How Patrick Mahomes' actions could lead to NFL cracking down on flopping
Jan 22, 2025, 4:38 pm
Something has to be done. Composite Getty Image.
NFL officials were heavily scrutinized for some of the flags they threw in the four divisional round games that saw the Chiefs, Bills, Eagles and Commanders advance to next weekend's conference championships.
Yet, it was one play that didn't draw a flag that could prove a most consequential non-call if the NFL decides to join the NBA and NHL in seriously cracking down on floppers, as ESPN broadcaster Troy Aikman suggested during the Texans-Chiefs game.
NFL players can be penalized for the big umbrella “unsportsmanlike conduct" infraction, but there isn't an official rule against flopping, and Aikman urged the league to address that during one of his several conversations with Joe Buck over the officiating in the Chiefs' 23-14 victory.
On the same possession where he benefited from his late slide that caused two Texans players to crash into each other, drawing a widely panned unnecessary roughness flag, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes appeared to try to deke referee Clay Martin's officiating crew into throwing another flag to aid Kansas City's drive, which ended with a touchdown that put the Chiefs up by eight in the fourth quarter.
Scrambling to his left, Mahomes pulled up just as he went out of bounds. When linebacker Henry To'oTo'o tapped him, Mahomes threw himself dramatically to the ground but failed to fool the officials — or impress Aikman, the Hall of Fame quarterback who earlier took umbrage at the roughing-the-passer call against Houston.
“He’s trying to draw the penalty. Rather than just run out of bounds, he slows down," Aikman protested. "And that’s been the frustration, and I get it. I understand it. That’s been the frustration for these defensive players around the league.”
Earlier in the drive, Aikman said he “could not disagree" more with the roughing penalty called on To'oTo'o and defensive tackle Folorunso Fatukasi, who smashed into each other and made incidental contact with Mahomes, who was underneath them after his late slide.
When Martin announced the penalty, Aikman interjected, “Oh, come on!”
“He’s a runner. I could not disagree with that one more, and he barely gets hit,” Aikman said, noting that Mahomes shouldn't have been afforded the extra protections provided quarterbacks in the pocket once he started running on the play. “That’s the second (questionable) penalty now that’s been called against the Texans. … It was a late flag, and it was Clay Martin who threw it.”
“They’ve gotta address it in the offseason,” Aikman added.
ESPN's rules analyst Russell Yurk concurred that no flag should have been thrown on the play.
After the game, Texans coach DeMeco Ryans suggested that his team expected the Chiefs to benefit from the officiating: “We knew going into today it was us versus everybody. And when I say everybody, it's everybody.”
Yurk also disagreed with a roughing-the-passer flag on Texans pass rusher Will Anderson Jr. in the first quarter that erased a three-and-out by Kansas City, which went on to score a field goal on that drive: “It looked like that first contact was to the upper chest area. I didn’t see anything there that supported a foul,” Yurk said.
Martin, the referee, told a pool reporter after the game that on the Anderson penalty, “I had forcible contact the face mask area,” and on the To'oTo'o infraction, when the quarterback slides, “he is considered defenseless. The onus is on the defender. I had forcible contact there to the hairline, to the helmet.”
Walt Anderson, the longtime NFL senior vice president of officiating who moved into a new role as the league's rules analyst and club communications liaison last year, said Sunday that both calls were correct under the current rules.
Anderson said in an appearance Sunday on the NFL Network that it might be up for debate about whether there was forcible contact on the roughing-the-passer flag in the first quarter, but he emphasized that the league's rulebook calls for officials to throw the flag if there's any doubt whether roughing has occurred.
As for the second foul, where Mahomes slid late, Anderson said the two Texans defenders who crashed into each other made incidental contact with Mahomes once he was on the ground, so replay assist couldn't be used in that circumstance to pick up the flag.
Anderson noted that the league's competition committee could revisit either infraction and tweak the rules this offseason.
Aikman, for one, would like to see the league crack down on flopping, as well.
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Used to leading off, Ichiro Suzuki got antsy when he had to wait.
Considered a no-doubt pick for baseball's Hall of Fame and possibly the second unanimous selection, he waited by the phone for the expected call Tuesday. Fifteen minutes passed without a ring.
“I actually started getting kind of nervous,” he said through a translator. “I was actually relieved when I first got the call.”
Suzuki became the first Japanese player chosen for the Hall, falling one vote shy of unanimous when he was elected along with CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner.
Quite the journey for a 27-year-old who left the Pacific League's Orix BlueWave in November 2000 to sign with Seattle as the first Japanese position player in Major League Baseball.
“I don’t think anybody in this whole world thought that I would be a Hall of Famer,” he said. “As a baseball player, this is definitely the top of the top.”
Suzuki received 393 of 394 votes (99.7%) from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Sabathia was on 342 ballots (86.8%) and Wagner on 325 (82.5%), which was 29 votes more than the 296 needed for the required 75%.
Sabathia and Suzuki were elected in their first appearance on the ballot, while Wagner made it on his 10th and final try. The trio will be inducted into the Hall at Cooperstown on July 27 along with Dave Parker and Dick Allen, voted in last month by the classic era committee.
Mariano Rivera remained the only player to get 100% of the vote from the BBWAA, appearing on all 425 ballots in 2019. Derek Jeter was chosen on 395 of 396 in 2020.
Seattle's Space Needle was lit blue in honor of Suzuki, who joined Fred Lynn in 1975 as the only players to win Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season. The Mariners announced plans to retire Suzuki's No. 51 on Aug. 9.
Suzuki was a two-time AL batting champion and 10-time All-Star and Gold Glove outfielder, hitting .311 with 117 homers, 780 RBIs and 509 stolen bases with Seattle (2001-12, 2018-19), the New York Yankees (2012-14) and Miami (2015-17).
He is perhaps the best contact hitter ever, with 1,278 hits in Nippon Professional Baseball and 3,089 in MLB, including a season-record 262 in 2004. His combined total of 4,367 exceeds Pete Rose’s MLB record of 4,256.
In his role as a Mariners special assistant, he still gets dressed in baseball clothes for home workouts as an example for today's players.
“I want to be able to show the players how I did it," he said. “Also in the offseason I go to a few high schools in Japan and I want to be able to show them what a professional baseball player looks like.”
Sabathia, second to Suzuki in 2001 AL Rookie of the Year voting, was a six-time All-Star who won the 2007 AL Cy Young Award and a World Series title in 2009. He went 251-161 with a 3.74 ERA and 3,093 strikeouts, third among left-handers behind Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton, during 19 seasons with Cleveland (2001-08), Milwaukee (2008) and the New York Yankees (2009-19).
Sabathia prefers to have a Yankees cap on his Cooperstown plaque — the decision is made by the Hall.
“The Yankees is the place that wanted me,” he said. “I found a home in the Bronx and I don't think I'll ever leave this city.”
Sabathia almost retired after the Game 7 loss to Houston in the 2017 AL Championship Series but was persuaded to keep playing when MLB Network's Harold Reynolds explained how close his statistics were to Hall level.
After adopting a cutter to compensate for diminished velocity, Sabathia won 37 games in his final four seasons.
"I turned myself into my version of Jamie Moyer, is what I felt like: backdoor sliders, changeups, cutters on your hands, two-seamers off the plate," he said. “I fought it for a long time. When you’re a guy that is throwing 94, 95 (mph) your whole life, it's hard to buy in.”
Wagner was five votes shy last year. He got only 10.5% support in his first appearance in 2016, and 10.2% the following year.
“It’s not been an easy 10 years to sit here and swallow a lot of things that you have to swallow,” Wagner said. “I didn’t blow a save for 10 years, so I felt that might have had an input on being able to get in."
A natural right-hander, Wagner switched to throwing left-handed after breaking his right arm playing football as a 7-year-old, then breaking it again. His son Will, a 26-year-old infielder, made his big league debut with Toronto last August.
Wagner became the ninth pitcher in the Hall who was primarily a reliever after Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley, Bruce Sutter, Goose Gossage, Trevor Hoffman, Lee Smith and Rivera. Wagner is the only left-hander among them.
“It means a lot,” he said.
A seven-time All-Star, Wagner was 47-40 with a 2.31 ERA and 422 saves for Houston (1995-2003), Philadelphia (2004-05), the New York Mets (2006-09), Boston (2009) and Atlanta (2010). His 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings are the most among pitchers with at least 900 innings, though his 903 career innings are the fewest among Hall of Famers.
Carlos Beltrán fell 19 votes short at 70.3%, up from 57.1% last year and 46.5% in 2023 in his first ballot appearance. He was followed by Andruw Jones with 261 for 66.2%, an increase from 61.6% last year and 7.3% when he first appeared in 2018.
Jones has two more chances on the BBWAA ballot.
Chase Utley was sixth with 157 votes for 39.8%, an increase from 28.8% in his first appearance.
Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramírez have lagged in voting, hurt by suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez received 37.1% in his fourth appearance, up from 34.8%, and Ramírez got 34.3% in his ninth, an increase from 32.5%.
Andy Pettitte got 110 votes and 27.9% in his seventh appearance, doubling from 13.5% last year. Félix Hernández received 81 votes and 20.6% in his first ballot.
Players comprise 278 of 351 elected Hall of Famers, including 142 on the BBWAA ballot, of which 62 were elected in their first year of eligibility.
Carlos González, Curtis Granderson, Adam Jones, Ian Kinsler, Russell Martin, Brian McCann, Hanley Ramírez, Fernando Rodney, Troy Tulowitzki and Ben Zobrist will be dropped from future ballots after receiving less than 5%.
Cole Hamels, Ryan Braun and Matt Kemp join the ballot next year.