Arrowhead Pride
The Kansas City Chiefs walked out of Sunday night’s 20–10 loss to the Houston Texans knowing exactly what slipped away. Their defense delivered more than enough to win, but the offense again missed too many opportunities — a season-long theme that resurfaced in one of the most critical games of the year.
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes didn’t dance around the disappointment.
“Late in the season, you’re not going to get these opportunities back,” Mahomes said during his postgame press conference. “That’s a good football team. We had chances. We didn’t execute at the right time to win it.”
One of the biggest storylines of the night was Kansas City’s aggressiveness on fourth down. Entering Week 14, the Chiefs were the league’s best fourth-down offense, converting 21 of 26 attempts (80.7%). But against Houston, they came up empty on two out of three tries — both of which came in big moments late in the fourth quarter.
“I put the guys offensively in a tough position with the fourth downs,” Reid admitted. “I’m trying to stay aggressive with it. I take full responsibility for that. They’re opportunities you’ve got to take advantage of. You’re playing a good football team in the Texans and you’ve got to make sure when you have opportunities to make plays, you make plays. We were short just a little bit there.”
The most consequential miss came on a failed fourth-and-1 at their own 41-yard line. After a Houston touchdown put Kansas City behind 17–10 with just over five minutes remaining, the Chiefs faced another fourth down. Mahomes delivered a pass over the middle to Rashee Rice, but the ball bounced off his hands, ending the drive and the team’s hopes of mounting a comeback. Reid, however, stood by the aggressive approach.
“I thought we could get it,” Reid explained. “That was the decision. I was confident we could do that. It’s important you take advantage of opportunities. I thought it was an opportunity. In hindsight, it was wrong, but we’ve been pretty good on fourth downs. I messed that one up.”
Mahomes supported the decision to go for it on fourth down, even as he replayed the breakdown in his mind.
“Coach Reid believes in us,” Mahomes noted. “We’ve executed in that same situation several times this season. They did a good job of passing the crossers. Like I said, I wish I got it to Rashee a little earlier — or if I could have bought a little more time, in hindsight, [I could] probably try to hit Travis [Kelce] over the top of the defender. They made good plays today. But I’ll never question the decision to go for it because I believe in the offense and who we are.”
But Kansas City’s offensive problems extended far beyond the fourth-down attempts. The Chiefs once again struggled to finish drives, committed costly mistakes and failed to support a defense that shut out Houston’s offense for most of the second half. For Mahomes, that inconsistency has made...
