Patrick Mahomes knew he’d have to take a big hit on play that resulted in penalty

There was no shortage of questionable calls Sunday during the final minute of the Chiefs’ 27-19 loss to the Packers.

That included one that was beneficial to the Chiefs.

On second-and-10 from the Chiefs’ 30-yard line, quarterback Patrick Mahomes scrambled toward the sideline as he tried to rush for a first down. At the marker, Mahomes was hit hard by Packers defensive back Jonathan Owens.

Although Mahomes had not stepped out of bounds, Owens was flagged for unnecessary roughness. NBC Sports rules analyst Terry McAulay said the officials got it wrong, and the referee announced the penalty happened after the play was over.

Mahomes discussed the penalty Monday during a visit on KCSP (610 AM).

“All I was trying to do was run to get going forward out of bounds and obviously took a big hit, and the ref deemed it throwing a flag,” Mahomes said. “All you can do is move on and play the next play. I know people saw, I don’t know if I was fully out of bounds but I was running out of bounds, and the refs said it was unnecessary.

“So all you can do at the end of the day is you don’t worry about the officials, you just go out there and play the best you can and some flags go your way and some flags don’t.”

We saw that on the next play when officials didn’t call pass interference on Green Bay’s Carrington Valentine, who was draped on Marquez Valdes-Scantling.

Mahomes knew the rules

On his rush, Mahomes wanted to get out of bounds and pick up the first down. But while dashing toward the sideline, he knew he couldn’t backpedal to avoid the big hit.

That would have put him short of the first-down marker and would have kept the clock running, and there was less than a minute to play at that point. NFL rules say the clock doesn’t stop if a player is going backward while headed out of bounds.

Mahomes realized he’d have to absorb a big hit. He had the presence of mind to remember all of that while running with the ball.

“I knew in that situation, in that 2-minute situation, I had to be going forward for the clock to stop, so I couldn’t run backwards and I had to get the first down,” Mahomes said. “So I knew I was gonna have to kind of take the hit in order to get the clock to stop in that situation, and so that’s what I did.”