CBS guidelines analyst Gene Steratore had a message for the officiating crew dealing with the AFC championship sport between the Payments and Chiefs.
Amid the controversy surrounding the idea that Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was receiving preferential remedy from the refs, Steratore wished to specific his emotions on how the sport must be referred to as.
“My pregame message to the officiating crew,” he wrote on X. “Let them play physical, right up to that line of being a foul. Call the obvious and let the incidental/small stuff fall by the wayside. This is the conference championship game, it will be clean – both teams are exceptionally coached and aren’t new to this moment.”
The circumstances involving Mahomes and the refs appeared to return to a head final week through the divisional spherical when Kansas Metropolis confronted the Texans.
Mahomes appeared to profit from two questionable roughing-the-passer calls through the win.
The Chiefs quarterback pushed again on that notion within the lead-up to Sunday’s AFC title sport.
“I don’t feel that way,” Mahomes advised reporters on Wednesday. “I just try to play football at the end of the day. The referees are doing their best to call the game as fair and proper as best they can. For me, it’s go out there, play hard, try to do whatever I can to win the football game, and then live with the results based on my effort and how I play the game, and that’s what we preach here in Kansas City.”
Clete Blakeman is the referee for the AFC title sport at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday.
The Payments will look to train some demons after shedding to the Chiefs within the playoffs in three of the final 4 years.
This 12 months marks the primary time the Payments have made it to the convention championship sport since 2021 and solely the second time because the Payments went to the Tremendous Bowl in 1994.
The Chiefs are on the lookout for historical past’s first Tremendous Bowl three-peat.
