An NFL rule explained how the Chiefs got away with holding on Patrick Mahomes’ decisive scramble

The refs actually got this one right.

The Cincinnati Bengals are going to have a hard time looking back at Sunday’s AFC Championship loss to the Kansas City Chiefs and come away thinking they got a fair shot from the officiating crew. On top of having nine penalties called against them, the Bengals seemed to be on the wrong end of no-calls throughout the night and, of course, the third-down mulligan.

But there was one play in particular against the Bengals that the officiating crew appeared to have called correctly. And that was Patrick Mahomes’ third-and-four scramble for a first down that set up the game-winning field goal (after the unnecessary roughness penalty).

Bengals fans were quick to point out that the Chiefs seemed to get away with A LOT of holding on the play, and none of those holds were called. On first watch, those fans looked to be right.

Yet, one NFL rule explains why those holding penalties were not called. That’s the rip-move exception. A rip move is a pass-rush technique where the rusher will rip through the protection by going low and swinging through in almost an uppercut motion.

NFL rules allow offensive linemen to counter rip moves with blocks that would normally be called holding.

With that in mind, you can see B.J. Hill and Trey Hendrickson attempting moves that could have reasonably been seen as rip moves by the officiating crew. Hendrickson’s attempt looked to be much more borderline, but that late arm swing may have been what was needed to negate any holding call. Hill’s was pretty obvious.

Still, fans had plenty of thoughts on the play — even if it did appear to be called correctly.