Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney has been a huge topic of conversation over the past couple of weeks. The offensive offsides call that negated the go-ahead touchdown against the Bills was called back thanks to Toney lining up offsides. Both Patrick Mahomes and head coach Andy Reid condemned the call saying that the refs should have warned Toney about lining up offsides. Toney echoed that sentiment in a recent interview.
Kadarius Toney: Refs' job is to warn me, they took away one of the greatest plays ever. https://t.co/Z6UJQvMCnA
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) December 16, 2023
Kansas City Chiefs Kadarius Toney Sounds Off On Refs
Toney claims it is the referee’s job to tell a player if he is lined up incorrectly.
“Whether it was, an inch, two inches, whatever in front of the ball, the referee got a job to let me know. He didn’t make no effort. You watch the video, he didn’t make no effort to say anything about no alignment. So apparently, he wanted to do that regardless. But like I said, we’re just going back to the details and just make sure we fine print everything.”
The wide receiver went on to echo what Mahomes said in his postgame press conference that the penalty took away one of the greatest plays of Travis Kelce‘s career and that is a crime. “Just a great play taken back by the greatest tight end,” Toney said.
Move On And Take Responsibility
I’m very tired of all the excuses. It is not the job of the officials to warn players about potential rule-breaking. Their job is to make sure the game is being played by the rules. Toney was lined up offside. Someone who has been playing football their whole life should be able to line up correctly for a play. Do refs give warnings sometimes? Sure they do. But that isn’t a requirement.
I also hate the narrative that this takes away from Kelce’s career. He wasn’t a fringe Hall of Famer whose career would have been transformed by this play. He still has plenty of amazing highlights on his resume. Mostly, it boggles my mind that this team is still talking about this. It’s time to move on and take responsibility. Line up correctly next time and it won’t be an issue. The Kansas City Chiefs most likely coached up Kadarius Toney all week on this so it shouldn’t be an issue moving forward. Now it is time to move on.
