Zac Taylor made his way through the Bengals’ locker room, hugging each player he saw, and when he got to Joseph Ossai, he stopped. Words were both necessary and insufficient. Both men knew it. What was done was done, and what the defensive end had done was hit Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes out of bounds with the AFC championship game tied and otherwise likely headed to overtime.
Kansas City gladly accepted the 15 yards. Harrison Butker kicked a 45-yard game-winning field goal with three seconds remaining to set up a Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl. In the locker room afterward, many Cincinnati players sat in full uniform, stunned. Some just stared at their phones. Jessie Bates III had a towel over his head. Ossai walked in and had clearly been crying.
The hit was not cheap or dirty or particularly dangerous, but there was no doubt it was a penalty. I didn’t hear one Bengal argue the point. Mahomes was clearly out of bounds. Ossai clearly hit him intentionally. Two factors that help define the modern NFL converged on one play: games that always seem to come down to one possession, and rules designed to make the sport’s violence appear more controlled than it is. It says so much about how we watch football that most people reacted to the penalty and didn’t think much about the fact that Ossai hurt his right knee on the play. He’ll have an MRI on Monday, if you care, and it would be nice if you did.
