We’re debating the wrong question on the flag against Chiefs’ Kadarius Toney
A day after a rarely-seen-him-like-that news conference, Chiefs head coach Andy Reid sat in his office for a weekly Zoom call, and if you’ve paid attention to these things over the years, you’d note the more familiar demeanor. Mellow, even-keeled, all that.
But I’m going to add one more distinction, because it’s the most important distinction on this topic: He was considerably clearer about what set him off following the Bills’ 20-17 win against the Chiefs.
You probably don’t need the recap by now, but just in case: Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney was flagged for offensive offsides, a late-game penalty that wiped out one of the most remarkable Chiefs touchdowns we’ve seen in an era filled with remarkable touchdowns — oh, except this one would have just so happened to give them the lead with less than 90 seconds to play.
Which brings us to the clarity: As the football world debates one question — did Toney line up offside or not? — the ire from Reid derives from another question entirely:
Did the referees follow the usual protocol for it?
His answer: an emphatic no.
Look, I realize some of the replies to this column will remind me Toney lined up offside. I’ve seen the freeze frame. And I agree. He’s offside. Slightly.
What I’m telling you here: You’re arguing a different point.
The narrative about this unusual situation has somehow frequently failed to acknowledge why it’s so dang unusual.
Why is it? The offensive-offside infractions typically feature a warning, and I’m using the word “typically” rather than “always” because down judge Mike Carr failed to offer one Sunday at GEHA Field Arrowhead Stadium. I have spoken to a lot of people involved in the NFL, past or present, over the past 24 hours, and I’ve not found even one who can recall such a penalty that was not preceded by a warning. Sure, some have thoughts on Toney’s discipline or the team’s eventual response to it. Heck, I did.
But on one aspect of it, they all agree: “You see it all the time. Almost every game. Warning,” one former coach in Kansas City told me.
Much of the conversation both locally and nationally is focused on the gray area, and whether Toney stepped into it or beyond it, but Reid sees the big-picture situation as black and white. The process unfolds in a very specific manner, and this instance just plain skipped a step.
“You give the head coach a heads up, and then in our case, we can tell them,” Reid said during the Zoom call Monday. “And then if they get called, listen, you were warned. And so that’s how it’s worked over the years. That’s what I was really, really trying to get across. And I take a lot of pride in taking what the officials give me and going to our players and telling them — like immediately telling them — and giving them that (information) and telling them, ‘Hey, listen, they’re giving you a warning. If you don’t do it, that’s on your plate.’”
Most penalties are subjective.
The processes should not be.
And when we move the conversation there, we can start to understand a couple of things better — for starters, why Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes, even while acknowledging what we all saw, that Toney was likely a “couple of inches” offside, would argue the call anyway.
Their gripe is not that Toney stayed on his half of the line of scrimmage. It’s what happened next. And the timing — with 90 seconds remaining in a one-score game — to just gloss over the usual response.
“I think I’ve got a good relationship with the officials,” Reid said, “And I had no communication.”
Immediately after the game, Reid commented that, “I haven’t had (an offensive offside penalty) like that.”
Not any at all, actually.
Per ESPN Stats, Reid has coached more than 25,000 offensive snaps, and not a one of them included an offside penalty on the offense. You can’t convince me Kadarius Toney is the first player coached by Reid to line up past the line of scrimmage. You can’t even convince me he’s the first to line up clearly offside. As one Chiefs player told me after the game, it’s quite common for players to hear something from officials about their alignment.
Toney should have made sure he lined up correctly. He should have made sure he received confirmation from the official that he was indeed lined up correctly. That’s all on him. They weren’t his only mistakes in the game, but they are mistakes so simple that any of us could avoid them in a game that features the best athletes in the world. Can’t happen. But even if he doesn’t line up properly, the typical response is to first warn him for it.
The sentences in that paragraph are not mutually exclusive. They can all be true. Not everything needs to be an either/or proposition these days, does it?
Which brings me to the last point on the topic.
There’s been some publicized notion that offensive alignment is a point of emphasis from the league.
Which is true.
Kind of.
The league has warned teams about linemen being offside on the proverbial “tush push,” which would offer a distinct advantage on a type of quarterback sneak mastered by the Philadelphia Eagles, who ironically were whistled for offensive offside Sunday night.
A lineman, though. Guard Landon Dickerson was flagged for lining up offside, and even that came with some valid argument.
There have indeed been 14 offensive-offside penalties this season, per NFLpenalties.com, nearly as many as the previous seven years combined — but only four of those are wide receivers. I looked at those four, along with beat writer Jesse Newell, and one of them is egregious (a word referee Carl Cheffers used to describe Toney, by the way). The other two looked quite a bit like Toney’s alignment, including one Sunday from Panthers wide receiver Ihmir Smith-Marsette. The same crew has whistled two of the four this season, including the flag on Toney.
But the footage, to be frank, is beside the point. After all, it wouldn’t change a thing about what Reid or Mahomes or anyone in that building said. What they would want to ask is this: Was the player previously warned?
We so often seek consistency from the enforcement of penalties.
But the first step? At the very least, we ought to see it in the process.
This story was originally published December 11, 2023 at 6:22 PM.