Jamaal Charles’ late fumble sends Chiefs to stunning 31-24 loss against Broncos

For all of maybe five minutes Thursday, there was a palpable sense that maybe, just maybe, it was finally the Chiefs’ time to dethrone the Denver Broncos.

With 2:27 left in the fourth quarter of what somehow turned into a devastating 31-24 loss, Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith felt it.

Moments earlier, he bounced back from throwing a red-zone interception on the previous drive, guiding a scoring march that put the Chiefs ahead 24-17. It was up to the defense to finish the job before a delirious crowd of 76,404 at Arrowhead Stadium.

But toppling the four-time defending AFC West champion Broncos and Chiefs’ tormentor Peyton Manning is easier said than done. Ten plays and 80 yards later, the Broncos tied the score at 24.

And one soul-sucking play later, the Chiefs were harshly reminded that bad fortune ― not destiny ― sometimes prevails.

How else do you explain what happened next? How else do you explain the Chiefs, who had the ball with at their own 20 with 36 seconds left, somehow fumbling the game away at the tail end of an 11-yard run?

How else do you explain Jamaal Charles, the Chiefs’ best and most reliable player, committing their fifth turnover of the day ― a record high for the Chiefs under coach Andy Reid?

How else do you explain the ball landing in the hands of Denver cornerback Bradley Roby, who sprinted 21 yards for a game-winning touchdown that cemented the Chiefs’ seventh straight loss to the Broncos and 14th in 15 games against Manning?

“Obviously, you can’t believe it,” Smith said later. “You’re thinking, at that point, that you’re going to head into overtime. Just a shock.”

That was a common refrain among the few players left in the Chiefs’ locker room following the loss, which isn’t quite as devastating as other notable Chiefs losses throughout the years — i.e. The Lin Elliott Game or the 45-44 playoff collapse to Indianapolis — only because it happened in week two, not the playoffs.

Afterward, Charles — who rushed for 125 yards and a touchdown in 21 carries — shouldered the blame.

“I was just trying to make a play and (wasn’t) careful with the ball and one of the defenders punched it out,” said Charles, who also fumbled on the Chiefs’ first drive, squandering another scoring opportunity. “I caused the loss today.

“I tried to put the team on my back and I ended up losing the game. It’s all on me tonight.”

Reid said he took responsibility for the play call that led to the final fumble.

“Well, what we were going to try to do was bust one,” Reid said. “We were in the 30s there. So we were going to try to bust one and if we could within a field-goal shot, you get to the 40, you have an opportunity for maybe a shot there.

“The way he was running, he was running great and I thought that was a good play. Didn’t work out so good.”

A few other plays Reid called didn’t quite work out, either. He called three straight passes, none of which worked, facing first-and-goal from the 2 on the Chiefs’ first drive. Charles’ fumble after catching the third pass wiped out a field-goal attempt as he was stopped well short of the goal line.

“In hindsight, you look back and I think coach would be the first one to tell you yeah, you wish you would have done anything different to try to get us in,” said Smith, who completed 16 of 25 passes for 191 yards. “That’s the nature of it, you know? Last week, they (the plays) were clicking and we were hitting them.”

For as good as the Chiefs’ offense looked early in their 27-20 win Sunday at Houston, that’s how bad it looked during portions of Thursday’s game.

Still, the Chiefs jumped out to a 14-0 second-quarter lead behind a dynamic 34-yard touchdown run by Charles and a 55-yard interception return by rookie cornerback Marcus Peters.

But after that play, it was like a switch went off in Manning’s head. He started dissecting the Chiefs, putting together a 10-play, 80-yard scoring drive that culminated in a 16-yard touchdown throw to Emmanuel Sanders on a slant.

In a harbinger of things to come, Smith threw the first of two interceptions. Denver cornerback Aqib Talib dove in front of Jeremy Maclin to give the Broncos the ball at the Chiefs’ 15 with a little over two minutes left in the half.

“He’s a veteran guy — he played a hunch there and guessed right,” Smith said.

Four plays later, Manning lofted a play-action pass over the middle for a 1-yard touchdown to tight end Virgil Green that tied the score at 14-14.

The two teams exchanged field goals in the third quarter, setting up the drama-filled fourth, when it looked like luck would finally change for the Chiefs. Smith overcame an interception by cornerback Chris Harris Jr. deep in Denver territory and guided a six-play, 61-yard scoring drive, capped by a 8-yard Knile Davis touchdown run.

The Chiefs led 24-17 with 2:27 left, but unfortunately that was all the time Manning ― who completed 26 of 45 passes for 256 yards and three touchdowns ― needed.

Starting from the Broncos’ 20, he completed five of 10 passes on a 10-play, 80-yard drive capped by a gorgeous 19-yard touchdown throw to Sanders, in front of cornerback Jamell Fleming.

The game seemed headed to overtime. But then Charles fumbled, sending everyone in the stadium with a rooting interest in the Chiefs into a state of shock.

But while Smith was clearly disappointed with the loss, he was also confident that it wouldn’t derail the season.

The Chiefs, after all, are still just 1-1, and there’s lots of football to be played ― including another game against Denver ― even if it was hard to think about all that Thursday night.

“This is obviously hyped up — it’s Thursday’s night football, it’s a division game,” Smith said. “But in the end, it’s another game. It’s one of 16 that we get, and in the end, we’ve got everything we want in front of us.”

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This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 11:06 PM with the headline "Jamaal Charles’ late fumble sends Chiefs to stunning 31-24 loss against Broncos."