Chiefs lead charge:
K.C. proved its championship mettle by storming back from 24-0 down and then breaking a team record for playoff points.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – There are carnivals that aren’t this entertaining. Soap operas that aren’t this dramatic. Heck, there are “Madden” games that aren’t this high-scoring – and defense is essentially optional when you’re sitting on the couch.
Patrick Mahomes is a special, special quarterback who is going to do a lot of special, special things in his career. But when all is said and done, this is going to be the game that will define him.
Down 24-0 less than five minutes into the second quarter, Mahomes threw four touchdown passes before halftime. That’s right, four, wiping out the deficit and giving Kansas City an improbable lead.
Kansas City scored three more after the half, as the Chiefs ran off 41 unanswered points on the Texans. By the end of the night, Kansas City had a 51-31 win and a spot in the AFC title game for a second consecutive year.
And Mahomes had more records and how-did-he-do-that? moments to add to his legend.
“Ahhh, not a lot, honestly,” Mahomes said with a grin when asked how many times he’s scored on seven consecutive drives in “Madden.”
“It was an amazing thing. Everything was working. Play calls were great, everybody was getting open against man coverage.”
It helped that the Texans were a hot mess. Starting with their head coach, who hurt his team as much as Mahomes did.
The Chiefs were about as bad as they could possibly be in the first quarter, fueling the notion that the Texans might pull off a shocker like their brethren from the AFC South, the Titans. Deshaun Watson took advantage of a breakdown in the Kansas City defense on the opening drive, connecting with a wideopen Kenny Stills for a 54-yard touchdown.
Barkevious Mingo blocked a punt that Lonnie Johnson returned for a touchdown for a second score. And Keion Crossen recovered a muffed punt by Tyreek Hill at the Chiefs 6 to set up the third touchdown.
Add in a field goal, and the Texans were riding a 24-0 lead.
Then Bill O’Brien lost his mind – and, it will bear watching in the next few months, maybe his team.
The Texans faced a 4thand-4 from their own 31. Now, on the previous drive, they’d had 4th-and-1 from the Kansas City 13 and decided to kick the field goal. Surely they wouldn’t go for it in this situation, right? Wrong.
Justin Reid took a direct snap and managed to gain 2 yards. Arrowhead Stadium, which had been stunned into silence, erupted. Helped by a 28-yard pass interference call on Johnson, the Chiefs scored four plays later to pull within 24-14.
“We felt like we had a look, and it just didn’t work,” O’Brien said.
That would be an understatement.
Like a snowball that just needs a push to set off an avalanche, the momentum had shifted and was rolling decidedly in the Chiefs’ favor. Where just minutes earlier they had appeared to be in danger of being run out of their own stadium, now they were running over the Texans.
Mahomes joined Doug Williams, in Super Bowl XXIII, as the only quarterbacks to throw four touchdown passes in a single quarter in the postseason. Travis Kelce caught three of those, making him the first player in the Super Bowl era with three TD catches in a single quarter. He also joined Dave Casper and Rob Gronkowski as the only tight ends with a threetouchdown game in the postseason.
The 24-point comeback was the largest in Kansas City’s history and also made the Chiefs the first team to be trailing by 24 and come back to lead or tie at halftime.
“It’s just an insane accumulation,” right tackle Mitchell Schwartz said. “I didn’t realize – someone said it was seven touchdowns in a row. That’s pretty good. It just keeps coming and keep coming.”
Everyone knows the Chiefs are capable of piling up the points. Mahomes is the reigning MVP and last year threw for 5,097 yards and 50 touchdowns. He’s as much a video game come to life as he is a quarterback.
But to do it in this setting, facing that kind of deficit? It defies description.
Well, one you can print, anyway.
“I went to Alabama,” linebacker Reggie Ragland said, laughing, when asked if he’d ever been a part of a game like this.
“But being down like that? I don’t think I have.”
This was a game that had to be seen to be believed. And maybe not even then.