Andy Reid Calls Out Officiating After Thanksgiving Loss to Cowboys

Penalties have been a problem for the Kansas City Chiefs all season, and they reared their ugly head again in the team’s 31-28 Thanksgiving Day loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday, November 27.

This time, head coach Andy Reid wasn’t pleased with the referees who made the calls.

“I’m not always going to agree with the call, but the calls were made,” Reid said in his postgame press conference. “[The Cowboys] have got some physical receivers, big, strong physical guys, and that’s the way they were playing.”

Reid, 67, called some of the flags “ticky-tack.”

“My guys were fighting to maintain leverage in that, and it’s just not the way I saw it, but it’s the way the referees saw it,” he said.

“We’ve got to do better as coaches,” Reid added. “We’ve got to do better as players. You go back to the drawing board and you keep working.”

The Chiefs were hit for 10 total penalties, costing them 119 yards against Dallas. Compare that to the Cowboys, whose seven penalties cost them 50 yards.

The loss drops Kansas City to 6-6 on the season and just 1-5 on the road. NFL Next Gen Stats gives the Chiefs, who have played in five of the last six Super Bowls, just a 39 percent chance to make the playoffs.

Though Reid was frustrated with the officiating, he acknowledged that his team has plenty to correct before its next game against the Houston Texans on December 7.

“Bottom line is we’re having too many penalties, and we have to make sure to take care of that,” he said. “No excuses with it. We’re going to clean it up.”

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes struck a similar tone, pointing out that the Chiefs have already shown they can compete with the best teams in the league.

“We can beat anybody, but we’ve shown that we can lose to anybody,” he said. “We’ve got to be more consistent. We’ve had big plays and we’ve had runs where we can really score at any time, but we’ve got to be consistent for four quarters, especially when you play good teams and they have a good offense.”

All six of the Chiefs’ losses have come by one score. Former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce even pointed out to his brother, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, that they are just a couple bounces away from being one of the best teams in the AFC.

Discussing the season on the November 19 episode of their “New Heights” podcast, the brothers even agreed that they liked the 2025 team better than the 2024 Chiefs, who went 15-2 and lost in the Super Bowl.

Now the franchise’s all-time touchdown leader, Travis, 36, ended the segment by expressing hope for his team’s playoff chances.

”I’m just a product of my environment and I love Kansas City for it,” he said. “Let’s go ahead and keep adding to that f***ing record baby and score some more touchdowns this year and try to get us into the playoffs this year.”