Chiefs furious over non-call
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – A non-call on Rodney Harrison’s end zone interception Monday night has Kansas City fuming. But it was the same thing that seems to happen week after week to All-Pro tight end Tony Gonzalez, frustrating the Chiefs to the point they’ve stopped submitting the weekly officiating critiques the league asks for.
Chiefs president Carl Peterson has stopped speaking to the officials altogether.
“They don’t call holding or pass interference when Tony is involved,” coach Dick Vermeil said Tuesday. “He is a very prolific red zone offensive player and he always gets held, chucked or tackled.”
Trailing 17-10 Monday night, the Chiefs faced third-and-goal from the New England 9 with 54 seconds left in the half. Gonzalez, lined up on the right side of quarterback Trent Green, broke for the end zone. Harrison and linebacker Roman Phifer met him at the line and began bumping and harassing him, then seemed to keep bumping him into the end zone.
As the ball went sailing toward the three, Phifer’s arm appeared to be locked in Gonzalez’s. The ball was underthrown and Harrison stepped in front and made the interception in a game the Patriots eventually won 27-19.
As they pleaded for pass interference Green, Gonzalez and Vermeil were ignored.
“It makes it tough on us when you don’t get a call, especially against the world champions,” said Gonzalez, the five-time Pro Bowler who caught seven balls for 86 yards. “If you don’t get that call, it means they’re going to win. We need that call and it should have been called. It was illegal, but it didn’t get called.”
Green, who passed for 381 yards and two touchdowns, said it looked like Gonzalez “was getting mugged.”
“I’ve got to tread lightly here because I can get fined based on what I say,” he told reporters.
It seems to the Chiefs (3-7) that opponents are allowed to do just about everything but reach out and trip Gonzalez from the bench.
“It’s interesting,” Green said. “Every week we get letters from the league saying, “Oops. sorry. We didn’t call it.’ But that doesn’t do us any good.
“It’s unfortunate that Tony being the player that he is, he doesn’t get a little bit more leeway in that department. And there was no leeway needed on that play.”
Vermeil said he does not believe anyone is picking on his tight end. But he’s even tried talking to officials before the game.
“I’ve gone to the officials and reminded them we have Tony Gonzalez, the best tight end in football, and he gets held coming off the line of scrimmage, grabbed and held,” Vermeil said.
“Then he gets hit beyond the 5-yard (zone).”
Infuriating the Chiefs even more is the fact Gonzalez has been called twice for pushing off.
“And they were ridiculous calls,” Vermeil said. “So I just don’t say anything and I go on. I have to stay away from that.”
Coincidentally, it was the Patriots who triggered this season’s renewed emphasis on enforcing the rule that says defenders cannot make any contact with receivers beyond 5 yards of the line of scrimmage.
“(Colts president) Bill Polian on the competition committee jumped on the table because of the way his Colts got beat up (in the playoffs),” said Peterson. “Why it hasn’t happened for Tony, I don’t know.”
Peterson has even quit speaking to the men in the striped shirts.
“I don’t even talk to them any more. And I know them by their first names,” he said. “I just stand there on the sideline. They come by and I just let them walk by.”