It appears the Kansas City Chiefs have stockpiled quite a bit of karma despite their recent serial success, winning yet another game Sunday evening in stunningly fortunate fashion.
Kansas City welcomed AFC West divisional rivals Los Angeles at Arrowhead Stadium for Sunday Night Football, where the 11-1 Chiefs stunningly found themselves behind 16-14 as they began their final drive.
Star Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes hadn't been his typically explosive self most of the afternoon, but the three-time MVP stepped up with a pair of mammoth 3rd and long conversions to continue Kansas City's fateful drive. This methodical, 14-play march ultimately advanced KC down to the 13-yard line with just a second remaining, setting up a game-winning field goal try for the Chiefs' embattled place-kicking room.
Matthew Wright trotted out to take the game-winning kick, Kansas City's third kicker in less than a month with Harrison Butker and Spencer Shrader both currently on injured reserve, and it initially appeared the sixth-year NFL specialist had horribly shanked his kick from the right hash. However, the football then collided with the left upright and, remarkably, went through the upright, securing Kansas City's 17-16 win and its ninth-straight division title.
Despite a gaudy 12-1 record, it's been a month of sweaty, fortuitous finishes for Chiefs fans. Kansas City looked set for their first loss of the season on November 10 as another AFC West rival Denver lined up for a game-winning 35-yard field goal, only for the Chiefs special teams unit to remarkably come through with a decisive blocked kick.
The Chiefs would finally fall the following week, a certainly understandable road loss at AFC contenders Buffalo, but Kansas City would need another game-winning field goal to sneak past a dreadful Panthers team after allowing 11 answered fourth-quarter points.
And finally, Kansas City managed to defeat Las Vegas by the same 19-17 score on Thanksgiving Weekend, this time pouncing on a late Raiders miscommunication-turned-fumble that prevented a game-winning field goal tries. Despite this series of close calls, Chiefs DT Chris Jones remains unconcerned, with his only focus being the team's three-game win streak.
"When you look at the playoffs, most games are close, down-to-the-wire type of games, so there's a lot we can build from this as a team overall," Jones said, via Adam Teicher of ESPN.com. "We're just going to keep on winning, keep on winning. You can learn a lot from winning. It is better to win than have a pretty loss. We'll take an ugly win, build from it and continue to get better."
