The only thing that could dislodge the NFL’s stranglehold on television is if sports viewers believe the games are rigged—that officiating is not on the level.
That’s why the league should follow the advice of analysts Troy Aikman of ESPN and Tom Brady of Fox Sports and take a hard look at whether the referees have gone overboard when it comes to protecting Patrick Mahomes and running quarterbacks.
There have been complaints for months that the league is playing favorites with Mahomes as the Chiefs gun for a historic third straight Super Bowl victory. (Vince Lombardi’s Packers won three straight NFL championships from 1965 to 1967 including Super Bowls I and II.) After all, Mahomes is the league’s biggest star. Throw in tight end Travis Kelce’s tabloid romance with Taylor Swift, which has attracted millions of new “Swifties” to pro football’s fan base, and the Chiefs have replaced the Cowboys as America’s Team.
But growing accusations of rigged games, and biased refs, reached a crescendo Saturday during the Chiefs’ 23–14 AFC divisional playoff win over the Texans. The officials twice penalized Houston for questionable hits on Mahomes: once for roughing the passer, the second time for unnecessary roughness. Both penalties extended Chiefs scoring drives.
To make matters worse, Mahomes performed his signature sideline shimmy, almost stopping along the white line until a defender gave him a shove, then flopping out of bounds in an attempt to draw a late hit flag. The zebras didn’t fall for his theatrics. But the two-time MVP’s antics were so obvious a fed-up Aikman couldn’t contain himself.
“You see, rather than just run out of bounds, he slows down,” Aikman noted. “That’s been the frustration. I get it, I understand. That’s been the frustration of these defensive players around the league.”
Previously during the telecast, the former Cowboys QB ripped a play in which Mahomes danced around and slid late. The two Texans tacklers mostly hit each other rather than Mahomes. But they were still flagged.
“They’ve got to address that in the offseason,” said Aikman. “You can’t, as a quarterback, run around and play games with defenders, then be able to draw a penalty.”
On Wednesday, Colin Cowherd asked Brady whether the league was “protecting” Mahomes. Without citing Mahomes by name, Brady said quarterbacks should lose their protection when they scramble out of the pocket.
“It’s just a disservice to the game,” said Brady. “It’s something I would hope that people would really address and say, ‘Not that anybody’s trying to take advantage of the rules, but they’ve just gone to a point where it does impact the quality of the game.’”
On Thursday, I spoke with Drew Brees. The Super Bowl XLIV winner noted the NFL’s instant replay systems are in position to get the call right, virtually all of the time. It just depends on what the league chooses to replay.
“I think the thing they should be taking a hard look at on replay are the game-changing plays,” said Brees, who’s teaming with Rob Gronkowski to promote Bounty paper towels. “Like roughing the passer. There’s always one of those calls a game where it’s like, ‘Was it or wasn’t it?’”
After their loss in Kansas City, some disgusted Texans players openly complained about the officiating.
“Everybody knows how it is playing up here. You can never leave it into the refs’ hands,” said running back Joe Mixon. “The whole world sees, man, what it is. When it comes down to it, you can never leave it into the refs’ hands. It’s all good, though.”
Mahomes denied this week that he and the Chiefs get special treatment. But even the 29-year-old admitted his sideline flop, with arms comically flailing above his head, was a bit much.
“The refs saw it, and it didn’t get a flag. I understood it immediately and know that I probably shouldn’t have done that,” Mahomes said.
The notion that NFL games are rigged is far-fetched. But I think the league needs to get its arms around this issue in the offseason. Just news coverage around whether NFL games are rigged is Kryptonite that can dent The Shield. The sight of the league’s best player begging for penalty flags is not a good look from a media or marketing standpoint. The league wants NFL players to be seen as ferocious, modern-day gladiators—not soft players theatrically flopping to the turf in an attempt to game the refs.
Walt Anderson, the NFL’s SVP of officiating, defended the two controversial Mahomes flags on NFL GameDay, arguing his refs got both calls right. A source close to the thinking of NFL headquarters in New York noted that the refs did not fall for Mahomes’s sideline shimmy.
But the Mahomes controversy is taking attention away from what NFL wants viewers to focus on this weekend: the AFC/NFC conference championships between the Bills-Chiefs and Commanders-Eagles, with the winners off to Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans.
I’d hate to be the crew officiating this Sunday’s Bills-Chiefs. There will be millions of CBS Sports viewers poised over their keyboards and phones, ready to scream bloody murder if the refs seem to be favoring Mahomes and the Chiefs.
What can be done? To push through real change, an NFL franchise like the Texans must propose a rule change such as creating a penalty for flopping. (The Texans declined to comment for this story.) Unlike the NBA, the NFL doesn’t have penalties for flopping. The league never needed one. If it did, the penalty would fall under the nebulous description of “unsportsmanlike conduct.” But given the controversy swirling around Mahomes, it may be a rule whose time has come. Especially when legendary NFL quarterbacks like Aikman, Brady, and Brees—with 11 Super Bowl wins among them—think so. Will the NFL listen?
