Chiefs comeback falls short against Bills

The Kansas City Chiefs (8-5) lose to the Buffalo Bills (7-6) in week 14, 20-17.

The Kansas City Chiefs (8-5) showed grit Sunday afternoon, mounting a comeback against their AFC rival, the Buffalo Bills (7-6) before it ultimately ended in heartbreak and frustration. Despite their efforts, the Chiefs dropped their second game in a row and took a loss at the hands of the Bills, 20-17. 

Staring down the barrel of a blowout, the Chiefs were down 14-0 until there was just over a minute left in the first half. The defense was getting cooked by quarterback Josh Allen and the first four drives for the offense ended with a Patrick Mahomes interception and three punts. 

Kansas City fought back, tying it at 17 early in the fourth quarter before Buffalo led a drive down the field to take a three-point lead late in the game. The Chiefs got the ball back with just under two minutes to go and what happened next was nothing but excitement, controversy and disappointment for the hometown team. 

Mahomes found tight end Travis Kelce deep over the middle of the field, with only daylight in front of him. Once the Bills' defensive backs approached Kelce, he stepped back and threw a dart, laterally to wide receiver Kadarius Toney, who streaked down the sideline as he high-stepped into the end zone. 

Because no one heard the refs blow a whistle, all of Arrowhead Stadium thought the Chiefs took a presumable 24-20 lead over the Bills until they looked back at the line of scrimmage and saw a flag on the field. Toney, the one who finished the play in the end zone had lined up offsides to start the play. 

This costly mistake took away one of the coolest plays of all time, as well as a potential win away from Kansas City. What was so controversial about the chain of events was normally players or coaches are given warnings about such instances. In this case, the Chiefs and Toney were not granted that privilege. 

“Very disappointed that it ended the way it did,” head coach Andy Reid said. “Normally I’ll get – I never use any of this as excuses, but normally I get a warning before something like that happens in a big game. (It’s) a bit embarrassing in the National Football League for that to take place … I’ve been in the league a long time and I haven’t had one like that. So, not where, at least in that kind of position there where it is not given a heads up to.”

Mahomes was visibly livid after the sequence and a few of his teammates had to hold him back as he was chirping at the refs. His frustration was along the same lines as Reid’s but had more to do with making such a call with just over a minute to go in the game, as well as compounding this with the missed pass interference call from last week. 

“I mean it’s obviously tough to swallow, not only for me but just for football in general; to take away greatness like that for a guy like Travis (Kelce) to make a play like that, and who knows if we win,” Mahomes said. “I know as fans you want to see the guys on the field decide the game and that’s why last week I didn’t say anything about the flag that didn’t get called on Marquez (Valdes-Scantling). I mean they’re human, they make mistakes but it’s every week we’re talking about something and all I can do is go out there and give everything I have and I’m proud of the guys, that’s what we did and it was a great football game that ended – another great football game that just ended like that it’s just tough – tough to swallow.”

“ …  it’s just I know how much everybody puts into this game and for it to happen on a flag, change the outcome of a game, in that moment – I’ve played seven years and never had that – never had offensive offsides called, I mean that’s elementary school,” Mahomes went on to say. “We talk about (it), I mean you point to the ref, do all that different type of stuff, they warn you and there was no warning throughout the entire game and then you wait until there’s a minute in the game to make a call like that, it’s tough. I mean loss for words – it’s tough because regardless if we win or lose, just for it to end up with another game and we’re talking about the refs, it’s just not what we want for the NFL or for football.”

The Chiefs still had a few plays left to overcome the mistake and were unsuccessful. What should be noted, however, was that Kansas City had a drive and chance in a tie-ball game with over seven minutes to go and went three and out. The Chiefs had the same chance to take the lead in the fourth quarter last week as well and turned the ball over. 

What was once again prevalent, was what has been the theme all year. Kansas City does not have a third reliable pass catcher. For the third game in a row, Kelce and wide receiver Rashee Rice led the team in receiving, by a large margin. Kelce finished with six catches for 83 yards while Rice tallied seven catches for 72 yards and a touchdown. They accounted for over 56 percent of Mahomes’ 271 yards passing. 

The next closest was running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire with 29 yards receiving. Once again it felt like the Chiefs were pulling teeth to move down the field for much of the night while Mahomes is having trouble connecting with the rest of the wideouts. 

With running back Isiah Pacheco missing this contest due to a shoulder injury, the Chiefs failed to commit to the run game as well, nor did they have much success on the ground. Edwards-Helaire was the leading rusher with 39 yards on 11 carries. Kansas City only ran the ball 16 times in terms of designed runs. 

The Chiefs mounted their initial comeback with a big play by rookie defensive back Chamarri Conner. The Virginia Tech product picked off Allen, which led to a six-yard Jerrick McKinnon touchdown run just before the first half ended. It put the Chiefs down seven heading into halftime, which felt like a win. 

Coming out of the half the Bills extended their lead, kicking a field goal after a near seven-minute drive. Kansas City followed that up with a long drive of their own where Mahomes found Rice in the back of the end zone. 

A few drives later, the Chiefs started with good field position after a strong Richie James punt return. Kicker Harrison Butker is still perfect on the season after he nailed a 27-yard field goal to tie the game after Kansas City stalled in the red zone. That was with 11 minutes to go in the game and unfortunately, that was the last time Kansas City notched anything on the scoreboard.

The Chiefs' defense was bleeding early, giving up over 200 yards in the first half and two rushing touchdowns. They got into their season-long form in the second half, only allowing 121 yards the rest of the way. Kansas City’s offense actually wound up outgaining the Bills offense. 

Early on it appeared the Chiefs were missing starting linebacker Drue Tranquill and safety Bryan Cook. Luckily for the Chiefs, linebacker Nick Bolton came back from injury this week. He and safeties Mike Edwards and Conner performed admirably in their absence. 

Edwards led the team in tackles with 11, Bolton finished second with eight and Conner hauled in the aforementioned interception. Cornerbacks L’Jarius Sneed and Trent McDuffie put the clamps on once again as Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs tallied only 24 yards and they held Gabe Davis to zero. 

“I think we came out early and just didn’t execute the game plan the way we wanted to,” Bolton said. “We had some things we wanted to take away and we let them – they got a couple explosive passes that way. Just settled in and did our job a little better than we had been doing it. I think it just takes all 11 (defensive players), the rush and the coverage working together to get stops. I think that’s a lot of what we didn’t do in the first half, then in the second half, we were able to home in and give our rush time to get there.”

Allen finished with 233 yards passing and evaded pressure all afternoon. The Chiefs hit him 10 times, but only brought him down on three of them. McDuffie and defensive ends George Karlaftis and Charles Omenihu accounted for those. 

The sentiment of the game felt the same as it has all year. The defense played well and the offense failed to overcome mistakes and ailing situations to come out on top. Kansas City has now lost four of its last six games and has a one-game lead on the AFC West over the Denver Broncos. They are two games outside of the one-seed. 

“Yeah, listen, we’re getting better,” Reid said. “I mean we’re still right in the hunt there. We’re playing better than we were a couple weeks ago so it’s a positive thing. That’s what’s disappointing, you know that somebody’s going to sleep good tonight and a lot of guys aren’t.”

They have four games to figure it out as their next task is to travel to Foxborough to take on the New England Patriots (3-10). The game was recently flexed from Monday Night Football to a Sunday noon CDT kickoff on December 17th. 

“I mean obviously, the division has gotten tighter now; we have to do whatever we can to flip the script on our season, this middle part, and that’s going to be going to New England and trying to play a legendary coach and a football team that’s playing better football these last few weeks. It’s going to be a great challenge for us but I was proud of how the guys played today and hopefully we can just move on and keep it going and try to flip the script on the rest of the season.”