Jamaal Charles: Chiefs lost because of referees

The Kansas City Chiefs had a couple of key calls go against them late in their loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, the most notable of which came on a Travis Kelce fumble.

With the Chiefs trailing by three and less than six minutes remaining in the game, Kelce caught a pass for a first down and brought it inside the Cardinals’ 25-yard line. He lost control of the ball, but it appeared the second-year tight end had already hit the ground when the ball came out.

The call on the field was that the runner was down by contact. Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians wisely threw the challenge flag, and the call was overturned. Jamaal Charles and company felt the play should have stood as called.

“The reason why we lost is the refs didn’t go our way,” Charles said, according to Adam Teicher of ESPN.com.

On Monday morning, NFL head of officiating Dean Blandino said the officials got the call right. You can see Blandino’s explanation and a video of the play here.

“The ball was loose before he hit the ground, and then the question was, did he re-gain control of it as he was rolling over? And this is treated just like a pass,” Blandino said on NFL Network, via Pro Football Talk. “So if you fumble and the ball is loose, in order to re-gain possession, you have to maintain control as you go to the ground. And as you watch the play, you see Kelce never re-gained control of it. He’s bobbling the ball, he rolls over, it comes completely loose and then Arizona recovers it. So it was a fumble and properly overturned on replay.”

I’m not an officiating expert, but it looked like a fumble to me. Cardinals safety Deone Bucannon clearly punched the ball out, and there’s no way Kelce was able to regain possession and control the ball before he hit the ground. If he did, it wouldn’t have popped out so easily.

Screenshot via The Big Lead