KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Chiefs thought they had beaten the Indianapolis Colts on a bizarre fumble in overtime Sunday night.
The Colts ended up with a chance to win instead, yet chose to play for a tie.
And once again, Patrick Mahomes and the rest of his crew made an opposing team pay for giving them one last chance.
After the Chiefs and Colts traded field goals in the extra session, Mahomes followed a couple of strong runs by Kenneth Walker III by finding his running back for a long completion, setting up Harrison Butker’s 40-yard field goal as time expired and lifting the Chiefs to a 33-30 victory — the second straight year they’ve beaten Indianapolis on a field goal in overtime.
“I mean, I think guys were resilient, and we just strained to finish,” Mahomes said. “It wasn’t always pretty. There were times we didn’t execute at a high level. But guys continued to fight and continued to push and we found a way at the end.”
Mahomes finished with 382 yards passing and three touchdowns, Walker rumbled for 117 yards, and tight end Travis Kelce looked like a younger version of himself, catching nine balls for 101 yards and a score as the Chiefs improved to 2-0 on the season.
It took a little longer than they first thought.
Butker had kicked a 31-yard field goal in overtime to give them the lead, and the Colts (0-2) responded on their possession by having Jones throw deep to Laquon Treadwell, who had beaten L’Jarius Snead. Treadwell appeared to be bobbling the ball as he hit the ground, got up after he had completed the catch, had the ball popped loose and watched as the Chiefs pounced on it.
The play was ruled a fumble on the field, but the officials reviewed it and determined Treadwell was down by contact. That gave the Colts a chance to score a go-ahead touchdown, but three plays left them facing fourth-and-8 and a decision.
“Had a play called. Had to love the look to run it there,” Colts coach Shane Steichen said. “We took the delay and kicked the field goal.”
Turned out to be the wrong decision.
The Chiefs still had 3:11 to play in the extra session when they got the ball back, and they handed off to Walker on three straight plays to reach midfield. As the Colts began to stack the line of scrimmage to stop him, Mahomes threw a nifty pass to his running back, and he turned it into a 22-yard gain that set up Butker’s winning kick.
“We had worked throughout the week dropping it over the top,” Mahomes said. “They were in a pressure look. We were able to change the play. You get the ball in his hands, Rashee (Rice) did a great job of blocking on the perimeter. That got us in field goal range.”
Got them the win, too.
“Overall we fought like crazy,” Steichen said, “but it wasn’t good enough. And then they find a way to make a play at the end.”
The Colts didn’t look a whole lot better on defense after a disastrous Week 1 performance against Baltimore that they had chalked up to communication problems. They tried to solve the issue by having linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither relay the plays rather than safety Cam Bynum, but the tweak didn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference as Kansas City marched up and down the field.
Each of the Chiefs’ first four drives would have produced points had Butker not missed a 51-yard field goal try.
Yet the Colts were able to match Mahomes and Co. blow-for-blow over the first 30 minutes. Tyler Warren had three catches and a touchdown, Josh Downs picked apart a secondary missing safety Chamarri Conner for a second straight game, and Taylor had 75 of his rushing yards — the highlight a 24-yard touchdown scamper that gave Indianapolis a 20-17 lead at the break.
The Chiefs allowed Denver to run for just 61 yards total in their 31-10 win last week.
“We did some good things. Thought the run game was good. Moved the ball. I thought we were pushing,” Jones said.
Kansas City finally slowed the Colts’ offense by refusing to give them the ball. The Chiefs held it for all but 2:22 of the third quarter, getting a go-ahead TD pass to Jalen Royals and setting up Butker’s field goal to start the fourth.
Indianapolis answered with an 8 1/2-minute drive that Taylor finished with his second TD run to tie it at 27l with 5:37 to go.
Neither offense could produce points down the stretch, though, leaving the game to be decided in overtime.
“It was great that the guys competed for four quarters,” Reid said. “You’re going to have this. The parity in this league is crazy. You’re going to have some once-score games. You have to bear down and and our guys did that.”
