Leave it to a former NFL center to call it how it is: Yes, the Chiefs did commit a false start on their penultimate play in last Sunday’s 28-24 loss to the Broncos. In the latest episode of New Heights, Jason Kelce admitted that Jaylen Moore flinched before the snap, and the refs got the game-changing call right.

But Kelce was more baffled by something else the Chiefs’ O-line did on that play before the false start was called.

The ex-Eagles center told his brother Travis, who also agreed that Moore flinched, that he was “confused” by Kansas City’s other offensive linemen’s antics leading up to the penalty.

“I wanted to bring this up with you, Travis. Did you guys discuss this?” Jason said. “This was confusing to me, when I watched this live. ... The right guard, Trey Smith, is looking back at the quarterback and Creed Humphrey’s head is also looking down. Most of the time when the Chiefs are on silence cadence, I believe—correct me if I’m wrong—Creed is the one looking back.

“... So I was looking at this, I was like, ‘Why is Trey looking back there?’ It looks like they’re doing a guard silent cadence, and before this, you can’t see it in this play, it was loud and you could see Pat [Mahomes] is screaming at the receivers to the left to make sure that they know what they’re doing or are aligned properly. So whenever there’s a hold-up in the operation, that leads to guys being antsy.

“But Jaylen Moore here, I don’t know what happened on this play where Trey is looking back and so is Creed. But if you watch, right when Trey turns around—for those of you watching, the tackle in a silent cadence is periphing the guy that he is blocking over here to the right and the center. And there’s not a verbal aspect to this. The moment the center lifts his head up, he’s gotta go. And he’s gotta time that up. You’re not looking at the center when it happens, you’re seeing the center out of the peripheral of your left eye. So Trey looking back and then all of a sudden snapping forward is within that kind of plane of sight. You don’t want all this movement happening.”

Jason went on to explain how Humphrey ran a quicker silence cadence than other NFL centers, which can hurry the tackle to get off the snap count.

“Creed lifts his head up and he snaps it quick, so I can see why Jaylen Moore—I don’t want to make excuses for him, he’s gotta be locked in—but there’s a lot of shit happening inside of here. I was confused on why there’s so many guys looking back in the first place, what was getting communicated. I kind of felt bad for Jaylen to be honest with you, ‘cause this whole thing came down to him getting a false start, and I don’t know what the f--- is going on in there.”

Here’s a replay of that false start, for reference:

In the video, you can see Trey Smith, lined up on the left of Moore, looking back before the snap, and seconds later he turns his head to look forward. Right when Smith’s head turns, Moore visibly flinches, thinking that the snap is coming. Moore is called for the false start and thus receives a hefty portion of the blame, even though it looks like his fellow offensive linemen arguably weren’t doing him any favors.

Ultimately, it appears there was quite a bit of pre-snap communication from Mahomes, which can often lead to operational mistakes on the offensive front. Travis Kelce didn’t really respond to Jason’s public questioning of the Chiefs’ possible communication snafu and simply stated the team had to clean up its penalties.

“If we clean up penalties, I think we can be as good as we want to be in this league. That’s the message in the building and that’s the message from our leader up front,” Travis said.

Ever since Mahomes became the Chiefs’ starting quarterback in 2018, their -1100 in penalty yard differenetial is the third worst in the NFL, ahead of only the Jets and Saints, according to AP’s Josh Dubow. Kansas City has been penalized for 164 more yards than its opponents this season, good for the worst differential in the league.

Following a dreadful season in which the Chiefs missed the playoffs altogether and saw Mahomes suffer the worst injury of his career thus far, Kansas City has returned to its winning ways with a 5-2 record to start its 2026 campaign. However, the team’s recent loss to the Broncos may suggest these are not, in fact, the same championship-winning Chiefs of years past. Down by four with less than two minutes in the final quarter, Mahomes got the ball back for a potential game-winning drive—a sentence that would scare any opposing NFL quarterback to death. This time, the three-time Super Bowl champ came up short, and there’s no single person to blame.