NFL referees just cannot seem to get facemask penalties called correctly these days.
During the second quarter of Sunday’s showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills, the refs had an absurd miss of a facemask by Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones. Bills running back Ty Johnson got the ball on a 3rd-and-1 play in Kansas City territory and had his facemask grabbed by Jones, causing his head to turn noticeably.
The officials failed to throw a flag though, so Jones simply got away with the pull. Here is the video.
refs miss a facemask penalty on the Chiefs… pic.twitter.com/DfOxQRADrl
— Tedd Buddwell (@TedBuddy8) November 17, 2024
Johnson powered through the grab to pick up the first down anyway, and the Bills managed to finish off the drive with a field goal to take a 16-14 lead into halftime. But that didn’t make the flub by the refs any more excusable.
The last several weeks in the NFL have seen multiple blatant facemask pulls go uncalled. In Week 8, the Minnesota Vikings got hosed by a brutal missed facemask in the fourth quarter, and then in Week 10, a facemask whiff was one of several key non-calls that went against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Now in Week 12, it was the Bills’ turn to dine on that end of the table. While there has been some talk about the NFL making changes to the facemask rules in the offseason, that isn’t much help right now when officials are missing facemasks left and right in the middle of the current season.
