The Kansas City Chiefs have been walking a tightrope all season, and on Black Friday, they pulled another rabbit out of the hat with a wild, wacky win over the division rival Las Vegas Raiders.
Kansas City needed not one, not two, but three missed field goals from Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson, plus yet another preposterous end-of-game sequence in order to come away with the victory. Up by two with south of two minutes remaining on the game clock, the Chiefs allowed Aidan O'Connell to drive the Raiders into Kansas City territory, eventually reaching the 32-yard line.
On third-and-3 with 15 seconds left, Jackson Powers-Johnson snapped the ball before O'Connell was ready for it. It fell to the ground and was recovered by Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton. But the play was also seemingly blown dead for a false start, only for the penalty call to then be changed to an illegal shift, which the Chiefs declined because doing so gave them the ball and the ability to kneel out the clock.
Here's the sequence:
It was just the latest one-score victory for the Chiefs in a season that has been full of them -- and with many of those wins coming either on the final possession or with some controversy along the way.
In Week 1, Ravens tight end Isaiah Likely's foot came down mere inches out of bounds on what would have been a game-tying touchdown pass on Baltimore's final drive. In Week 2, Kansas City converted a fourth-and-16 opportunity against the Bengals with a pass interference call, and eventually finished that drive with the game-winning field goal as time expired.
In Week 3, the Chiefs allowed the Falcons to drive all the way down to their 13-yard line with less than a minute left and trailing by five points, only to fail on a fourth-and-1 try. Kansas City yielded a game-tying drive to the Buccaneers with just 27 seconds left in Week 9. The Bucs elected not to go for two and instead kick the extra point to send it to overtime, and the Chiefs promptly drove for the game-winning touchdown in the extra frame.
The next week, it looked like the Broncos were getting ready to hand Kansas City its first loss of the season, but Wil Lutz's 35-yard field goal attempt was blocked as time expired. In Week 12, the Chiefs nearly allowed another game-tying drive -- this time to Bryce Young and the Panthers; but Carolina was unable to convert the two-point try and the Chiefs then ran out the clock.
Add up all those games, plus today's Raiders win, with their Super Bowl win over the 49ers, their AFC title game win over the Ravens, their divisional round win over the Bills and their Weeks 17 and 18 wins over the Bengals and Chargers, and the Chiefs have now won a record 14 consecutive one-score games dating to last December. (Naturally, the last one-score game they lost came against the Raiders last Christmas.)
That total breaks the record previously held by the 2003 and 2004 Patriots, because of course it does.
Kansas City is now 11-1 on the season and still sits in first place in the AFC. The Chiefs' remaining games are against the Chargers (whom they also beat by one score earlier this year), Browns, Texans, Steelers (a.k.a the Voodoo Magic Bowl) and Broncos. If the way things have gone this season is any indication, we are in for several more outrageous, close finishes, that mostly result in Chiefs victories.