Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney is pointing the finger at the officials, not himself, for the offside penalty that negated a touchdown late in Sunday’s loss to the Bills.
Toney claimed that it was the referee’s job to tell a player if he was playing illegally. This is not a requirement of the officials’ job, although officials sometimes issue warnings to players and coaches.
“Whether it’s an inch, two inches, or whatever it is in front of the ball, the referee has a job to tell me,” Toney told reporters in the Chiefs’ dressing room. “He made no effort. You watch the video, and he made no effort to say anything about non-alignment. And he obviously wanted to do it regardless. But like I said, we’ll go back to the details and make sure it all prints nicely.”
Toney also said the NFL falsely claimed the referee had warned him for offside. But the only comment from referee Karl Chivers came to a pool reporter immediately after the match, and Chivers stood by the call and said that officials were not obligated to warn players of offside.
“Then they came back and lied and said they gave me a warning, which I never spoke to the referee about,” Toney said.
Toney said he considered the offside call “largely bogus, and it took away what should have been one of the highlights of Travis Kelce’s career.” Kelce caught a pass from Patrick Mahomes and then casually sent the ball to Toney, who ran it for a touchdown that was erased by the offside flag.
“Unfortunately, they took back the greatest play, the greatest tight end that the game has ever played,” Tony said. “Just a great play recovered by the tight end.”
It was a great play by a great tight end, but it was also a bad play by Toney, who is responsible for knowing if he was called legally whether the officials warned him or not.
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