Troy Aikman outraged by Patrick Mahomes foul call, DeMeco Ryans says Texans were against ‘everyone’

It has become a pastime for NFL fans to complain that the Kansas City Chiefs get all the calls. And NFL officials keep giving them reasons to complain.

On Saturday, it wasn’t just disgruntled non-Chiefs fans who were vocal. ESPN’s Troy Aikman was not at all pleased with an unnecessary roughness call on Patrick Mahomes that cost the Houston Texans 15 yards in an AFC divisional round game at Arrowhead Stadium.

Mahomes ran around and slid at the last possible second. Two Texans defenders collided, Mahomes was barely hit, but the penalty was against Houston.

It wasn’t the only time the Chiefs had the benefit of a call in their 23-14 victory that put them in the AFC Championship Game for the seventh straight season.

There was one rough pass penalty on Will Anderson Jr. in the first half, when Anderson barely hit Mahomes. A hip-drop tackle on the Chiefs was not penalized, although officials have rarely called it all season. The call, when Mahomes dropped and was barely hit, was enough to irk Aikman.

“Oh, come on,” Aikman said on the broadcast as the call was made.

“He’s a runner. I couldn’t disagree with that one more, and he barely gets hit,” Aikman said. “This is the second penalty now that has been handed down against the Texans.”

It’s worth noting that Aikman is a former quarterback. They usually stick together, but the call on Houston was so bad that Aikman had to stand up for the defenders.

ESPN rules analyst Russell Yurk also said it was a bad call.

“Troy, I agree with you. There is no forced contact to the head and neck area on him,” Yurk said. “The two Houston players hit each other and it shouldn’t have been a foul.”

The Chiefs kept moving the ball down the field after that call, and Mahomes hit Travis Kelce for a touchdown and a 20-12 lead. Just before that TD pass, Aikman continued his disdain for the rules protecting QBs on a play where Mahomes was pushed off the field. This time no penalty was issued.

Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans was asked about the calls that went against the Texans, and he said he knew his team would go against “everybody,” and what he meant is open to interpretation.

“We knew going into this game man, it was us vs. everybody,” Ryan said in his postgame media conference. “When I say everybody, it’s everybody. Anything, everybody. The naysayers, the doubters, right? Everybody, we had to go against today. With that, going into this game knowing , what we were going up against, we can’t make the mistakes we did.”

Texans defensive end Will Anderson Jr. said so bluntly during his postgame assessment of the loss.

“We knew it was going to be us against the refs going into this game,” Anderson said. via Will Kunkel of the Houston Fox affiliate.

The chiefs are a great dynasty. On Saturday, most of the discussion was about how many calls they get from the officials. It’s probably not the look the league wants.