The captain appeared to be out with just 13 seconds left in their AFC group stage play-off against the Bills.
Gabriel Davis just scored his fourth touchdown of the night to give Buffalo a 36-33 lead. Kansas City will get the ball back, but it seems unlikely that the Captain will be able to finish the game with 13 seconds left, even though they’ve run out of three timeouts in their pocket.
But Patrick Mahomes helped get the job done. He moved the team 44 yards in just two 10-second plays to score Harrison Butker’s 49-yard goal. The last sniff kept the Captains alive and allowed them to win 42-36 in extra time after winning the coin toss and driving encounters in first subframe possession.
Kansas City loyalists should thank Mahomes and Travis Kelce for the last-second improvisation that helped make the victory.
GIVE ADVICE: This time, Patrick Mahomes & the Chiefs won the draw
How Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce Saved the Chiefs Season
Mahomes and Kelce connect when hitting the game lane, but their most important level comes within 13 seconds of the end of the rule. Captains have the ball at their own 44-yard line with eight seconds left and need to get the ball on target the next inning to avoid a low probability Hail Mary in the final inning of the competition.
That’s when Kelce realized a hole in the Bills’ defense. Buffalo played covered soft and almost a containment type. The Bills were left empty in the middle of the field while guarding on the sideline, which opened up a lot of space for Kelce to function.
Kelce was able to tell Mahomes about the hole he saw after Bills timed out. The duo agreed that if that happened again, Kelce would be freelancing, charting his own course and finding a way out of the midfield and down the pitch quickly.
“We looked at what the defense was doing,” said Mahomes, according to the Kansas City Star. “And he literally said, ‘Hey, if they do it again, I’ll take it down right between the two of you protecting me.'”
Buffalo showed the same after the time ran out. Mahomes then called the audio device, allowing Kelce to run his own route.
“Do it, Kels! Do it! Do it, Kels! ‘ Mahomes yelled to the bottom, as you can hear below in the commentary on the CBS broadcast.
Apparently, the play worked, as Kelce’s unorthodox path allowed him to open up in an instant. Mahomes quickly cut the ball for him, which neutralized the effect of pressure from the approaching Buffalo. The play takes just five seconds to run from a tick to the end.
“It was just a small ball in the backyard with just a few seconds left,” said Kelce, “that gave us the opportunity to send the game into extra time.”
BY THE NUMBERS: Break Game Chiefs vs. Wild Bills
Chiefs win probability against Bills in the last 13 seconds
When the Bills kick the ball back to the Captain after their previous touchdown, they have a 91% chance of winning. The chiefs quickly changed that.
Here’s a summary of how the key events of the Captain’s last two rides changed the team’s probability of winning.
Tireek Hill catches a 17-yard pass
The chiefs have only one Probability of winning 9.5 percent after their first pass with less than 13 seconds remaining. Hill caught a short pass from Mahomes and turned it into a 17-yard penalty with the Bills playing extremely soft covering. The play lasted only five seconds, and Hill was able to go out of his way to stop the clock.
Travis Kelce catches a 25-yard pass
Kelce’s catch represents a huge improvement to the Captain’s probability of winning. It went from 9.5 percent to 33.7 percent 25 yards behind reception. That 24.2 percent change represents one of the biggest changes in probability of winning in the game.
Harrison Butker’s on-court goal
The captains had to hit a 49-yard goal to send the game into extra time. He was able to do that, despite missing a shorter field goal and an extra point earlier in the competition, and that forced the game to expire. That makes the chiefs’ probability of victory 50 percent.
IYER: How Bills’ defense collapses in the last 13 seconds
The first person wins when flipping coins
For those wondering, ESPN’s winning probability metric is unaffected by the Winning Tops in the overtime coin flip. In fact, after the Bills start responding to start overtime, the Captain’s probability of winning drops to 49.9 percent. That represents the last time the Bills were favored to win Sunday night’s game.
However, NFL data analyst Michael Lopez estimates that the Chiefs’ probability of winning after a coin flip actually improves to 62.5 percent, time stamp from Gambletron. That probably better reflects Kansas City’s advantage when it comes to winning the coin toss, especially since the teams that won the coin toss in stoppage time were 10-1 in the playoffs. since 2011.
Mecole Hardman sets up first chance and goal
Hardman caught a pass on the penultimate inning of the game and turned it into a penalty at 26 yards. That moved the Chiefs from the Bills’ 34-yard line to No. 8 and created the first scoring opportunity. It changed Chiefs win probability from 68% to 90.1 percent, marking a 22.1% change, the second-largest after the 13-second mark in regulation.
Kelce .’s Game Win Encounter
In the final play of the game, Kelce caught the winning touchdown of the game, which apparently gave the Captains 100 percent winning probability.
That completed the 91 percent spin in just 4:28 of game time and limited a wild finish to the game, as you can see from the full winning probability chart below.
