CBS NFL rules analyst discusses T.J. Watt's holding complaints; Kansas City-Buffalo controversial call

The NFL’s big officiating controversy of the week in Kansas City wasn’t really a controversy at all. It was just a case of unfortunate timing.

That’s CBS NFL rules analyst Gene Steratore’s take on the fallout from the offensive offside ruling against Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney late in his team’s eventual loss to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. Toney was called for lining up offside prior to the snap on a play, which resulted in him catching a lateral from Travis Kelce and scoring what appeared to be a go-ahead touchdown.

Play was called back but can't believe Kelce tried this ????

????: #BUFvsKC on CBS
????: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/pWMED8SAQa pic.twitter.com/LREwwhaQ1N

— NFL (@NFL) December 11, 2023

The all-22 angle of Toney's offsides makes it look even worse. pic.twitter.com/HoxK5pQQHn

— Brett Kollmann (@BrettKollmann) December 11, 2023

But the score was called back, and the Chiefs ended up losing the game. After the defeat, both head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes ripped the officiating in their postgame comments.

However, technicality or not, Steratore (Washington County, Pa./Uniontown) insists that the call was a good one.

“When you’re on the line of scrimmage, and you see hands, helmets, a toe — we call it ‘a slice of green,’ you always try to give them those benefits of the doubt so we don’t have a flag fest for these technicalities,” Steratore said on WDVE Tuesday morning. “When a player comes up and lines up on the line of scrimmage, and you can’t see the football because the player is blocking your view of that football, that’s when it becomes egregious, clear and obvious… Put yourself right on the line of scrimmage. Look right down the line toward the football and say, ‘Could that official at the bottom of the screen see the football where he or she was standing prior to that snap?’ The answer is definitely not. That player is completely covering the football. That’s clear and obvious.”

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As Steratore then went on to say, it’s unfortunate that call wiped out what ended up being a tremendously executed play by Kelce and Toney. But there’s no way an official knows what is about to happen in the future when he sees an infraction in the moment.

Steratore also commented on the recent complaints from star pass rushers such as T.J. Watt and Myles Garrett about holding calls being ignored. Watt went so far as to suggest that the league had something personal against him.

“You need to see that play from beginning to end, and when you see restrictions like there have been, you’ve got to throw your flag there,” Steratore said.

“When you miss them on those plays, they do jump out at everybody. You do see that one-on-one type of block in the offensive backfield — or something right at the edge of the point of attack. So (those plays) definitely draw everyone’s attention for the right reasons, and you need to get those plays right. When you don’t, there’s a lot of repercussions that you suffer when you miss those plays.”

However, Steratore added that the suggestion of conspiracy against Watt or any specific pass rusher is an “overreaction.”