Prior to the AFC Championship game I wrote about Kansas City leading the league in penalties. I further pointed out that they had a serious problem with pre-snap penalties.
Two days after the game, people are still talking about how lucky the Patriots were with the Dee Ford offsides calls. Many have complained that the official didn’t give him a warning. Others are complaining about the camera angle. Then there’s those who think it was only called because the ball was intercepted.
Were the Patriots lucky? If you want to call it luck on that play, I won’t argue. I will however give you a quote which is attributed to the Roman philosopher, Seneca. “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” While the Patriots’ preparation did not make this play fortuitous, the lack of preparation by Kansas City certainly gave the Chiefs some bad luck.
This defensive offsides penalty was Ford’s third of the season. In their 18 games the Patriots as a team have only been called for it once. Similar to being offsides, defensive players sometimes get called for a neutral zone infraction. For the season Ford has had 2 such penalties. As a team the Patriots have also been guilty in the neutral zone twice.
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