Will Anderson's comments about the refs sounded awfully familiar.
Following their 23-14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round, there were many skeptics regarding the result. Sure, some of those were likely just rooting for the Houston Texans, but even non-biased fans had things to say about the officiating in this game. With Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans having some concerns about the officiating, standout defender Will Anderson Jr. had similar comments, per Will Kunkel on X.
“We knew it was going to be us against the refs going into this game. I talked to you guys earlier this week, and I was just saying, like, man, we gotta go out there, and we've got to do us better. And, you know, in some instances we didn't do that. In some instances, we did. We've just gotta keep going, man. Next offseason, we get the guys together, and everybody just coming together and keep building that team chemistry to get passed this hump.”
While these comments didn't match what Ryans said word-for-word, they were pretty darn close.
In Ryans' post-game conference, here's what he had to say about the officiating: “We knew going into this game that it was us vs. everybody. Going with what we were up against, we can't make the mistakes that we made. Self-inflicted mistakes, Special teams, not converting kicks. We didn't protect the quarterback.”
With how this game got officiated, one of the referees got interviewed after the action finished. Although his answers were the definition of a nothing burger — something that is or turns out to be insignificant or lacking in substance — it might at least give the referees an understanding that people are watching their every movement and that their calls are significant.
Some calls will get missed, and some will bother some fans. But, that doesn't give referees immunity for making calls that are flat-out wrong.
Both the roughing the passer and unnecessary roughness penalties on Patrick Mahomes were egregiously inaccurate.
Barstool Sports' Dave Portnoy even called Mahomes out on a play many expected to be a penalty. However, the refs kept their flags in their pockets, allowing the obvious flop to go uncalled.
So, although the Texans' postseason run came up short, they'll have plenty of motivation moving forward.
