Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-Imagn Images
By Drew Lerner on

ESPN’s top NFL insider is catching some heat for how he’s reporting one of the league’s potential rule changes.

Adam Schefter reported Saturday that the NFL is eyeing an expansion to its replay assist system that would allow the league’s officiating department in New York to look at plays like the quarterback slide and overturn the original call on the field.

That type of play has been under intense scrutiny ever since Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was the beneficiary of a questionable unnecessary roughness penalty during last week’s Divisional Round game against the Houston Texans.

During that game, Mahomes slid and appeared to mostly avoid contact with any Texans defender, but still drew the 15-yard penalty during a crucial moment in the game. “I could not disagree with that one more,” ESPN announcer Troy Aikman said at the time. “He barely gets hit.”

However, the league has since came out and said that the penalty was adjudicated correctly. And further, they suggested that replay would not have changed the call if the league’s rules would have allowed for such a play to be reviewed.

That made some upset at how Schefter framed his reporting on the potential rule change.

“For all those complaining that Patrick Mahomes gets too many calls, relief soon could be on the way,” Schefter’s report read. “NFL replay assist is expected to expand this offseason into plays that could include the quarterback slide, league sources told ESPN.”

Schefter decided to latch onto the prevailing narrative that Mahomes is the beneficiary of biased officiating, without any mention that the league has already come out and said that the calls in last week’s game were correct. Additionally, Schefter failed to mention that Mahomes isn’t the only quarterback to have received similar calls and that the league has been mulling this change long before last weekend’s game.

FS1 host Nick Wright was among the voices to call Schefter out.

Sports Illustrated‘s Matt Verderame had similar feelings.

But that didn’t stop Schefter from doubling down on the Mahomes narrative on Sunday morning, when he decided to highlight some statistics that favor his argument.

Could the Chiefs actually be getting too many personal foul calls in their favor? It’s certainly possible. But an eight-game sample isn’t exactly big enough to draw any definitive conclusions from.

It’s strange to see an NFL insider, whose primary job is to simply report facts, editorialize in this way — presumably to capitalize on engagement. Adam Schefter has never been one to shy away from a bit of engagement bait in the past, but driving a narrative that isn’t exactly grounded in fact is going a step further than he probably should.

About Drew Lerner

Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.

View all posts by Drew Lerner