The Kansas City Chiefs recently came up with a huge victory over the San Francisco 49ers to win Super Bowl LVIII. Considering over 120 million people were watching this game, every aspect of this has been scrutinized. Of course, there tends to be at least one big discussion point after every Super Bowl.
This year, it happens to be the lack of holding penalties committed by the Chiefs’ offensive line during the Super Bowl. It has left some people thinking the game is “rigged” considering how many holding penalties the Chiefs had going into that game. However, one statistic may prove that this is a false narrative.
7 OL Holding Penalties in Last Six Super Bowls
People have liked to bring up the fact the Chiefs did not have an OL holding penalty called against them in Super Bowl LVIII. However, the Chiefs were not the only team this happened to in recent years. This point was brought up by Geoff Schwartz of SiriusXM. He pointed out that there have only been seven OL holding penalties in the last six Super Bowls combined.
In other words, there is typically only about one per Super Bowl. There was one OL holding penalty called combined in Super Bowl LVIII. However, two of these Super Bowls did not have a single one of these such penalties.
No Consistent Kansas City Chiefs Patterns
Nfl Super Bowl Lvii Kansas City Chiefs Vs Philadelphia Eagles
An important note is that the Chiefs have been in four of the last six Super Bowls. During these appearances, Super Bowl LVIII was the only one where they did not have an OL holding penalty and their opponent did. This narrative does not match their prior appearances.
Super Bowl LIV and Super Bowl LVII did not have a single OL holding penalty called on either side. Then, there is Super Bowl LV. For those of you who do not remember, this is the one Super Bowl the Chiefs lost in this stretch. During that Super Bowl, the Chiefs had three OL holding penalties. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had zero.
Integrity Issue
The bigger issue here is the number of fans who think the NFL is rigged. This tends to gain momentum when the Kansas City Chiefs are involved. Last year, one in six NFL fans stated that they believed NFL games were rigged. Now, with more claims like the one discussed in this article gaining traction, that number will likely only increase next season.
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