved up a full yard, maybe more, after the point.  So even if he was “good” at the point, he was not after and never looked back.

I imagine if the official hollered at him to move back the Bills would have had a major gripe