Yeah the line was horrendous, but the refs put this game out of reach
 

Play by the line was the worst excuse for blocking that I have ever seen and the WRs let Pat down so many times it was unreal, but our play way the least of our worries. The refs were not going to let Tom Brady lose a home Super Bowl.

7 penalties for 82 yds on KC

1 penalty for 5 yds on TB

5 of those 7 penalties were key reasons as to why the Bucs had a 21-6 lead at halftime.

On the Bucs 2nd TD they were gifted 3 huge penalties

The holding call on the punt which made us punt again. Punt was shanked and instead of the Bucs starting at their own 30 they start at the KC 38.

The horse shit defensive holding call that negated a Mathieu int. One of many penalties that was borderline at best. This type of play happens all season and is rarely called during the regular season and is never called in the postseason since the officials typically swallow their whistles.

Horseshit offsides call on the FG which resulted in a first down. Didn't look like he was lined up in the neutral zone and there definitely should have been a measurement to verify that it was actually a first down.

Very next play Bucs score a TD.

Bucs 3rd TD drive to go up 21-6 right before halftime is another bullshit sequence of ticky tack penalties that should never been called. One 34 yard pass interference call because feet got tangled and the WR fell. A play you see, but is never called a penalty. A few plays later we see a ball thrown out of the back of the end zone that nearly hits the wall, a ball that had no chance of being caught, but still the flags come in flying. PI on TM and the ball goes to the 1 yard line.

The officials seemed to be calling two different games. When the Bucs had the ball the officials were quick to throw a flag, but once the Chiefs went on offense this officiating crew decided to go back to the way playoff games are normally called and they didn't want to affect the game.

That game should have been 10-6 at half and the momentum would have been in KCs favor.

Sure during a game I will bitch about officiating, but once I've had time to think rationally I'm usually not a blame the refs guy. I gave myself some time to think about this loss with a clear head and I still very strongly believe those officials influenced the outcome of that game and it was much more than they typically do.

There was one play towards the end of the game where Suh lunged at Pat leading with his helmet and it looked like he made helmet to helmet contact with Pat, no flag. Another time I saw someone hit Pat in the helmet with their hand, no flag. I saw multiple instances in which a defender made contact with a receiver early or grabbing and holding a receiver after the initial 5 yards.

These guys are playing against the best of the best and it doesn't take many mistakes to cause a superior team to lose to an inferior team. Having shit stain refs that are clearly favoring 1 team over the other can be impossible to over come.

Tom Brady has consistently had the refs help him out. I went back to the NE vs NYG game, which just happens to be the most fairly officiated game and what a surprise the Tom Bradies lost that game, to see how fair the officiating has been.

Tom Brady teams (5 games) - 21 penalties/146 penalty yds/17 1st downs from penalties

His opponents - 40 penalties/344 penalty yds/8 1st downs from penalties

Hell tonight we had 120 penalty yards which is only 26 yds less than Tom's teams have had in 5 games. Tonight Tom's team got 6 first downs from the result of a penalty. That's almost the entire total of his SB opponents combined.

Once again the refs were instrumental in Tom winning another Super Bowl. Tom's and the Patriots dynasty/legacy is the biggest fraud in sports. Phony champions that consistently cheated and required the NFL and refs to bail them out. The sooner that fraud Tom hangs it up the better.

Here's some more "interesting" stats

So Tom Brady has had 10 SB games and in those 10 games his teams have been penalized

47 times for 324 yds and has been given 26 1st downs from penalty yards.

His opponents have been penalized 71 times for a total of 562 yards and have 15 1st downs from penalty yards.

Now let's look at games since 2001 in which Tom Brady wasn't present and see how penalties were called.

11 games

135 penalties, 1125 yards, 29 1st downs from Penalties

That averages out to 6.1 penalties, 51 yards, 1.3 1st downs off penalties per team

Opponents of the Tom in the SB average 7.1 penalties, 56 yards, and 1.5 1st downs from penalties

Tom Bradys team averages in the SB are 4.7 penalties, 32.4 yards, 2.6 1st downs from penalties.

The 1st downs from penalties is the most bullshit of all. Since 2001 there has only been 4 teams that have gotten 4 or more 1st downs from penalties. Tom Bradys teams have been the recipients of 3 of those 4. There has been 12 instances in which teams were awarded 3 or more first downs from Penalties. Tom Brady's teams got 5 out of the 12.

50% of the time Tom has been helped by more than 3 penalties for 1st downs. Only 20% of Tom's opponents have benefitted from that same stat. In 11 other SBs between 22 teams only 23% of teams benefitted from the same thing.

Tom's a God damn fraud. I wish someone in the media would bring up the bias that the refs show Tom.

We didn’t score a single TD.

We might have if we got phantom holding calls and DPIs on every Mahomes incompletion or interception, though. That ended up being a good strategy for Brady.

Same refs who let the Chiefs get away with a bunch of holding calls and an obvious face mask? Those refs? Those refs are what held the Chiefs to 9 points?


Both Chiefs' lines got their asses kicked, Brady outplayed Mahomes, and Tampa shut down Hill. That's what put the game out of reach.



Edit: KC's punting in the first half helped the Bucs win, too.

The Bucs defense beat the shit out of our backup O line. It sucks but I’m not gonna blame the refs for that.

Yes they beat the hell out of career backups.

Everyone holds and it's at the discretion of the refs to throw a flag and I'm sure they've ****ed a team Bradys played against with a perfectly timed holding call. The refs ruined this game just as much as the shitty o line. The refs help Tom time after time.

That really is an amazing stat...and the thing is it doesnt even tell the whole story of when and where they occurred.

Bucs had 6 first downs off penalties in the first half...which is only two less that Brady's playoff opponents have received in 5 complete games...

In close games...you'll never beat him with that level of disparity.

The dude's career is fake...there is no other way to say it.

This is how he can have pedestrian numbers and 7 rings....hell, he had scored 3 1st quarter points in 9 SBs before tonight.

In two post-season games vs. Mahomes...he's had 2 INTs waved off for flags...both drives ended with a TD. He's had crucial 3rd down passes hit the ground and ruled complete...even after review.

Agree with OP, the refs cost the Chiefs dearly - not even close. You wonder if perhaps the covid protocol stuff forced the NFL’s hand to say sorry you can play but you ain’t winning. The refs were paid off big time in this game - big time hose job.

I also wonder how much our offensive line was paid off to let the bucs harass mahomes all night...something is definitely fishy. I wouldn’t put it past Brady to pay off the Oline to not protect this game.

Nope

Ready for the influx of people that will come in here not read any of the OP and tell me I'm wrong.

The only thing that you were wrong about was the holding call on the punt. That one was pretty obvious and happened when to protect the punt from getting blocked. Even if the Chiefs would have played better, there’s no way the refs would have allowed them to win last night.

How did the Bucs not receive any holding calls except one blatant one? That's what I call bullshit on for sure

Jesus dude, the Chiefs OL got away with a ton of blatant holding as well. The difference is your backups got destroyed anyway because they aren't even good enough to protect Mahomes holding for dear life.

Chiefs get pretty much all the calls these days. Your DB's constantly held/mugged the Bills receivers with few if any flags.

Injuries doomed you. Not officials. The smart play by the NFL was to have Mahomes beat Brady officially taking the torch.

The refs are not why we lost.

I do wish everything was reviewable in the NFL. (Maybe just the playoffs) Too many bad/subjective PI calls that are hard to judge in real time.

My biggest problem was the holding penalty that took away the Matheiu interception. It was extremely lame and that wasn’t garnered to be called. It changed the entire landscape of the game too. We had the momentum after they stopped the Bucs on the 1 yard line on 4th down and then made that an interception.

And that Matheiu penalty in the endzone was the same bullshit that gave the Bucs 4 points.

JFC - just stop with that stupid line of BS. Other than that, the rest of your post is accurate

The Chiefs were one of the most-penalized teams this year and were absolutely raped by officiating in both of Mahomes’ losses this year.

The refs sucked, yes, but I think it's like a 95% chance we lose the game even if they didn't call a single penalty in the first half.

We got beat. It is what it is.

I usually don't blame the refs either but I think the refs really hurt the Chiefs yesterday. Everything that they called could be called but is rarely called and that just killed any potential change of momentum.

You guys forgot to mention the no call on Pringle near the endzone in the 2nd half, which would have lead to a TD.

That being said, long term I believe all teams get wronged by the refs at the same level. And 49ers last year might have a point that the refs favored the Chiefs. 49ers fans certainly felt this way. The Browns too this year. Maybe even the Bills. So it is fair game I guess.

The Oline was just a complete disaster as everyone has said.

+1

That's exactly where I am. I would be willing to spend some time analyzing how stupid some of those calls were, but in the end I don't think it would have mattered.

It was still very frustrating to watch

The refs were definitely calling weird shit. The holding call on Ward to nullify the INT and the DPI on Mathieu in the end zone were both absolute horseshit. The personal fouls on Jones and Mathieu were also pretty bad.

But we lost this game due to other reasons. If we had come out there fired up and focused, we'd have overcome those penalties like great teams do. Instead the whole team outside of Mahomes, CEH and Butker choked. The biggest issues were:

1) Offensive line play. It was absolute garbage all night. Like, collectively the worst effort I've seen in quite some time. Every man on that line should be embarrassed. Remmers especially has now been a part of two of the worst OL performances in the Super Bowl in the last 20 years probably. Injuries suck but you just cannot expect to consistently win big games with guys like Remmers, Wylie and Wisniewski starting.

If there were any QB back there besides Mahomes, they'd have taken 8+ sacks last night. It took a Herculean effort for him to only take 2.

2) That debacle right before the end of the 1st half was inexcusable. Calling the first timeout or two wasn't a horrible idea, though, I didn't like it. We'd just had 29:30 to score points and only mustered 6. What did we really expect to do with :30 and maybe 1 timeout? But whatever. The timeouts were called so how did the defense allow that big DPI to Mike Evans? And then the DPI on Mathieu in the end zone (should have been illegal contact at worst)?

We should have been content to go into the half down 14-6. We were getting the ball back. At that point, the game's wide open. Instead, we pulled that little stunt, giving up another 7 points and getting humiliated with another 60 yards of penalties in the process. If we let the Bucs kneel out that half, it's potentially a totally different ball game.

3) The defense didn't show up. Gronk probably went over 100 yards and had 2 TDs, we made Fournette/Ronald Jones look like All-Stars and there wasn't nearly enough pressure on Brady after those first couple drives.

4) The pass catchers dropping balls and not winning 1-on-1s. Two miracle throws from Mahomes hit Hill and Williams right on the facemask right at the goal line and they were both dropped. Kelce had a big 3rd down drop that stalled a crucial drive we needed to stop the bleeding. Hardman was targeted/touched the ball probably 6-7 times and gained maybe like 8 yards total. Watkins was invisible. One of Mahomes' INTs was the direct result of Hill waiting for the ball to come to him, which allowed the DB the opportunity to get his hand in to cause the deflection leading to the INT.

The Jones call was 100% correct. In fact he threw a punch and should have been ejected. So the Chiefs actually got one in their favor there.

please stop with the excuses. We sucked. Mahomes sucked. He was TERRIBLE, looked like a rookie out there.

The whole of America is listening to these exuses and laughing even harder than they were last night.

It sucks to be the butt of all these jokes but well have to use it as motivation for next year.

Every team knows you can get under his skin and get him to retaliate and get caught. He needs to play smarter.

5) are punter is a bag of dicks...

Hmm, maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but it seemed like an open-handed palm push. Early in the Super Bowl, that's 100% just a break it up type of situation.

I will agree with the other poster, though, that the league now knows it's easy to bait him into drawing dumbass penalties. I'm sure the league caught wind of the punch he threw against the Bills and that probably contributed to the quick flag this time around.

Point #2, I understand AR taking a timeout trying to get another chance to score before halftime especially with getting the ball 1st in the 2nd. What he didn't count on was 2 bullshit penalties giving TB 44 yards in penalties of the 75 yards they traveled.

How was our defensive line supposed to get any pass rush? The penalties forced the DBs to stop playing aggressive and completely changed any gameplan we had against Brady. Look at those first two drives by the defense. That was our real defense.

But that offense outside of Mahomes was god awful. Horrible blocking. Horrible execution. Horrible play calling.

Yeah, it made the game infinitely more frustrating and I'm not sure when the last time I screamed at the TV as much.... but, besides the one non-call on Kelce where he caught it anyway, I don't remember any obvious bullshit that the cameras caught on offense (not usually looking for it though, and can't say I was exactly glued to every single play in the 2nd half).

All of the horrible, horrible calls obviously put more pressure on the team and so forth, but they executed a great gameplan to shut down an offense no one really thought could be shut down in a big game... so, tip your cap as a fan and move on. :shrug:

And **** Tom Brady.

Blaming the refs after that butt rape is embarrassing and you should stop looking for excuses. The chiefs are overrated

Jones was retaliating and it was clear as day. The official was right there.

Brady outplayed Mahomes. LMAO

The game was terribly officiated but the Chiefs play lost them the game. Dropped passes, missed blocks, shitty punts and bad tackling.

The end.

I'm with op, yes the line was sickening... but the way the first half in particular was called completely took the edge away from our defense

Until last night, the league had been letting teams "just play" throughout the playoffs, but they decided to make themselves a huge part of the story in the years biggest game

The refs won the first half, Tampa Bay won the second half

The deal is though, they let Tampa Bay's defense play the whole game.

^Stupid^

Disagree, the negated INT was HUGE.

Finally played a game where all the dumb mistakes the Chiefs make cost them.


Add that to horrendous calls and you get this blowout.

Yep, every single time something broke our way they took it back

Was it the ONLY reason we lost?

No, not at all

But it damn sure put us in a hole, and stole our guys energy by constantly pulling the rug out from underneath them in critical situations

It looks like the NFL needs to send an apology to Dee Ford. It's pretty clear that lining up offsides isn't a penalty during the playoffs, considering how many times the Buccs did it yesterday without a single flag (the flags came when they actually jumped early).

How bad was the line?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Patrick Mahomes ran a total of 497 yards before his passes/sacks tonight per <a href="https://twitter.com/NextGenStats?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NextGenStats</a>. <br><br>That&#39;s the most pre-throw/pre-sack yards run by any quarterback in any game this season.</p>&mdash; Seth Walder (@SethWalder) <a href="https://twitter.com/SethWalder/status/1358618062535225345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Yeah I'm sorry he was great. Any other QB in the league gives that performance and we'd be piling on laughing. Hell Josh Allen was under just as much pressure two weeks ago and he at least managed to get his team in the endzone a couple times

Mahomes was flat out BAD and hopefuuly he leans from it and doesn;t make exuses to himself. That's how he'll learn

Stop crying, and man up. you were dominated in every facet of the game. You have more excuses than an alcoholic. That was a beating Mahomes took last night, and might be type of beating that last his career.

The 4th and 5 FG offsides call is the one that pissed me off and confirmed that the refs were intentionally slanting the game

No way game would take forever. Bad calls happen. Sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesnt. This game it just didnt

Simms and Florio on PFT trashing the refs for the way they called the game.

The officiating wasn't good, but whining about officiating is for losers...literally. The Chiefs played like dog shit, and got stomped out exactly as they deserved to. That was an embarrassing performance from all three phases of the game, and the coaching staff.

I was shocked at how Esiason and Burleson were talking about it in the postgame, they made no bones about it at all... the officiating was horrendous

Yup, Boomer called them out during halftime. Said too many flags led directly to the Buccs scoring.

the line was amazing..look at this perfect block

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EttdQCuX...jpg&name=large

It’s like some of you don’t understand that football is a game of momentum and to take away that INT on an absolute ticky tack call completely changed the game from that point on.

Refs gave the game to Tampa and made the chiefs one dimensional (on both sides of the ball) in ...it was the refs not Brady and the bucs

The officiating didn't COST the game. The officiating RUINED the game.

Hahaha this is hilarious. Y'all got your asses kicked. Accept the loss and move on. Tampa was the better team yesterday.

"the Chiefs OL got away with a ton of blatant holding as well" REALLY?!!! Is that why Pat was running for his life every down? Please go sit down......

If it adds 15-20 minutes so be it. Get the calls right is the most important thing.

Agreed, the excuse-making is pathetic. That was the worst performance by the Chiefs since Mahomes became the starter, and the OL was far from the only reason they lost.

Before the game, my thought on having people over to watch who don't really care was, meh, the conversations and what not fade to the background and I don’t mind if I'm the only one yelling at the TV....

....and then that level of BS happens and I'm really yelling at the TV, also later explaining I'm fully self aware it makes me look like a sore loser crybaby because my team is losing, but also giving the Bucs' defense credit and so forth.

I do think that level of BS should be called out... yeah, some fans try really ****ing hard to find that one holding non-call or whatever with no objectivity, but things like last night that are just as bad as that Saints/Rams DPI no call, should be called out, IMO.

It's not exactly some subjective crybaby excuse when it's that ****ing blatant.... and again, they probably still lose the game anyway, but the NFL should be called out on the garbage officiating, too.

It was a combo. The INT should have counted, there's a td off the board. The PI and subsequent td was bullshit. But Andy shouldn't have taken the timeouts to put the team in that spot. The offsides on the FG was stupid. He looked offsides, but 120 cameras and we never saw a shit down the line?

Hill dropped a TD in the first quarter. Feel like Mahomes played his heart out and he just didn't have any help. Even Kelce dropped a couple balls.

Ok, first of all, I'm old. Secondly, I've seen every Super Bowl game. Thirdly, I think that was the worst officiated game I've seen in any Super Bowl. Period.

I'm not saying this to suggest that the game was won/lost based on officiating calls (it wasn't), but simply to call out these zebras for doing a truly rotten job yesterday. A performance like this deserves public recognition......and ridicule.

If the 4th and 5 FG offsides flag didn't occur then it be slightly easier to take but that was so blatant Romo and Nance were speechless watching the replay because everyone was onside

This. Without the bad calls in the 1st half this game comes down to the wire and is exciting to the end regardless of the outcome.

Mike Golic pointed out how Tampa lined up offsides repeatedly with their helmets in the OLs lap but somehow the one on the FG got called when he didn't look offside.

I agree the officiating wasn't good, but it was magnified by ineptitude of the Chiefs. Of course a penalty is going to seem worse when the team has spent the entire game shitting down its own leg. The Chiefs embarrassed themselves.

I love how people keep saying we only scored 9 pts like the officiating didn’t impact our offense.

If we aren’t down multiple scores, we could have run the ball a lot more which was clearly working. They found something there, but they weren’t able to fully exploit it because they were down too much.

They took away our ability to constantly do the one thing we were doing well offensively last night.

Hardeman was lined up offsides on the field goal by two yards!

Hell......he was lined up farther offsides farther than Dee Ford.

That's not who they called it on, but look at the replay. It wasn't even close! Hardeman was offsides by a mile.

You were watching something different than I because everyone was set in the correct place

Dee Ford's was aggravating. There are no words for what Mecole did:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Chiefs are making a habit out of lining up offsides against Tom Brady <a href="https://t.co/rGX3r0hbmT">pic.twitter.com/rGX3r0hbmT</a></p>&mdash; Korked Bats (@korkedbats) <a href="https://twitter.com/korkedbats/status/1358578875345887235?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Apparently. Because Hardeman was lined up way offsides!

You're spelling ability is kindergarten level, Jesus Christ.

GTFO

Show me another QB who can throw the ball while his body is parallel to the ground.

Show me a QB who can be in the grasp, throw a sidearm WITH arc over thirty yards to the endzone and hit his WR in the face mask, only to be dropped.(Williams too)

Show me a QB who can buy time in the pocket for over 400 yds and only take two sacks.

Show me a QB playing with turftoe throughout the playoffs

Show me Tom Brady with four of his starting Olinemen out.

Know how I know he's easily the most dangerous QB in the league?

Your bs post.

We have the most valuable foundation piece in a 25 year old PM2. Brady is more accomplished, Mahomes is a better player right now.

He's a troll look at his join date

Yeah, Wisniewski blocking Wylie was a perfect example of how absolute shit the OL was last night. When they DID get a decent block, it was on a teammate.

edit: surprised they didn't get flagged for holding each other

Who in the hell thumbs-downed this post?


Good lord, everything you said is dead-on correct.

I really wish there was an overhead shot of this to see exactly where he was lined up. He may be in the neutral zone, but for crying out loud he's looking directly at the ball. How is he lined up wrong?

There were four game-changing calls in the first half that completely altered the outcome.

There was the completely wrong call against Breeland that resulted in a touchdown for the other team. There's zero doubt that the call was wrong. It's a bright line. It was not a penalty according to the NFL rulebook. I can see where the official could have screwed up honestly, though. When I saw the play live it looked like Breeland was beat and tackled the guy. That's not at all what happened, but since the official on that side of the field is not the top of the profession, I can see an honest mistake happening.

There was the neutral zone call above. It's frustrating that the same official only seems to see neutral zone violations on key plays. Maybe Mecole is over the line, because Mecole played pretty much the worst Super Bowl game ever played.

There was the call that negated Matthieu's interception and cost the Chiefs a possession. I need to see that one again to make a judgment on whether it was a legit call that would have been called on other plays.

There was the call in the end zone on Matthieu. Did that one result in a score or was that the goal line stand? Either way, I think most reasonable people didn't see contact that was worthy of a penalty.

It would be nice to figure out which officials made those specific calls. Was there a pattern in one official making all of the questionable calls? We know this officiating group is not the best in the league and they were there for reasons unrelated to their performance, but how weak are they as a group?

That said, the Chiefs were not good yesterday. They dropped two touchdown passes that would have made them competitive and probably had less than a 50 percent chance of winning on their own merits. But it would have been nice if they weren't down 20 points early because of the above four calls to give them that chance.

Rainman, I’ll save you from having to go back and watch the “hold” on Mathieu’s INT. It was 100% bullshit.