The Super Bowl LVII between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday was a game of inspiration, frenzy, spirited performance, slippery field, and a controversial call in the final minutes of the championship showdown. A call that may have changed the outcome of the game or denied a chance of the game going into OT. The call in question here was made with the game hanging in balance at 35-35 and with 1:54 minutes left on the clock, the refs gave a defence holding penalty against the Eagles. The call immediately gave the Chiefs, which were 3rd-and-8 at the Eagles’ 15-yard line, a first down.
Eagles fans didn’t like it. LeBron James didn’t agree with the call. A lot of former players called the refs out for the outrageous call which stopped the game short of becoming one of the all-time classics. Here are some of the tweets:
Sorry but I don’t like that call! Not for the Super Bowl man! ????????♂️
— LeBron James (@KingJames) February 13, 2023
That’s such a crappy way to decide a Super Bowl man
— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) February 13, 2023
That is a far too soft and terrible a penalty call on which to end a Super Bowl.
A crime against all of us.
— M@ (@MattSpiegel670) February 13, 2023
You absolutely cannot make that call there
— Julian Edelman (@Edelman11) February 13, 2023
The refs were doing such a great job letting the boys play.
That call is actual bull shit and should have never been called.
Embarrassing.
— Taylor Lewan (@TaylorLewan77) February 13, 2023
What happened after that call was pure game awareness from the Chiefs. Their QB Patrick Mahomes, despite a troubling ankle, continued with the drive, which ended in Chiefs’ Kicker Harrison Butker’s 27-yard field goal with just eight seconds left on the clock. The scores were 38-35 and FG was good, good enough for the Chiefs to win their second Super Bowl in four years.
One of the two involved in the call, Eagles cornerback James Bradberry, however, accepted that he was holding Chief’s Juju Smith-Schuster’s jersey. “It was a holding,” Bradyberry told reporters, per the Boston Globe. “I tugged on the jersey. … They called it. I was hoping they would let it ride.”
Well, even if the penalty was technically right, it raises a question of whether the game has become too technically right with no space for some harmless non-direction-changing plays. Imagine, if the call wasn’t given. The Chiefs would have scored the FG but the Eagles would have had enough time to respond and level and we might have been writing about that play instead of this one. But alas, it shall stay as what if.
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