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Officials looked the other way on many Jawaan Taylor fouls

Football is back. Which means bad calls and non-calls during football are back.

It got ridiculous on Thursday night, when the officials repeatedly looked the other way on Chiefs right tackle Jawaan Taylor, who was constantly lined up too far into the backfield, moving his right leg when it should have been still — and starting into his pass-block set before the snap.

It wasn’t just a situation of uncalled pre-snap fouls. At one point, Taylor held Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson multiple times on the same play.

It became comical, frankly. But it’s not new. Throughout last season, many tackles (Lane Johnson mastered it) moved early. And there were many instances of uncalled holding by offensive linemen.

At one point, Chris Simms made a great point on PFT Live. As he sees it (and he’s right), defensive linemen have gotten better and better. Offensive linemen are overmatched. Officials are likely not calling false starts and/or holding helps to even things out.

It also helps to keep passing games moving and, most importantly, to keep quarterbacks from getting hit and, in turn, getting hurt.

Still, there must be limits. Tonight, the failure to penalize Taylor was on the wrong side of the line, by far.

The NFL is lucky the Lions won the game. If the Chiefs had won the game and/or covered the spread, the decision to allow Taylor to chronically move before the snap would have become a major issue on Friday.

It should still be a big issue; otherwise, it will continue.