Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney is pointing fingers at the officials, and not at himself, over the offside penalty that negated a touchdown late in Sunday’s loss to the Bills.
Toney claimed that it’s the referee’s job to tell a player if he is lined up illegally. That’s not a requirement of the officials’ job, although officials do sometimes give warnings to players and coaches.
“Whether it was, an inch, two inches, whatever in front of the ball, the referee got a job to let me know,” Toney told reporters in the Chiefs’ locker room. “He didn’t make no effort. 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 also said the NFL falsely claimed that a referee warned him about being offside. But referee Carl Cheffers’ only comment came to a pool reporter immediately following the game, and Cheffers stood by the call and said the officials are under no obligation to warn players that they’re offside.
“Then they came back and lied and said they gave me a warning, which I never talked to a ref,” Toney said.
Toney said he considers the offside call “[p]retty much bogus, and that it took away what should have been one of the highlights of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s career. Kelce caught a pass from Patrick Mahomes and then spontaneously lateraled the ball to Toney, who ran it in for a touchdown that the offside flag wiped out.
“Unfortunately, they took back the greatest play the greatest tight end that played the game did,” Toney said. “Just a great play taken back by the greatest 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 whether he’s lined up legally whether the officials warn him or not.