The Houston Texans have fumed that they were up against both the Kansas City Chiefs and NFL referees in their controversial playoff defeat at Arrowhead on Saturday night.
DeMeco Ryans’ men were beaten 23-14 by Kansas City in a Divisional playoff marred by several contentious decisions that went in the home team’s favor.
Fans were left seething when Patrick Mahomes benefited from two huge calls on the night, including when Texans defensive end Will Anderson Jr was penalized for tackling the Chiefs quarterback a split-second after he released the ball.
Referees also flagged two Houston defenders for unnecessary roughness after they made slight contact with Mahomes when he slid to the ground at the end of an offensive play, a decision Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy branded ‘disgusting’.
And having seen some controversial calls go against them, Anderson suggested after the game that the Texans were expecting as much at Arrowhead.
‘We knew it was going to be us against the refs going into this game,’ he told reporters.
The Texans were on the wrong end of some controversial calls in their defeat to the Chiefs
Houston coach DeMeco Ryans aimed a thinly-veiled dig at the officials after their defeat
Head coach DeMeco Ryans echoed that sentiment in his postgame press conference, saying: ‘We knew going into this game, man, it was us vs everybody. When I say everybody, it’s everybody.’
He then added: ‘With that, knowing going into this game what we were up against, we can’t make the mistakes that we made. We had a lot of self-inflicted mistakes that happened.
‘Whether it’s special teams not converting our kicks, defensively not being where we’re supposed to be on coverage, offensively not protecting our quarterback and keeping him clean… you marry that on top of everything else that we had to deal with, it’s gonna be a really tough uphill battle.’
Portnoy was one of many on social media left fuming with the controversial decisions in Kansas City’s favor, taking to X during Saturday night’s game to accuse NFL referees of ‘cheating’.
‘The good news is the Texans are dominating and their defense is flying around. The bad news is the refs are cheating and they are losing,’ he posted.
A number of users agreed with Portnoy, including one who posted a clip of Anderson’s tackle on Mahomes and said: ‘THE #NFL IS SO RIGGED FOR THE #CHIEFS! A bulls*** roughing the passer penalty against the #Texans for a PICTURE PERFECT TACKLE against Precious Patrick #Mahomes.
‘Ridiculous! The NFL is scripted and UNWATCHABLE!’
Texans defender Will Anderson Jr received a controversial penalty for this tackle on Mahomes
Fans were left equally furious with the roughing-the-passer call in the Chiefs-Texans game
Another argued: ‘When will the NFL learn that what they are doing for the Mahomes/Chiefs and what they did for [Tom] Brady/Patriots only infuriates football fans. No one wants to watch refs giving every call to a player or team. That’s not football!’
‘Apparently if you sneeze on Mahomes you get a penalty. Unreal,’ a third commented sarcastically.
‘You can find this 1,000 times with other quarterbacks this year wear it was not called. Only mahomes,’ said another.
While one simply put: ‘That’s ridiculous.’
ESPN analyst Jason Kelce, whose brother Travis was playing for the Chiefs on Saturday night, also described the roughing-the-passer call on Anderson as ‘questionable’.
Commentator Troy Aikman, meanwhile, said about the unnecessary roughness call later in the game: ‘Oh, come on! I mean, he’s a runner. I could not disagree with that one more. He barely gets hit.’