More than a half-hour after the game, members of the Kansas City Chiefs were still playing the guessing game.
Defensive end Chris Jones thought they had been penalized nine times. Head coach Andy Reid believed they rang up 10 flags. In fact, at the end of Super Bowl LV, the Chiefs had been called for 11 penalties for 120 yards.
"You can't have that," Reid said following the 31-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. "You can't have penalties — not that many, I think we had 10 of them total — and that, you're taking space away from yourself either defensively or offensively. So it is uncharacteristic and it's too bad it happened today."
Except … it wasn't uncharacteristic. A secret about the Chiefs that has been shrouded by a record-breaking offense is that the team is one of the most penalized squads of the last three seasons. Since 2018, only the Jaguars have averaged more penalties per game (including playoffs) than the Chiefs.
In 2020 alone, the Chiefs ranked fourth among all NFL teams in penalties with 105, when the average team logged 90.
I picked 2018 for a reason. That, of course, was the year Patrick Mahomes took over as quarterback and changed the future of the franchise. The offense played fast and loose. The defense, which has never been elite but always good enough to get them to the AFC title game at least, could come and go knowing that Mahomes would bail them out later if need be.
And special teams coordinator Dave Toub? His unit rang up 18 penalties this season, tied for second-most in the NFL all year. In fact, Kansas City's special teams have been in the among top-eight most penalized units in five of the past six years.
Being penalized is characteristic of the Chiefs. Just like their dynamic offense was characteristic of the Chiefs before running into the Todd Bowles buzzsaw, getting fooled by zone on first and second downs and then being further flummoxed by whatever he threw at them on third down.
And if it wasn't what Bowles did specifically to the Chiefs, maybe it had something to do with Kansas City's own discipline heading into their run-it-back attempt in Tampa.
"I just think we weren't on the same page as an offense in general," Mahomes said. "I wasn't getting the ball out on time. The receivers were running routes not exactly where I thought they were going to be at. And the offensive line, they were good at some times and sometimes they let guys through. When you're playing a good defense like that, you have to be on the same page as an offense and we weren't today. And that's why we played so bad."
So the offense was out of sync from the jump, and the defense couldn't get out of its own way. A defensive holding and defensive offside penalty in a second-quarter drive helped the Bucs get out to a 14-3 lead. On the next drive, the Chiefs got flagged for two defensive pass interference calls that put the ball at the one. (And this followed a bad decision by Reid to call a timeout before Tampa's third-and-2 play with 44 seconds left, stopping the clock for the home team. We did all see the Green Bay game two weeks ago, right?)
Chris Jones felt the penalty imbalance all night and spoke about it after the game. He did the thing where he doesn't exactly say what he wants to say, but lets you fill in the rest.
"Only referees can call the penalties," Jones said. "Penalties affect the game 1000%. What can I say? We got a lot of penalties called on us today."
The Bucs received four flags for 39 yards, and one of those was a useless taunting penalty that Antoine Winfield Jr. got for his peace sign to Tyreek Hill. Conspiracy? Home cookin? Refs out to help Brady?
Please.
It'd be easy to look at the Bucs and see they drew 84 penalties this year, which tied for 20th among all teams and was slightly below league average. But dig in. Following their Week 5 loss to the Bears, the Bucs led the league in penalties with 42. From Weeks 6 through 17, they had the fewest penalties of all teams: also 42.
A team led by Brady, who captained one of the least penalized teams of the last two decades, learned to play disciplined football throughout the season. They realized their margin for error was much slimmer than their main competition that boasted continuity — the Saints, Packers and Chiefs among them. What the Bucs couldn't allow was to beat themselves with penalties when they had other deficiencies to work through.
It's hard to believe the Chiefs will go the way of the last two Super Bowl losers and miss out on the postseason next year. They have Mahomes and Reid and the infrastructure to capture another AFC West title.
But as they search for what's missing, and as they try to stave off a team like the Bills in their own conference, the Chiefs should use this Super Bowl LV lesson. Devote themselves to making fewer mistakes and make things easier on their franchise quarterback.
