Although the Houston Texans avoided fines for most of the controversial calls in their AFC divisional round loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, the NFL followed up with punishments for comments made after the game.
The NFL fined running back Joe Mixon and defensive end Will Anderson Jr. $25,000 each for criticizing officials. The league reissued a fine against Mixon after he was mistakenly fined for a statement he didn’t make.
What Mixon did say is part of what he told reporters after the game, “Everybody knows how it is playing up here. You can’t, you can never leave it into the refs’ hands. The whole world sees, man, what it is, bro. It is what it is. Like I said, when it comes down to it, you can never leave it into the refs’ hands, man, and things like that. But, it’s all good.”
Anderson shared a sentiment similar to Mixon’s when speaking after the loss: “We knew it was going to be us against the referees going into this game.”
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Anderson was penalized for roughing the passer against Patrick Mahomes on a borderline call. The 23-year-old pass-rusher was not fined for his hit on the signal-caller, only for his postgame comments.
