The Week 14 clash between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans caught a lot of eyeballs. There were moments on the field where, fairly or not, Kansas City appeared to benefit from calls. But when the league office weighed in on a facemask incident involving KC’s Patrick Mahomes and the Texans’ defensive tackle Mario Edwards Jr. days later, the pendulum swung the other way.

When the NFL released its weekly discipline on Saturday, Edwards’ name wasn’t on the list despite being flagged for a personal foul during the game.

It happened with 3:24 left in the first half. On a 3rd & 5 play, Mahomes rolled right, buying time the way he does. As he let the ball go for a short completion to his wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, Edwards reached up and grabbed the quarterback’s facemask. The flag came out immediately. Fifteen yards, automatic first down. No argument there.

However, the league, despite being aggressive this season about handing out fines for gameday accountability, didn’t see the incident as worth fining for.

For context, a first facemask violation typically carries a fine of up to $11,593. A repeat offense can jump to $17,389. However, this one ended up costing Edwards nothing, making an exception, given how consistently those penalties have been punished this year.

Through 14 weeks, the league had already issued 34 facemask fines, totaling $319,281. What made this case more curious was that Edwards doesn’t exactly have a clean slate. Last season, he was fined $9,245 for a facemask against the Patriots. Two months later, he was hit with a $22,511 fine for roughing Mahomes. History suggested this wouldn’t be ignored. Yet it was.

Interestingly, Edwards wasn’t the only Texan to avoid discipline.

Late in the third quarter, with less than a minute left, Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice crossed the middle and took a hard hit from safety Jalen Pitre. Watching the replay, plenty of people thought Rice absorbed contact to the head. The NFL didn’t think so.

In fact, despite the Texans receiving eight penalties versus KC’s five, neither team received any punishment from the league. Yet, in a night full of controversies, while the punishment decisions went the Texans‘ way, the on-field decisions might’ve gone the other way.

Controversy flooded the Chiefs-Texans matchup

Primetime games have a way of magnifying everything. That was very much the case Sunday night in Kansas City, where a few rulings landed hard with Texans fans.

One incident that set things off came on a fourth-and-1 quarterback sneak by C.J. Stroud. Houston thought they had a clean look, but an offside flag wiped the play out before it could really begin. On replay, it didn’t appear that anyone clearly jumped early. At most, maybe an arm or shoulder crept into the neutral zone.

That wasn’t even the first moment that had people scratching their heads. Earlier, on a short-yardage play, replay assist stepped in and overturned the spot on the field, awarding Kansas City a first down. After a challenge and review, the officials reversed the ruling again, deciding that the replay assist had been incorrect.

However, despite another game that showed some referee bias for KC, the Texans won 20-10, effectively pushing the Chiefs out of playoff contention for the first time in 11 years. Making matters worse is Mahomes’ ACL injury, which might keep him out further.