Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney is addressing the controversial offensive offsides penalty that played a pivotal role in the team’s loss to the Bills last week.
In the Bills–Chiefs game on Sunday, Toney incurred an offensive offsides penalty on the same play where his teammate Travis Kelce executed an impressive lateral pass that could have secured the Chiefs a late-game lead.
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The offsides infraction triggered an impassioned reaction from Patrick Mahomes, who vehemently expressed his displeasure with the officials.
Nearly a week after the incident, Toney spoke to the media, criticizing the referees for not providing him with a warning regarding his offsides positioning. He asserted that the referee had a responsibility to alert him, regardless of the margin by which he was offsides.
“Whether it was an inch, two inches, whatever in front of the ball, the referee got a job to let me know,” Toney remarked. “You watch the video, he didn’t make no effort to say anything about no alignment. So apparently, he wanted to do that regardless. But like I said, we’re just going back to the details and just make sure we fine print everything.”
Toney continued by expressing his belief that the referees unjustly deprived Kelce of a remarkable highlight.
“Unfortunately, they took back the greatest play the greatest tight end that played the game did,” Toney lamented. “Just a great play taken back by the greatest tight end.”
NFL referee Carl Cheffers has defended the decision, stating that Toney’s alignment was so egregious that it obstructed the referees’ view of the ball. Cheffers emphasized that, in such cases, warnings are not mandatory, and the penalty stands regardless of prior warnings.
“Certainly, no warning is required, especially if they are lined up so far offsides where they’re actually blocking our view of the ball,” Cheffers explained. “If it’s egregious enough, it would be beyond a warning. So really regardless of whether or not he was warned at other times during the day, if it was an egregious alignment to where he was over the ball — whether he had warnings or not — it would still be a foul.”
