The Houston Texans came up short against the Kansas City Chiefs in their Divisional Round matchup on Saturday. And after the game, Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans didn’t shy away from addressing the elephant in the room, some questionable calls that went in the Chiefs favor.
Despite outgaining the Chiefs by over 100 yards, the Texans didn’t come away with the win, falling 23-14.
Looking at the box score, the biggest factor in the Chiefs favor was the advantage that the Chiefs had in penalty yardage. Notably, the Chiefs were called for just four penalties for 29 yards while the Texans were called for eight penalties for 82 yards.
ESPN color analyst Troy Aikman, who was on the call of the game alongside Joe Buck, took issue with two penalties in particular. Both flags came on hits to Patrick Mahomes, one roughing the passer call in the first quarter and one unnecessary roughness call in the third quarter.
The call in the first quarter led to a field goal while the call in the third quarter led to a Chiefs touchdown. And while it’s certainly possible that the Chiefs would have won the game anyway, these calls did loom large in the postgame discussion after the game.
Ryans was asked about the officiating after the game in his postgame press conference. And while he didn’t directly call out the officials, he did say that he knew that “everybody” would be against the Texans in this matchup.
“We knew going into this game it was us versus everybody,” said Ryans via Chancellor Johnson of KPCR 2 in Houston. “When I say everybody, it’s everybody. All of the whatever… The naysayers, the doubt right. Everybody we had to go against today. Knowing that going into this game knowing what we were up against, we can’t make the mistakes that we made.”
DeMeco Ryans when asked about some of the questionable calls:
“We knew going into this game it was going to be us vs *everybody*. When I say everybody. It’s EVERYBODY”
He made sure to note his team simply didn’t do enough to win the game. pic.twitter.com/4ShZA7qOVD
— Chancellor Johnson (@ChancellorTV) January 19, 2025
As Ryans referenced, more than questionable calls went into their loss. Perhaps most notably, allowing eight sacks isn’t going to result in success in many postseason games.
Still, these calls are hard to ignore when you look at the big picture of how this game went.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.