The Kansas City Chiefs lost their fourth game out of their last five tonight, losing to the Houston Texans, 20-10, in a game that dropped the Chiefs below .500 and officially ended their streak of nine straight AFC West titles.
The Chiefs played an ugly game throughout. Their offense was thoroughly dominated and outplayed by Houston’s defense in the first half, and the Texans posted a field goal in the first quarter and a touchdown in the second to lead 10-0 at the half.
Kansas City rallied to tie the game in the third quarter, however, as their defense stifled the Texans and the offense finally woke up. A 36-yard field goal by kicker Harrison Butker finally got the Chiefs on the board, and quarterback Patrick Mahomes led Kansas City on a 56-yard touchdown drive that was capped off by a three-yard TD run by running back Kareem Hunt.
That was when the mistakes began piling up in earnest for the Chiefs. They turned the ball over twice on downs in the fourth quarter, and drops by the likes of receiver Rashee Rice and tight end Travis Kelce killed off drives and led to Houston interceptions.
The second attempt to convert on fourth down was particularly ill-advised. It happened in the fourth quarter and gave the Texans the ball deep in Chiefs territory, and C.J. Stroud led Houston on a short 31-yard drive that resulted in a 5-yard touchdown run by running back Dare Ogunbowale to put Houston ahead, 17-10.
The Chiefs had chances to tie the game, but the mistakes kept coming. As painful as the drops and questionable coaching decisions were, it was just as painful to watch a gimpy Mahomes go 14-for-33 with three interceptions behind a leaky, beat-up offensive line, and at least one of the picks wasn’t his fault.
The Texans continued to play conservative football and take advantage of Kansas City’s errors after they taking the lead, and a late 28-yard field goal by Ka’imi Fairbairn made it a two-score game and provided the final margin of victory. Stroud ended up with 203 yards while going 15-for-31 and passing for a touchdown, and his storyline for tonight was that he did just enough to win.
The Chiefs can’t blame this one on not doing “the little things,” which is the coaching point that coach Andy Reid has hammering on for the last few weeks. Kansas City made big mistakes throughout this game, especially in the second half, and in the end they have only themselves to blame for this loss. Those mistakes were made by the likes of franchise heroes such as kicker Harrison Butker, who also bounced a short field goal off the upright, along with Mahomes, Kelce and Rice.
The Chiefs are still mathematically alive in the playoff race, but they’’ll need to win out and get a lot of help to get there. Winning out barely seems possible given the way they played tonight, while the Texans kept pace with the Jacksonville Jaguars, who took over the AFC South lead with a 36-19 thrashing of the Indianapolis Colts.
Kansas City has a home game next week against the Los Angeles Chargers, but it’s starting to feel like it doesn’t matter with what the Chiefs are putting on the field. The Texans, meanwhile, earned an important potential tiebreaker, and they get a bit of a breather with consecutive home games against the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders next up on their schedule.