With their victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 17, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs have secured their eighth consecutive AFC West division championship. The Bengals, on the other hand, are 8-8 and out of the postseason picture.

The referees’ intentional grounding ruling on Jake Browning in the fourth quarter has infuriated football fans, even though the Chiefs won and will play their Wild Card Round game at home. They saw it as stopping Cincinnati’s potential momentum to seize the lead.

With 6:18 remaining in the fourth quarter, the quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals tried a pass on first-and-10 from their 25-yard line. The Kansas City Chiefs were ahead 22–17 at that point.

But Browning was flagged for purposeful grounding, which cost him a down and a 10-yard penalty. However, supporters contended that Browning passed close to the position of running back Joe Mixon. They believed that rather than being a violation, it should have been an incomplete pass.