When the Kansas City Chiefs have found success in recent years, conspiracy theories have followed.

This year, with Taylor Swift in tow during an election cycle, the speculation proliferated, but the referees’ preferential treatment of Super Bowl MVP QB Patrick Mahomes has always been at the top of the list among conspiracy theorists.

Fans of opposing teams don’t like how dominant the Chiefs have been, so the only explanation has to be that the referees offer Mahomes preferential treatment. These claims have no foundation to stand on and asking for any evidence to support them often leads to cherrypicked clips that you could find for any other quarterback in the league.

That said, new audio from Mahomes’ Super Bowl 58 victory over the San Francisco 49ers shows that the referees maybe think a little higher of Mahomes than the rest of the league.

What did the referees say?

The clip above reveals audio from players, coaches, and referees right before a defensive stop by the Chiefs. It is only a short segment of the video, but at one point, referee Bill Vinovich makes the statement: ‘Your best play that you have in your book right now,’ referring to what the 49ers’ offense needed to do at that moment. ‘Because you don’t want to give Mahomes the ball back.’

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Some fans did not realize that referees talk about games like this as they are officiating.

What does this mean?

Isn’t it obvious?! THE GAME WAS RIGGED! CLEARLY!

Crazy enough, some people actually seem to think this from the video.

Other people looked at other areas of the game where the refs did not make a call which ended up impacting the game.

In all seriousness, this doesn’t mean anything. So a referee mentioned how good a quarterback Mahomes is. Everyone does that. There were surely 49ers fans watching the Super Bowl who said something similar in that moment. If anything, it would point to Vinovich wanting the 49ers to succeed because he’s talking about what they need to do to win.

For years now, there have been conspiracies floating around that the NFL is rigged, and if we’re being totally honest, this year didn’t do much to quell those rumors. But the Chiefs had proven capable of winning multiple championships before the Travis Kelce-Swift romance was ever imagined. Either this is the longest con ever fathomed and they’d been planning this for years, or the Chiefs – and Mahomes – are really good.

Vinovich knows the answer.