Kyle Van Noy still miffed by bad officiating in 2019 Patriots-Chiefs game

BOSTON -- Occasionally, seismic shifts take place with nobody actually realizing it in the moment. One such occurrence may have taken place at Gillette Stadium on Dec. 8, 2019.

That was, for all intents and purposes, the passing of the torch from one great dynasty to the next, as the defending-champion Patriots lost at home to the Chiefs, who'd themselves hoist the Lombardi Trophy just eight weeks later. Kansas City made it to the Super Bowl a year later, losing to Tom Brady and the Bucs, but they won their second Super Bowl in a span of four years with their victory over the Eagles a little over a month ago. Meanwhile, the Patriots haven't won a playoff game in that same time span, failing to even reach the playoffs in two of the past four seasons.

Yes, history will show that there was a changing of the guard that evening in Foxboro. But history will also omit the fact that the officiating that day was horrific.

Some people don't forget.

Linebacker Kyle Van Noy -- who has left the Patriots, rejoined the Patriots, and left the Patriots again since that fateful night -- is one such person. And a recent tweet showed that he's still not over the calls that went against New England more than three years ago.

Van Noy saw a tweet from NBA reporter Shams Charania, who said that the Dallas Mavericks were filing a formal protest after a mistake by a referee led to two Warriors points in a game that Golden State won by ... two points.

Van Noy had a simple question: "Can I do that for chiefs vs pats game 2019 while we're at it shams???!!"

The picture tweeted by Van Noy showed N'Keal Harry stepping down with his foot clearly in bounds while evading a tackle near the goal line. Harry ended up lunging forward into the end zone on that play, but the officials wrongly ruled that Harry had stepped out of bounds prior to doing so.

Bill Belichick couldn't challenge the play, as he had used his two challenges earlier in the second half -- the first unsuccessful, the second successful. Plus, the Patriots had a first-and-goal at the 3-yard line, so the opportunity to score was still there. Alas, James White lost two yards on the next play, Brady threw incomplete on second down, and Brady was then sacked on third down, leading to a field goal to cut Kansas City's lead to 23-16. That stood as the final score, as another red zone trip ended up fruitless for New England in the game's final minute.

The call against Harry was actually the second officiating mistake to cost the Patriots a touchdown on the same drive, more or less. The Patriots had gained possession for that drive when Devin McCourty punched the ball free from Travis Kelce after the tight end had caught a pass over the middle. Stephon Gilmore recovered that football and was off to the races to score what likely would have been a defensive touchdown. That can't be known for sure, but Gilmore had an easy cutback option that would have required him to simply outrun an offensive lineman and quarterback Patrick Mahomes in order to reach the end zone.

But that didn't matter, because an official whistled the play dead, ruling that Kelce had been down before losing possession of the football. Belichick used one of his aforementioned challenges and won, but doing so only gave the Patriots possession where Gilmore recovered the loose ball, essentially taking a defensive touchdown off the board.

It was, objectively, a very bad call on the field.

And the call against Harry happened just two minutes later:

Officials also cost the Patriots a timeout on the aforementioned second-down incompletion at the goal line, as the call on the field initially indicated Jakobi Meyers had caught a touchdown. After a huddle, the officials ruled it an incompletion, leaving the Patriots without enough time on the play clock to call their next play, thus leading to a burned timeout. And officials missed a blatant pass interference penalty that should have been called against the Chiefs:

(If you're wondering, no, the full extent of this ineptitude was not available via instant recall memory. Fortunately, though, it was covered extensively in real-time.) 

The referee that day was Jerome Boger, with umpire Carl Paganelli, down judge Patrick Holt, line judge Rusty Baynes, back judge Tony Steratore, side judge Jonah Monroe, and field judge David Meslow also working the game. They've all surely moved on since that regular-season day spent in southeastern Massachusetts.

But some fans -- and players -- clearly have not.