However, the fact they finished 8-8 and only needed one team to lose to get into the playoffs. Another fact is that said team should have lost. The NFL is issuing apologies and admitting that the Chargers shouldn't have won the game, at least the way that they did.
The first missed call by the officials was the 41-yard field goal missed by Kansas City Chief's kicker Ryan Succop at the end of the game. As you can see here, the Chargers had an illegal formation on the field-goal attempt by having more than six players on the line of scrimmage. What's even worse is this is a new rule and the NFL made it a point of emphasis at the beginning of the seasons. Succop should have had another-and-shorter attempt at the field-goal.
The second missed call came in overtime. The Chargers ran a funk punt on 4th down in their own zone in overtime. First off, that's extremely ballsy and could even be considered stupid, but it worked and they won so it comes off as genius. Secondly, Eric Weddle clearly had the ball stripped from him while he was still moving forward and no whistles were blown. That's a strip-fumble and should have been a walk-off touchdown for the Chiefs. Instead, the refs for some reason blew the play dead, after the Chiefs scored the touchdown, and ruled Weddle down by forward progress, which was later ruled incorrect by the NFL.
Here's a video of NFL head of officiating, Mike Pereira explaining all of this a lot better than I can.
There you have it. The Chiefs and Steelers were both jobbed. Of course a lot of people's rebuttal will be that the Steelers shouldn't have started 0-4. If that is you, you're not wrong. But it still doesn't excuse the consistently awful officiating around the league. The refs, who work part-time, make crucial mistakes that cost multiple teams wins every week throughout the season. Sorry, but for a league that is worth billions of dollars that's really inexcusable.
To the yinzers that are crying conspiracy against the Steelers, take the aluminum foil off your head. The league doesn't have it out for the Steelers. They just have awful rules and part-time refs that make way too many mistakes. The way the rules have changed are complicated and for some reason some of them, like the Weddle fake-punt, aren't even reviewable for some reason. This has to change or we are going to see more of this to come.
As for the people saying that the Steelers didn't belong in the playoffs, while I understand where you are coming from, the 0-4 start along with losing to bad teams like Oakland and Minnesota, the fact is that on the final week they were one team losing away from making the playoffs. That speaks to the mediocrity of the AFC, but it is what it is. Believe it or not, teams with worse records than the Steelers' 8-8 have made it to the postseason. It seems your gripe is with the NFL's playoff format, not the Steelers.
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