DENVER — We say this with love, Chiefs Kingdom. But go flag yourselves.

Seriously. The complaints. The whining. The Zapruder-like breakdowns. Back and to the left. Back and to the left. Well, you know what? Jaylon Moore went back and to the right. Back and to the right.

It’s one of the most impactful fourth-down plays in the recent history of the Broncos-Chiefs rivalry, and we’ve all seen the tape. With four seconds left on the clock, with the host Broncos up 28-24, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City offense had a fourth-and-goal at the Denver 1-yard line.

The visitors got the play off, and Mahomes fired a dart just past the plane of the goal line to cutting wideout Rashee Rice, a touchdown that would’ve secured a Chiefs victory. It was a bang-bang pass play … but in the commotion, flags flew.

Moore was called for a false start from his right tackle position; the play and touchdown were wiped off the record, and the ball was placed back at the 6. The hosts got a second chance to defend their own goal, and made it count, as Malcolm Roach sacked Mahomes from the middle of the pocket to end the game. (Although Mahomes, while being downed, flung the ball up in the air toward the end zone anyway, hoping for another intervention from either the refs or from the football gods.)

“I saw him move his head,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said later, “but I didn’t see a false start.”

Watch the tape again, Big Red.

It’s subtle, granted. But it’s there. On the camera angle shot from the north end zone, the one the Broncos were defending, it’s clear that, before the snap, Moore jerked his right knee back quickly, then stopped, as if realizing his mistake.

Our film review crew will give credit where it’s due — in his first home game back from the NFL commissioner’s exempt list, Broncos edge-rusher Jonathon Cooper noticed it right away and made the officiating crew aware. No. 0 made a split-second point to Moore’s right leg before Mahomes signaled for the snap on the silent count.

“But a lot of times in those big moments,” Mahomes noted later, “the little stuff doesn’t get called like that.”

Not against you, my friend. But this time, it was. Even from the overhead camera angle more frequently cited, Moore’s right leg appears to twitch as he turns his head to look at Mahomes.

So did he jump? By the letter of the law, no question. Even Travis Kelce’s brother, his podcast partner in crime, said he did. Although the Kelces agreed to term the movement as a “flinch.”

“A lot of people say this isn’t a penalty,” Jason Kelce, an excellent center (and Super Bowl winner) during his playing days with the Eagles, said on the “New Heights” podcast released a few days ago “I want to go on-record: This is definitely a penalty.”

And even his brother, who was in motion on the play, didn’t seem to argue that point.

“At the end of the day, we still had another play left,” Travis said.

Sure did. Now, could somebody please tell Brittany Mahomes?

———

Because the Chiefs quarterback’s wife sure made a point to scream ‘Conspiracy!’ after the contest, didn’t she?

“You can’t tell me you call that on a game-winning TD, oh wait, yeah, I can, cause it’s us,” Mrs. Mahomes wrote on her Instagram feed. “That was the weakest call I have ever seen; you can’t tell me otherwise.”

Actually, ma’am, we can. In fact, we just did.

When told of the pushback on social media immediately after the game, at least one valiant Broncos defender just shrugged.

There was this exchange between a local scribe and goal-line stand hero Roach at Roach’s locker stall:

“What do you say to people who are like, ‘The refs gave the Broncos a break?' ” Roach was asked.

To this, he pondered.

“I don’t know,” Roach said, quietly. “But there have been plenty of times they called a penalty on me, and I feel like I (wasn’t) doing (anything), so …

“But, no, seriously, y’all (reporters are) giving me information I didn’t even know. Like, once the flag was (out), there was nothing you could do.”

Roach paused again.

“Coach (Payton) says, Coach always tells us, ‘Nobody ever won an argument with a referee once he makes the call.’ So that’s kind of what it is.”

And what it always will be. Whether Chiefs Kingdom likes it or not.

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