A roughing-the-passer flag on the Chiefs had Andy Reid barking on the sideline Sunday, and it didn’t sit right with plenty of fans or CBS Sports rules analyst Gene Steratore, either.
The sequence came in Kansas City’s game against the Chargers at Arrowhead Stadium, when defensive end Ashton Gillotte was penalized for roughing the passer after running into Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. The call erased an interception by the Chiefs’ Chris Rolland-Wallace.
Steratore, working the broadcast, made it clear he wasn’t sold on the flag.
“To me,” Steratore said, “I just didn’t like the foul for roughing the passer.”
He added that Gillotte appeared to try to avoid contact and did not launch his body at Herbert.
The Chiefs ultimately recovered from the mistake anyway. Later in the drive, linebacker Jack Cochrane intercepted Herbert, giving Kansas City the takeaway it had briefly lost.
Still, the penalty drew a strong reaction from Reid, who let the officials hear about it on the sideline. Fans piled on afterward, blasting the call on X and calling it one of the worst roughing penalties they’d seen.
“That call on Gillotte is the worst roughing the passer call I’ve ever seen,” one wrote on X.
Others were just as blunt, labeling it “the worst call of the weekend,” “the softest roughing the passer call in NFL history,” and, from one frustrated fan, “That was a bs call on Ashton Gillotte in the Chiefs-Chargers game for roughing the passer. @NFLOfficiating , I’m not one to complain too much about you all’s poor officiating, but you all need to do way better on training these refs on when a 300lb player doesn’t have air brakes and can’t just stop from hitting a QB!”
One post even suggested the officials were “betting on the games.”
The controversy also followed another roughing call involving the Chiefs a few weeks earlier, when Dolphins edge rusher Chop Robinson was flagged for landing on Patrick Mahomes in the end zone during Kansas City’s 24-10 win in Miami. Steratore said that one was correct by the rulebook. This one, he said, didn’t look right to him.
Ashton Gillotte called for roughing the passer. What do you think #ChiefsKingdom ??? https://t.co/LsxcN48aqu
- ESPN Wichita 92.3 (@ESPNWichita) October 18, 2026
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