Patrick Mahomes is one of the many people who believe last night’s roughing the passer penalty on Chiefs defensive lineman Chris Jones should not have been called.
As a quarterback, Mahomes often benefits from the league’s sometimes over-protection of signal callers. But this time, he felt it crossed a line.
Just before halftime, Jones strip sacked Derek Carr and recovered what could’ve been a momentum-shifting fumble in Raiders territory. Instead, the officials ruled that the Chiefs pass rusher landed with his full body weight on the Las Vegas QB.
“There are certain situations it shouldn’t be called and it gets called, but it’s like anything in the league, man,” Mahomes said during his weekly appearance on The Drive. “Those guys are watching film and trying to do their best to call the game the best way possible and not affect it. There’s got to be a little bit of common sense along the lines of Chris Jones.
“He stripped the ball, I know some of his body weight lands on him, but he breaks the ground and he was holding the ball in the other hand. So there’s only so much you can do as a defensive lineman to try to get off the quarterback whenever you have a clean shot on him.
“There are definitely times where it should be called. … It’s a hard penalty to call, but the refs continue to learn. They’ll continue to learn from their mistakes and continue to officiate the games the best way possible.”
Despite this controversial call, the Chiefs were able to storm back and claim a 30-29 victory over the visiting Raiders. Mahomes led the charge with four passing touchdowns, all to star tight end Travis Kelce.
This controversial call was the second highly-publicized roughing the passer penalty of Week 5, joining the costly late-game call against the Atlanta Falcons while sacking Tom Brady on Sunday.