Late in their divisional round win 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, though, could not simply kneel out the clock because the Texans had a 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 burn a few seconds off the clock. Then, after calling a timeout prior to fourth down, the Chiefs had punter Matt Araiza sprint backwards into the end zone and waste as much time as possible before running out of bounds for a safety. Kansas City decided that it would rather give up two points — and it stay a two-possession game — than risk having the punt blocked and returned for a touchdown, which would have brought the Texans within one score.
Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be a big deal. The Chiefs still won by two scores, after all. But it was a key sequence here because the point spread for the game ended at Chiefs -9.5, according to the SportsLine consensus odds. (The spread 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 at most sportsbooks on Saturday.)
ESPN announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman recognized the significance immediately.
That’s a pretty tough beat for those who took Kansas City on Sunday, but in fairness, they were already in a pretty lucky position in the first place considering the Texans had missed two field goals and an extra point. And the people who took K.C. earlier in the week when the Chiefs were -8.5 or lower still got away with a win.
