Late in the Chiefs’ win over the Broncos on Sunday Night Football, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was flagged for a false start.
“I still don’t know why I got called for the false start,” Mahomes said. “So I’ll try to figure that out and not do that again. I thought I was pretty common on what I usually do on hard counts. But he called it, so you’ve got to try to not do it again.”
Former NFL referee Terry McAulay defended the call on the broadcast, saying Mahomes made a quick and abrupt motion while in the shotgun, although McAulay acknowledged that a false start like that against a quarterback hasn’t been called in a long time.
It may have been the right call by the letter of the rule, but when a call that hasn’t been made in a long time is suddenly called once, it undermines confidence in NFL officiating. As a lot of calls have this season.