At the end of their divisional round victory over the Houston Texans, the Kansas City Chiefs held an 11-point lead. After blocking a Ka’imi Fairbairn field goal attempt, Kansas City got the ball back with 1:46 remaining. The Chiefs, however, couldn’t just kneel as the Texans had one timeout left.
Instead, the Chiefs ran Kareem Hunt on first down and had Patrick Mahomes take a knee on second and third while also trying to gain a few seconds off the clock. Then, after calling a timeout before fourth down, the Chiefs had punter Matt Araiza sprint back into the end zone and waste as much time as possible before running out of bounds for a safety. Kansas City decided it would rather give up two points – and stay in a two-possession game – than risk having the punt blocked and returned for a touchdown, which would have brought the Texans within one score.
Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal. After all, the Chiefs still won by two scores. But it was a key stretch here as the point spread for the game ended at -9.5 for the Chiefs, according to SportsLine’s consensus odds. (The gap opened at Chiefs -7.5 and spent most of the week vacillating between there and Chiefs -8.5 before ending somewhere between Chiefs -9 and Chiefs -9.5 in most sports betting on Saturday.)
ESPN announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman immediately recognized the importance.
That’s a pretty tough pace for those who took Kansas City on Sunday, but in all honesty, they were already in a pretty lucky position in the first place considering the Texans missed two field goals and an extra point. And those who took KC earlier in the week when the Chiefs were -8.5 or lower still walked away with a win.