In what was somehow not the strangest ending to a Thanksgiving weekend NFL game, the Kansas City Chiefs survived a Black Friday scare against the division rival Las Vegas Raiders thanks to a combination of strange game management and a perhaps even stranger penalty call.
With just 15 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Raiders spiked the ball on second down at the Chiefs’ 32-yard line. On the next play, center Jackson Powers-Johnson snapped the ball before center Aidan O’Connell was ready, the ball fell to the ground and the Chiefs recovered it.
After recovering the ball, it appears that the play had been ruined due to a false start penalty. But after officials consulted for a while, that penalty was changed to an illegal shift, which the Chiefs rejected. They kept the ball and knelt on it to end the game, rather than having to defend another snap after a false start, which would have erased the fumble because it’s a pre-snap penalty.
After the game, the NFL explained why the play was called that way.
“If the clock had been running at the time of the snap, then, by rule, an illegal change would become a false start,” a league spokesperson said, via The Athletic. “Since the clock stopped (shot on the second down play), an illegal move is a live ball foul.”
That explanation will surely satisfy all the conspiracy theorists who are convinced that the league only gives away calls (and wins) to the Chiefs, so there’s nothing more to worry about on that front.
