Week 14 between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans turned into one of those games that lingered after the final whistle. There were moments on the field where Kansas City appeared to benefit from calls, fairly or not. But when the league office weighed in days later, the pendulum swung the other way, starting with Mario Edwards Jr. walking away without a fine for a facemask on Patrick Mahomes.

It happened with 3:24 left in the first half. Mahomes rolled right, buying time the way he does, and dumped a short completion to JuJu Smith-Schuster that moved the chains. As Mahomes let the ball go, Edwards reached up and grabbed the quarterback’s facemask. The flag came out immediately. Fifteen yards, automatic first down. No argument there.

But when the NFL released its weekly discipline on Saturday, Edwards’ name wasn’t on the list. Despite being flagged for a personal foul during the game, the league didn’t believe the play rose to the level of a fine. That raised some eyebrows, especially in a season where the league has been aggressive when it comes to handing out fines. The total had climbed north of $6 million.

For context, a first facemask violation typically carries a fine of up to $11,593, and repeat offenses can jump to $17,389. This one ended up costing Edwards nothing. That caught people off guard, given how consistently those penalties have been punished this year.

Through 14 weeks, the league had already issued 34 facemask fines, totaling $319,281. What made this case more curious was that Edwards doesn’t exactly have a clean slate. Last season, he was fined $9,245 for a facemask against the Patriots. Two months later, he was hit with a $22,511 fine for roughing Mahomes. History suggested this wouldn’t be ignored. Yet it was.

Edwards wasn’t the only Texan to avoid discipline. Late in the third quarter, with less than a minute left, Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice crossed the middle and took a hard hit from safety Jalen Pitre. Watching the replay, plenty of people thought Rice absorbed contact to the head. The NFL didn’t think so.

In a night full of controversies, while the punishment decisions went the Texans‘ way, the on-field decisions might’ve gone the other way.

Controversy flooded the Chiefs-Texans matchup

Primetime games have a way of magnifying everything. Every call is dissected in real time because everyone is watching. When a decision lives in that gray area, one fan base feels wronged, and the other breathes a little easier. That was very much the case Sunday night in Kansas City, where a few rulings landed hard with Texans fans.

The first moment that set things off came on a fourth-and-1 quarterback sneak by C.J. Stroud. Houston thought they had a clean look, but an offside flag wiped the play out before it could really begin. On replay, it didn’t appear that anyone clearly jumped early. At most, maybe an arm or shoulder crept into the neutral zone.

That wasn’t even the first moment that had people scratching their heads. Earlier, on a short-yardage play, replay assist stepped in and overturned the spot on the field, awarding Kansas City a first down. The Chiefs then challenged that ruling, and after review, the officials reversed it again, deciding that the replay assist had been incorrect.

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So Texans fans worked up long before the offside call entered the conversation. You can make the case that the officials got each decision right. You can also make the case that they didn’t. That’s the problem. But no matter where you land, it’s hard to ignore how often these moments dominate the discussion every week.

It feels like we rarely make it through a Sunday without a handful of calls becoming the story. Not blown calls, necessarily, but ones that live in that uncomfortable middle ground. And in games under the brightest lights, those moments tend to linger the longest.