MIKE BURKE

Allegany Communications Sports­­

The Pittsburgh Steelers began the weekend with their second-straight horrible loss, the Baltimore Ravens concluded it with a not-pretty, but gritty victory on a dreary, rainy day when not much went right until the very end, and the Washington Commanders were mercifully given the weekend off following last week’s blowout loss to the Miami Dolphins.

Yet the biggest commotion and the loudest noise of the #NFLTheTVShow weekend came from the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs following their 20-17 loss to the Buffalo Bills, as head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes cried foul on NFL officials for calling foul on wide receiver Kadarius Toney for lining up offside, which negated a 49-yard touchdown that featured a cross-field lateral from tight end Travis Kelce to Toney that would have given the Chiefs the lead with just over a minute remaining.

Instead, the Chiefs turned the ball over on downs after the penalty and ended up losing for the second straight week.

“I’ve played seven years (and) never had offensive offside called,” Mahomes said after the game. “That’s elementary school (stuff) we’re talking about. There was no warning throughout the entire game. Then you wait until there’s a minute left in the game to make a call like that? It’s tough. Lost for words.”

Yet he soon found some more: “It’s tough,” he said. “Regardless if we win or lose, just the end of another game and we’re talking about the refs (both KC losses, by the way). It’s just not what we want for the NFL and for football.”

What WE want for the NFL and for football? Somebody get a promotion here as Czar of Football? Getting precious … Almost, dare I say it, Brady-esque?

“What you want as a competitor,” he went on to say, “is you practice all week to go out there and try to win, and you want it to be about your team and that team and see what happens. You don’t want to be talking about this stuff after the game. I’m not worried about if there was a flag on the next player or whatever, not a flag. I want to go out there and play and then see what happens at the end, see what the score is, and then I can live with the results.”

Well, hopefully he can live with Sunday’s result, because it went in the books as a big, fat Kansas City L, and with a boo-flipping-hoo for good measure. It’s all just so unbecoming, particularly for a couple upstanding insurance salesmen such as Mahomes and Reid.

Fact is, Mahomes, Reid and Kansas City fans who have chosen to die on this hill are overthinking the whole thing. It’s really not difficult.

If Toney, the receiver in question, checked with the referee, the flag should not have been thrown. If he didn’t check with the referee, the flag should have been thrown, which it was, because he was clearly offside.

As Cole Thornton said in “El Dorado,” “Just call it professional courtesy.”

It’s not the rule, of course. The rule is “barely offside,” which Mahomes admitted Toney was, is still offside. And as for Mahomes’ complaint that Toney “being offside didn’t affect the play at all,” no, it didn’t, because the official threw the flag before the play took place. But it doesn’t matter if it would have affected the play or not. The guy was clearly offside and the official called him for it.

Mahomes came off Sunday as a whiner who didn’t get his way, but his anger is totally misplaced, because if he’s really angry with anybody, it should be with his receivers, who have cost the Chiefs all season long with dropped balls, lack of discipline and stupid mistakes such as lining up offside.

As for the STEELERS, their 21-18 loss to the New England Patriots on Thursday night was as galling as their loss to the Arizona Cardinals was the previous week because both the Patriots and the Cardinals entered those games with just two victories apiece, putting the Steelers in a place in the record books they do not want to be.

The Steelers finish the season with a road game against the Indianapolis Colts, a home game against the Cincinnati Bengals and road games against the Seattle Seahawks and the Ravens, all teams with .500 records or better. Nor does it help that starting quarterback Kenny Pickett is expected to miss the next three games with an ankle injury.

Naturally, the mood of Steelers Nation is beyond testy, and the familiar calls for the head coach Mike Tomlin’s job are in even fuller force.

Though not a Steelers fan here, I have always admired the job Tomlin has done in Pittsburgh (except for the night he was on the field and tripped Jacoby Jones). But it has been a long time. Certainly, I’m not calling for anybody’s job, but maybe the message has grown as stale as the Steelers offense. Maybe a change of scenery would do both the Steelers and Tomlin a world of good in the same way it did for the Philadelphia Eagles and for Andy Reid. Who knows?

Here’s what I know: The Steelers and Tomlin are 7-6 and still in the thick of the playoffs picture. I’m still not ready to count either one of them out. Not yet …

Ravens and Commanders later in the week.

Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MikeBurkeMDT