Many believed the Chiefs were given questionable calls in their victory over the Buffalo Bills in the AFC championship game. Photograph: Jason Squires/REX/Shutterstock
The Roman philosopher Seneca is credited with saying, “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.”
In sports, some teams prepare better than others. But some also get more opportunities than others.
Luck can take many forms. It can be a fortuitous bounce, particularly with an oblong-ish football that can go any direction after a punt or a fumble hits the ground. It can be an opponent’s baffling, uncharacteristic mistake. And it can be officiating decisions that are 50-50 calls – or just plain wrong.
Consider the Kansas City Chiefs, who are headed to the Super Bowl for a third year in succession. The popular opinion on social media these days is that NFL officials have felt pressure to get Taylor Swift to the Super Bowl; therefore, they give the Chiefs a lot of dubious decisions.
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That’s a far-fetched conspiracy theory, but it’s hard to deny that the Chiefs have been a rather fortunate team this year. They’ve benefited from close but correct decisions like the pass interference call that set up their game-winning field goal against Cincinnati or the nullified Baltimore touchdown in which Isaiah Likely’s toe was maybe an inch out of bounds. (On the play before that, they were fortunate that Lamar Jackson missed a wide-open Zay Flowers in the end zone.)
Then, in the AFC Championship, referees looked to have botched the spot on a quarterback sneak by Buffalo’s Josh Allen, costing the Bills possession of the ball at a crucial time, and Kansas City’s Xavier Worthy was credited with a catch in a truly benevolent piece of work by the officiating crew.
A few bizarre plays went the Chiefs’ way as well. They beat the Raiders when Las Vegas prematurely snapped the ball, leading to a fumble that stopped a…
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