K.C.’s comeback against Houston one for the ages
KaNSAS CITY 51, HOUSTON 31
Of the tickets available from brokers heading into this weekend’s NFL divisional round playoffs, those for the Chiefs-Texans game were the cheapest.
The “get in” prices at Arrowhead Stadium on some sites was under $165, much more feasible than the $227 low for ducats at Levi’s Stadium for Saturday’s 49ers-Vikings game on StubHub.
Maybe that’s why some folks didn’t feel bad about burning them.
“You’re leaving?” one man was asked as he and his wife traipsed through the parking lot just after 4 p.m. (ET) on Sunday.
“(Bleep) ya,” he said, shaking his head and scoffing. “Are you (bleepin’) kiddin’? Twenty four to (bleepin’) nothin’? What a (bleepin’) joke.”
Ahh, but not so fast. The punchline had yet to be delivered.
And what a zinger it was.
As it turned out, all the dejected Chiefs fans guilty of premature evacuation of Arrowhead made a tremendous mistake. They wound up missing one of the greatest shows ever witnessed at the storied, 48-yearold building, or performed by the franchise that relocated to Kansas City in 1963.
Sunday’s game turned out to be of the greatest playoff comebacks in NFL history, as a matter of fact.
And of course it came against Houston.
Back when Houston’s team was the Oilers (who are now the Tennessee Titans), they coughed up a 32-point lead in a 1993 AFC wild card showdown that stands as the biggest choke job or comefrom-behind victory (depending on your point of view) in league history. Their opponent that day was the Buffalo Bills, who landed on top in a 41-38 final.
What the Chiefs accomplished 27 years later was a 51-31 win over the Texans that makes them the host team in next Sunday’s AFC championship game against the Titans.
To pull it off, the Chiefs erased a 24-0 deficit by putting up 41 consecutive points. They scored 28 of those points in the final 10 minutes of the first half, when Patrick Mahomes became just the second quarterback in post-season history to throw four touchdown passes in one quarter. The other was Doug Williams, who did so in leading the Washington Redskins to victory 32 years ago in Super Bowl XXII.
Everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the Chiefs in the first quarter.
A blown coverage led to a Kenny Stills 54-yard scoring reception off a Deshaun Watson pitch on the first Houston possession.
The initial Chiefs series was over shortly after that, and it ended terribly for the home team when Lonnie Johnson Jr. blocked a punt and brought it into the end zone to put the Texans ahead by two touchdowns before all the barbecues were turned off at the parking lot tailgate parties.
A Tyreek Hill fumble deep in Chiefs territory led to a two-yard TD reception by Darren Fells that made the score 21-0.
And Ka’imi Fairbairn put the Texans up 24-0 on a 31-yard field goal with just under 11 minutes left in the second quarter.
That was the splash of water in the face that woke up the Chiefs.
Damien Williams scored on a 17-yard reception on the next series, then Mahomes and Travis Kelce put on a show with short scoring connections of five, six and five yards.
Just like that, the Chiefs weren’t going to the locker-room at halftime looking to regroup. They brought the momentum with them to the second half and weren’t going to let it slip away.
Williams scored his second and third touchdowns of the day in the third quarter, with runs of one and five yards, and suddenly the rout was on.
It was interrupted when Watson hit Will Fuller with a long pass to the Chiefs five-yard-line and then swept around the edge on the next snap, pulling the Texans to within 10 points.
But when the Chiefs found the end zone again a little more than one minute into the fourth quarter on an eight-yard reception by Blake Bell, more than 76,000 fans looked up at the big screen and joined a singalong of Garth Brooks’ Friends in Low Places.
The Texans will be down in the dumps for a while after this one.
Meanwhile, the Chiefs get set to host the great underdogmakes-good story that is the Titans, who knocked off the Patriots and Ravens to get within one win of the Super Bowl.
The Chiefs and Titans met once this season, in Tennessee on Week 10.
The Titans won 35-32.