"It's really f***ing up the game": Broncos sound off on game-altering missed call

DENVER — It was 3rd-and-7 with just under two minutes remaining. After digging out of 2nd-and-30, the Chiefs broke the huddle with under eight seconds remaining on the play clock.

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As Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes surveyed the Broncos defense quickly, he relayed a message to his offensive line.

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As the play clock struck zero, Chiefs center Mitch Morse still had the ball in his hands. Cornerback Chris Harris Jr. pointed at the clock, but before he could make too much of a fuss, the snap was off.

As he did countless times on the night, Mahomes kept his eyes downfield as he evaded a five-man rush from the Denver Broncos that included a safety blitz from Will Parks. The problem with sending Parks, though, was that it left Shaq Barret in coverage on tight end Demetrius Harris.

“I was covering him, and then I saw somebody else, and I peaked at him and just lost eyes on my man,” Barrett admitted after the game. “He kept running, and that play happened.”

“That play” was a game-changing play. Harris, loose behind the entire defense, hauled in a 35-yard dime from Mahomes that would have been a touchdown had he kept his balance.

A few plays later, Kansas City scored what would prove to be the game-winning TD.

It was a questionable defensive play call with even more questionable execution, but after the game, the Broncos couldn’t help but remember the fact that the play should have never happened.

“That was crazy, man,” Harris Jr. said. “It’s delay. It’s zero on the clock forever… That was a huge, huge no-call.”

“It was [delay of game,]” added Shaq Barrett. “I’m 100 percent sure.”

“Bro they had two! Two delay of games,” chimed in Domata Peko. “We all saw it, you know?”

Peko was far from done.

“That’s the s*** that gets to me man, because you work your ass off all week and you battle and you battle—they’re a helluva team, and we kind of got after their ass today—but you get a bad call there, and they end up getting the first down on that. There has to be some consistency with the calls, man. It seems like week to week it’s been bad… There were two delay of games that they missed, one in the third and one in the fourth. That big one here at the end kind of cost us. You work your tail off all week, and it sucks that the game ends up in the hands of the refs. That pisses me off.”

As the Chiefs huddled for their next play, the jumbotron showed the all-telling view of the clock on zero with the ball still in the center’s hands. The crowd lost it, as did the players on the field, who quickly showed the refs the screen, only to get an unsatisfying response.

“He just said, ‘Oh, we missed it,’ explained Peko. “Well yeah, you missed it, and they got the first down, so what justice does that give us? They have to really clean that s*** up because it’s really f***ing up the game.”

After being a part of another game-altering call last week, when he was flagged for a block in the back 20 yards behind Harris’ would-be touchdown return, you can understand the frustration.

There was also frustration surrounding the fact that the call couldn’t be reviewed. It’s rare to see a challengeable penalty but it’s not unprecedented, a few years back, the NFL made ‘too many men on the field’ a reviewable play because it’s cut and dry—were there more than 11 players on the field at the time of the snap or not?

Well, just like whether or not a basketball player got the ball out of his hands before the clock expired, it seems delay of game could be equally as cut and dry.

“Why don’t they call New York like they do with the damn late hits or whatever?” Wondered Peko.

“If a ref messes up on a call, yeah you should be able to fix it,” added Harris. “Go back and fix it. Like, dude, look how long it was when the clock was on zero. I mean, come on, man.”

They couldn’t fix it, and while, as Harris explained, they “still had plenty of chances” to win the game, it will be hard for Denver to get that image out of their head when they go to sleep tonight.