In what was somehow not the strangest ending to a Thanksgiving weekend NFL game, the Kansas City Chiefs survived a Black Friday scare against the division rival Las Vegas Raiders thanks to a combination of bizarre game management and a perhaps even more bizarre penalty ruling.
With just 15 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, the Raiders spiked the ball on second down at the Chiefs’ 32-yard line. On the following play, center Jackson Powers-Johnson snapped the ball before center Aidan O’Connell was ready for it, the ball hit the ground and the Chiefs recovered it.
After the ball was recovered, it seems like the play had in fact been blown dead due to a false-start penalty. But after the officials conferred for a while, that penalty was instead changed to an illegal shift, which the Chiefs declined. They kept the ball and kneeled on it to end the game, rather than having to defend another snap after a false start, which would have erased the fumble because it’s a pre-snap penalty.
After the game, the NFL explained why the play was ruled that way.
“Had the clock been running at the snap, then by rule an illegal shift would convert to a false start,” a league spokesman said, via The Athletic. “Since the clock was stopped (spike on the second-down play), an illegal shift is a live ball foul.”
Surely, that explanation will satisfy all the conspiracy theorists who are convinced that the league just gifts calls (and wins) to the Chiefs, so there’s nothing more to worry about on that front.