Chiefs Were Penalized Exactly Zero Times In Dominant Win Over Lions, And NFL Fans Took Notice

The Chiefs played a perfectly clean contest.

The Kansas City Chiefs took care of the Detroit Lions with relative ease on Sunday night, and while Kansas City was undoubtedly the better team, many fans who tuned into the game took notice of something, or in this case, the lack thereof.

The Chiefs were not penalized one single time during the contest. All in all, the officiating crew kept their flags in their pockets at a nearly unprecedented rate by today's standards, with Detroit being flagged just four times, but the zero penalty yards for Kansas City garnered plenty of attention.

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Heading into Sunday's contest, the last time a team played a penalty-free game in the NFL came in January 2024, when the Seattle Seahawks weren't flagged at all during their 21-20 road win over the Arizona Cardinals.

What makes the Chiefs' flag-less contest that much more noticeable is that it came one week after the team was penalized a whopping 13 times in their loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Kansas City's 13 penalties for 109 yards against the Jags were the franchise's most in seven years.

Maybe the Chiefs simply cleaned things up, Sunday night's crew didn't want the game to turn into the ref show, or perhaps it was a mixture of both, but nevertheless, NFL fans weren't exactly happy on social media.

The Chiefs welcome the Las Vegas Raiders to Arrowhead in Week 7. Both teams rank in the top half of the league in penalties committed per contest, but based simply on the law of averages, Kansas City is bound to be flagged at least once on Sunday.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, but wants it on the record that he does not bleed orange. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets, including BroBible, SB Nation, and The Spun. Mark also wrote for the Chicago Cubs' Double-A affiliate in 2016, the year the curse was broken. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.