Pats top Chiefs
Brady gets win No. 200
Brady collects win No. 200 with 43-40 victory
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Tom Brady needed everything he had to fend off Patrick Mahomes — including his legs.
Stephen Gostkowski hit a 28-yard field goal as time expired, and the New England Patriots beat the Kansas City Chiefs 43-40 on Sunday after blowing a big halftime lead.
Brady passed for 340 yards and a touchdown and ran for another score, diving head-first between two defenders in a rare run by the 41year-old quarterback.
“I got close to the goal line and I just figured I’d try to get it in,” Brady said of his late TD plunge. “We needed it.”
New England’s third straight win was Brady’s 200th victory as a starting QB, tops all-time. He also passed former teammate Adam Vinatieri for most career wins in the regular season and playoffs combined with 227.
Brady got some help from rookie Sony Michel, who rushed 24 times for 106 yards and two touchdowns in another solid performance.
“It’s tough to slow those guys down, they’ve been scoring a lot of points all year,” Brady said. “They’re gonna be pretty tough to stop. Glad we had our last shot and glad we took advantage of it.”
It was the first loss of the season for the Chiefs (5-1), who were again let down by a defense that came in allowing an NFL-worst 462 yards per game.
New England (4-2) led 24-9 at intermission, but Mahomes directed an impressive rally for Kansas City. He finished 23-of36 for 352 yards in his first loss as a starting quarterback, with three of his four touchdown passes going to Tyreek Hill.
Mahomes threw two interceptions in the first half but was unflappable down the stretch. He found Hill for a 1yard TD pass that made it 3330 Kansas City with 8:38 left. With the Chiefs trailing 40-33, he connected with Hill again for a 75-yard score that tied the game with just over three minutes remaining.
“The last two weeks it seems like we just can’t punch it in there and I feel like the second half we finally started getting it in the end zone,” Mahomes said.
Brady used a 16-yard pass to James White and a 39-yard completion to Rob Gronkowski to get New England into field-goal range.
The Chiefs also started 5-0 last season before losing six of their last 11 and falling in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
But coach Andy Reid said he is confident his team has room to grow.
“We will learn a lot from this game,” he said. “We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit early and you can’t do that against a good football team.”