For a brief second after Josh Allen’s desperate fourth down heave hit the turf at Arrowhead Stadium, the Buffalo Bills had hope.
“There is a flag,” CBS play-by-play standby Jim Nantz announced to the masses watching at home.
Kevin Harlan, calling the game for Westwood One Radio, echoed the call. Except, no penalty had been called. The play would count. The Kansas City Chiefs were one clock-killing drive away from a third straight Super Bowl.
It was a confusing experience — one Nantz and Harlan shed light on to Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina Monday morning.
“There’s a spotter that works in coordination with the broadcast team,” Nantz explained.
“I’m just taking what information is passed along. I’m scanning the field and for the life of me I can’t find a flag. But the graphic is up and I’m told, which just part of the chain of communication, I’m told there’s a flag. The first thing you do when you’re told that is you scan the field and identify for your own edification.
“I couldn’t find it.”
CBS just made the world think that there was a flag on the Bills' crucial fourth-down play in the AFC Championship Game. 🏈📺🎙️😬 #NFL pic.twitter.com/cqzODHznGC
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 27, 2025
Harlan echoed his fellow broadcasting veteran’s sentiment.
“When I see it come up on our CBS scorebug at the bottom of the screen, I said flag,” said Harlan. “There are so many times a flag is thrown in the four corners of the field, you aren’t even looking there, but it’s thrown 20 yards downfield or five yards in the back of the line of scrimmage.
“A lot of times you scan it, but a lot of times you don’t see it. Even when we’re doing TV, you don’t see the flag. So, I have relied on TV when I’m doing CBS that the word coming from the officiating booth to our truck to me in the booth says a flag is down. Even if I don’t see it, I trust that process.”
So there you have it. This wasn’t a nefarious non-call to benefit the NFL agenda of putting the Chiefs in the biggest game of the year. It was a broadcast mistake that was easily corrected, even if it left some confusion in its wake.
