A recent report from three University of Texas finance professors, Spencer C. Barnes, Brandon Mendez, and Ted Dischman, has reignited one of the league’s oldest debates: Do the Chiefs get more help from the officials than anyone else?

After analyzing more than 13,000 penalty calls from 2015 to 2023, the researchers found that postseason officiating strongly favored Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. The paper, published in the Financial Review, concluded that playoff penalties “consistently favored one franchise,” suggesting that the league’s financial interests might subtly influence real-time rule enforcement.

Soon after the report surfaced, we at EssentiallySports ran a poll on our NFL Huddle newsletter to see what fans really thought. Out of 1009 fans (at the time of writing) who voted, 591 (58.57%) said they believe referees help the Chiefs win games.

And the responses were anything but shy.

“Only Chiefs and their fans do not understand that they get more calls and more critical calls than any other team,” one fan wrote. “Sometimes with phantom calls that no one trusts. The NFL wants their golden boy in as many Super Bowls as they can arrange.”

Another added, “It has been clear in many games that the calls go for the Chiefs and against the other team if the game is close or the opponent is winning.”

The study’s data paints a similar picture. During playoff games, penalties against defenses facing the Chiefs’ offense were, on average, 2.36 yards longer, 23% more likely to result in a first down, and 28% more likely to be subjective calls, meaning they depended on referee discretion.

In practical terms, those postseason flags helped sustain drives and shift momentum in critical moments, often when the stakes and television audiences were highest. Interestingly, the researchers found that these effects were absent during the regular season and did not appear for other elite franchises. But one of our readers thought otherwise, “If one would study each team’s stats and penalties, it would be found that Refs often make poor calls on all games. I’m not a Chiefs fan, persay, but it has happened to all teams. It is especially noticeable in the ‘tush push’. The Refs miss pre-snap movement almost all the time.”

Still, not everyone was convinced. Around 380 fans pushed back, arguing that officiating mistakes are universal. “Refs often make poor calls in all games,” one wrote. “It happens to every team.” Another dismissed the outrage entirely: “Crybabies look for any chance to complain about the refs.”

Still, the debate isn’t cooling down anytime soon. But before Chiefs Kingdom breaks out the “Refs Love Us” shirts, the NFL has pushed back hard on the narrative. In the lead-up to Super Bowl LIX, the league called any favoritism talk “a myth,” pointing to data showing Kansas City has actually taken on more penalty yards than their opponents and has received fewer beneficial calls since the 2022 playoffs.

While fans argue online, this season has already seen another round of accusations about referees allegedly favoring the Kansas City Chiefs.

Week 6 moment ignites the continuing Chiefs debate

Let us go back to Week 6, when the Kansas City Chiefs hosted the Detroit Lions. On fourth-and-goal from the half-yard line, Detroit tried a gutsy trick play. Jared Goff bobbled, caught his own pass, and dashed into the end zone. For a moment, it looked like the City of Fountains had just witnessed a masterpiece. But then came the whistle.

Officials flagged Goff for illegal motion, claiming he didn’t pause long enough before shifting out wide. The late and confusing call left both Lions fans in disbelief. After the game, Lions head coach Dan Campbell didn’t hold back. He hinted that something might have come from above.

“I know it came from New York, and they said he never stopped. He stayed in motion. He can’t stay in motion. That was that,” said the head coach.

But the NFL quickly tried to cool the fire. A few days later, Troy Vincent, the league’s executive VP of football operations, spoke with Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. When asked about the play, he cleared his stance.

“I’m not sure who Coach Campbell was referring to, but we did not assist in that,” Vincent said. He explained that the delay came from “on-field officials communicating with one another.”

Vincent didn’t stop there. “You can hear the officials gathering in this particular case… but we didn’t have to get involved in this particular play,” he added. Later, referee Craig Wrolstad doubled down on that statement in a post-game pool report, firmly denying any outside help.