Chiefs pat themselves on back after near comeback

KANSAS CITY, MO. • The Kansas City Chiefs trudged into the locker-room after their first loss with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback, a streak that goes back six games to his Week 17 start last season.

Here’s the thing, though: there was no sense of defeat Sunday in Gillette Stadium.

Instead, the Chiefs seemed downright emboldened by the way they fought back from a big halftime hole against New England. And if not for a litany of injuries to their defence and another clutch game by Tom Brady and the Patriots offence, which drove downfield in the final minutes to set up a winning field goal in their 43-40 victory, the Chiefs might have kept their winning streak going.

“We got down, we put ourselves in a huge hole and I’m just proud of my team and how we fought to get back in the game,” Mahomes said. “We had the lead at one point and then we ended up not coming out with the win, but just that fight, it’s something you can carry on and to the rest of this season.”

True, but the way the Chiefs performed under the lights in Foxborough, Mass., may have been more than the stereotypical moral victory.

Mahomes threw two interceptions in the first half when Bill Belichick’s defence seemed to have the young quarterback confused. The Chiefs’ running game was going nowhere and a defence missing lead passrusher Justin Houston and its top three safeties to injuries looked like a sieve.

It was 24-9 at the break and could have been a whole lot worse.

But for the first time in his budding career, Mahomes not only was forced to make massive in-game adjustments, but did so successfully. He wound up throwing four second-half touchdown passes as the offence piled up 31 points.

Patrick Mahomes