Chiefs break bad trends in overtime comeback win over Colts
Kansas City tops an AFC contender in a gritty, one-score victory on the backs of Rice, Hunt and the defense.
The Kansas City Chiefs (6-5) defeated more than the Indianapolis Colts (8-3) on Sunday — they beat a pair of season-long trends.
They won a one-score game, 23-20, and came out victorious against a team currently slated for the playoffs for the first time this season in their Week 12, 11-point comeback overtime thriller.
“We’re still not where we want to be at but this was big,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “Getting that win against a really good football team and kind of proving it to ourself that we can play this kind of football game where it’s not always pretty.”
The Chiefs were dominant on both sides of the ball, although the scoreboard did not dictate it. A couple of crucial mistakes left Indianapolis front-running from the 8:11 mark in the first quarter until the clock hit triple zeros at the end of regulation.
The Chiefs began the fourth quarter down 20-9 on the Colts’ 17-yard line and seemed primed to cut into the deficit. However, just two plays later, it seemed like all hopes of a comeback, and possibly a shot at the playoffs, were shot after running back Kareem Hunt coughed up the ball in a second-effort attempt at extra yardage.
It was Hunt’s only blemish on an otherwise stellar afternoon. The Chiefs’ defense offered him a shot at redemption after forcing the Daniel Jones-led offense three-and-out, something they did to them five times throughout the game.
“Obviously the energy is not good (following the fumble) but I thought it was really cool to not only see our defense stand tall in that moment, that was a huge drive and for them to stand tall and take it upon themselves to say, ‘we have to get a stop right now’ and then there was like a feeling that you had at Arrowhead, you can see the fans were behind us.
They didn’t hang their heads because it was a fumble. They said that they were going to be with y’all through the end, through this all, and I thought that was really cool, and you can feel that momentum swing in our favor even after a bad play for us. I’m glad that happened here because I thought that really did change the outcome of the game.”
Hunt made good on it, rumbling in for a two-yard touchdown to cap off an 11-play drive that lasted over five minutes to cut the lead to 20-15. Mahomes then threw a bullet to wide receiver Rashee Rice on a successful two-point conversion to pull them within three.
“He’s (Hunt) a warrior man,” Mahomes said. “He truly is. I’ve known that since the day I met him. I thought it was awesome to see how he just responded over and over again … That speaks a ton to the people that we have up front and then him and the way that he’s able to run the football.”
The two AFC teams then traded punts until the Chiefs were given what turned out to be the final possession in regulation with 4:43 remaining on the clock.
Then, Kansas City did what it could not do against the Denver Broncos last week. They melt all of the time off the clock before booting in the game-tying field goal to make it 20-20.
The Colts won the coin toss and elected to receive to start overtime, but defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s unit did what it did all day. They stuffed potential Offensive Player of the Year Jonathan Taylor on a third and one to force the Colts’ fourth-straight three-and-out.
“That was crazy,” head coach Andy Reid said. “That was great. Helped win the game for us, right? Like I said, the part I like the best was the support the guys just gave each other. I thought that was important. Nobody flinched on it; wasn’t hanging their head. That wasn’t happening. They came out and they played. They did it when it counted.”
Things were looking grim for quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the offense briefly, until he found wide receiver Xavier Worthy deep down the left side of the field for a 31-yard gain on a third and seven from their own 24. This was on the heels of Mahomes missing a wide-open Travis Kelce.
Two plays later, Mahomes then found Rice on a deep-crossing route to the right side to firmly cement the possession into kicker Harrison Butker’s range.
Hunt tacked on another 10-yard rush, which put him over 100 yards for the day, to set up Butker’s 27-yard game-winner to seal the three-point victory.
The MVPs of the game were Hunt, Rice, Butker, and the entire Kansas City defense.
The Chiefs had not had a 100-yard rusher or receiver heading into the game. Afterwards, they wound up having both, and Mahomes gloated over how the running game complemented the passing game.
“Whenever you’re able to run the football like that, it makes defenses come up and then you can hit some of these deeper throws down the field like we did at the end there,” Mahomes said. “It’s something that we have to continue to get better at. It’s a short week, we have to learn from this film and move on quickly, but I’m glad that we were able to get a win going into this short week.”
No one can say head coach Andy Reid did not commit to the run this week. It took Hunt 30 carries, but he bullied his way to 104 yards and one touchdown, to go along with his untimely fumble. The nine-year veteran also caught three passes for 26 yards.
Rice finished with eight catches for 141 yards on 12 targets. The Chiefs’ number one wide receiver made most of his hay in the second half during their comeback attempt, when he exploded for 42 and 47-yard bursts.
“Yeah, he’s (Rice) real good,” Reid said. “He’s a great player – they all are. They all have potential to do great things. Listen, we’re glad he is back. He’s big and he’s strong, fast, all that stuff. Tough to bring down. He pushed through; he was tired there. He pushed through, and I thought he did a nice job.”
Butker, meanwhile, went five-for-five in field goal attempts, including a 48-yarder towards the end of the first half. He never attempted an extra point because the Chiefs went for two after their lone touchdown.
All of that is not to say Mahomes had a bad game. That was hardly the case after finishing the win 29-of-46, for 352 yards, zero touchdowns and one interception. He also tacked on four carries for 30 yards.
Worthy, Kelce and Brashard Smith also had healthy stat lines of four catches for 59 yards, four catches for 43 yards and three catches for 31 yards, respectively.
It was the defense that kept Kansas City in the game, though. The Colts came into the matchup with the league’s leading rusher, a quarterback that was third in the league in passing and the league’s most potent offense overall in several different categories, including an average of over 31 points per game.
“I thought Spags (Spagnuolo) had a nice plan defensively against one of the best offenses in the National Football League,” Reid said. “… when you start looking at the yardage here and the time of the possession, they didn’t have the ball much because the defense was getting the guys off the field and onwards.”
The Chiefs did not force a single sack or turnover, but they simply kept the Colts off the field. Kansas City controlled the clock for over 17 minutes longer and limited Indianapolis to 10 first downs to the Chiefs’ 30.
Mahomes and the offense nearly doubled the Colts in yardage, limiting Jones to 181 yards passing and Taylor to 58 yards rushing. Taylor was averaging well over 100 yards per game entering the matchup.
“He’s (Taylor) a great player now,” Reid said.”One of Wisconsin’s finest right there, man. He’s a heck of a football player. Our guys did a nice job of wrapping him up – you saw a couple of those where he bounces off and then, because he’s had a few of those this season and per game, yards after the contact. So, you have to really focus on wrapping him up and getting him on the ground, and I thought our guys did that and did that well.”
The defense swarmed to the ball all afternoon, creating four tackles for a loss, six pass defenses and six hits on the quarterback.
Safety Bryan Cook and linebacker Nick Bolton each led the team in tackles with eight, while linebacker Drue Tranquill tallied the most tackles for a loss with two. Defensive linemen Chris Jones and George Karlaftis each had two quarterback hits, leading the way in that category.
The real damage was done in the fourth quarter and overtime, when the Chiefs’ defense held the Colts to 18 yards and zero first downs while the Chiefs posted 236 yards and 13 first downs in that time span.
“Momentum is high,” defensive tackle Chris Jones said of the defense coming alive in the fourth quarter. “It’s a sense of urgency in the building, especially where we want to go as a team. Everyone feels that, everyone knows that, and for us, it’s about continuing to keep each other going.”
What kept Indianapolis in the game was two-fold. Kansas City turned it over twice, while the Colts had none, and the Chiefs’ offense went 1-for-6 in the red zone, although one of those visits to the red area ended on Butker’s second-down game-winning field goal.
Immediately, the Chiefs took a gut-punch when Laiatu Latu tipped Mahomes’ first pass of the game, and then, with the ball hanging in the balance, Latu brought it in for the interception. Mahomes made the tackle at his own three-yard line, but Jones found wide receiver Michael Pittman just three plays later to make it a quick 7-0 lead.
Things were looking grim for Kansas City, down 14-3 late in the second half, but it managed to march down for two field goal drives, scoring six points in the half’s final two minutes and 19 seconds.
It was those final minutes that allowed the Chiefs to stay within striking distance, despite allowing two straight field goals to open the second half before storming back.
Penalties, a turnover and a lack of execution are what led to their red zone woes, but the defense played stout enough to allow a touchdown and five field goals to be good enough. The Chiefs can now hang their hat on the possibility of winning, even when it is ugly.
“We’ve been in these games,” Mahomes said. “All five of our losses, I feel like felt like these games where there was plays here and there that we didn’t make and we could’ve won all of them and we didn’t. Until you prove it, you can talk about it all day, but until you prove it, it’s not going to happen. We were able to prove that we can win a game like this where it’s not always going great, where multiple guys have to step up, and then you can make the big plays in the big moments, and I thought our guys did that.”
Kansas City still has plenty of work to do, but this was step one. With six to go, they find themselves sitting in 10th place in the AFC with plenty of matchups against playoff contenders, including the Houston Texans, Los Angeles Chargers and the Broncos.
The Chiefs need to win at least five of their next six, if not all of them, and the next test is just four days away, when they will travel to face the Dallas Cowboys (5-5-1) on Thanksgiving Day.
“I think now we just have to build off that momentum,” Mahomes said. “It’s going to be a short week. We’re playing a good team in the Cowboys, and they can score some points, and they have a lot of great players. It’s about rebounding fast, trying to be better, even better this next week, going into a big environment, big game, and trying to get that win. It’s going to be a lot of fun going to Dallas and getting to play on Thanksgiving.”
INJURIES
The four-day turnaround may be tough for some players. Right guard Trey Smith (ankle), Chris Roland-Wallace (back) and tight end Noah Gray (concussion) all exited the game against the Colts and were ruled out.
UP NEXT
The Chiefs will take on the Cowboys in Week 13, taking part in their first Thanksgiving Day game since 2006. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. CT.
