With end of an era at stake, Chiefs’ rally against Colts revives everything
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Chiefs restore playoff hope with 23-20 overtime win, rescue season momentum and belief
- Mahomes leads two clutch drives, converts fourth-down throws to force overtime
- Defense forces four straight three-and-outs late, seals comeback and season reset
Technically, anyway, the Chiefs-Colts game on Sunday at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium wasn’t a knockout game for the befuddling 5-5 home team in jeopardy of missing the playoffs after three straight Super Bowl berths.
And, atmosphere notwithstanding, it sure wasn’t a playoff game.
Then again …
“Pretty much was, though,” Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie said, smiling, as he stood by his locker.
Speaking to what was at stake in the 23-20 overtime victory that resuscitated the Chiefs’ season, he added, “We can’t let one go. We have to win now.”
Or as Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes put it, the game became “a do-or-die type thing.”
It wasn’t just that the 20-9 fourth-quarter predicament against the Colts was further shoving the Chiefs toward the abyss of a premature end to this season.
It was that a potential, and increasingly likely, loss loomed as one of the most deflating and disillusioning defeats of the Mahomes Era:
Because a virtual deathblow to their playoff hopes wouldn’t merely have suggested a gloomy January for Chiefs fans.
It would have hinted at a seismic shift in the very NFL order. And, with ample reason, it would have eroded a belief system bordering on a sense of birthright for contemporary Chiefs devotees.
If that sounds like hyperbole, here’s why it’s not.
However we define the longevity of this Chiefs dynasty underscored by seven straight AFC Championship Game appearances, playing in five Super Bowls and winning three, the narrative doesn’t accommodate missing the playoffs.
And being excluded would look and feel like the end of an era as we know it, with who-knows-what organizational ripples if they miss out.
The Chiefs still could be facing that, of course. Which is why this win will lose its impact pronto if they squander the reset — starting on Thanksgiving Day in Dallas and into the final five regular-season games.
But mustering the wherewithal to win Sunday against a team that came in 8-2 and leading the NFL in scoring, with the Chiefs reeling from two straight losses and having gone 0-5 in the very sort of Velcro-tight game this became …
Well, it sure reframes everything for the time being, doesn’t it?
Sure, maybe the Chiefs would have preferred to have won by a comfortable margin.
But when I put that distinction to Mahomes after the game, he didn’t hesitate to say, “This is exactly what we needed. To win against a really good football team, and the game’s not going your way. You could have folded in that situation.”
The point wasn’t lost on others.
“A lot of teams I feel like would have broken and just kind of gave up,” rookie left tackle Josh Simmons said, “especially being down 20-9 in the fourth quarter.”
As the Chiefs were losing all five previous one-score games this season, it seemed to me an open question whether the gritty trait that had been so pivotal in their recent success — including winning all 12 such games last season — had vanished or more likely gone dormant.
Sure seemed like it had to still be in there somewhere. Particularly since at some level that sort of characteristic is the reflection of a culture that has great continuity in its leadership and nucleus.
Turns out …
“We found it,” said Simmons, speaking more generally but affirming the point.
And they summoned it Sunday when they needed it most.
Count the ways: by forcing four straight Colts three-and-outs with the game on the line in the fourth quarter and overtime; with Rashee Rice hauling in eight catches for 141 yards, Kareem Hunt rushing 30 times for 104 and Harrison Butker hitting five of five field goals — including to tie it at the end of regulation and win it in overtime.
Each of those offered a microcosm of this sense of resurgence ... both within the game and more broadly.
The defense, after all, had given up points on four of the previous five drives before clamping the Colts down when it counted.
Rice, who served a six-game suspension at the start of the season, had several drops last week.
Hunt is the personification of the comeback story — including overcoming just the second lost fumble of his career on Sunday. And Butker now has made 11 field goals in a row since an early-season funk.
Then there was Mahomes, the man who changed everything for the franchise and even in Kansas City — and for a good long while made us all feel there never was a situation when the Chiefs would be out of it, as long as he was here.
That feeling had ebbed some through this choppy season, both in the game-to-game and more overarching sense. He’s had plenty of highlights but not much of the stuff that felt downright mystical at times … and a good number of plays he’s wanted back.
He had a jarring one of those on his first pass Sunday, throwing an interception that gave the Colts the ball at the Chiefs’ 3-yard line and abruptly left them trailing 7-0.
The rest of his game wasn’t flawless. But it sure was evidence of how he still can harness a vast resolve and make you believe anew.
Mahomes finished the day with 29 completions in 46 attempts for 352 yards, the most yardage he’s thrown for since he went for 424 against the Chargers on Oct. 22, 2023.
Much of his best work was when it absolutely, positively had to be there.
A week after the Chiefs went three and out on each of their last two drives in what became a 22-19 loss in Denver, the Chiefs orchestrated the opposite.
Their game-tying drive was 15 plays for 87 yards; their game-winning march was 12 for 81.
The sequences included Mahomes hitting Rice for 19 yards on a fourth-and-3 as the Chiefs controlled the ball for the final 4 minutes, 43 seconds of regulation.
Just the sort of thing, among others, we took for granted for a while — and the absence of which has been so glaring.
It’s impossible to know exactly what this bodes now, of course.
A month ago, it sure looked to me like the Chiefs were the best they’d been in a few years on both sides of the ball. Especially knowing they have a much-improved line and that they’re finally whole with their receiving corps.
These last few weeks sure contradicted that.
So it’s hard to say they’re back, exactly.
But as of Sunday, anyway, nothing is gone.
And, maybe, just maybe, they never really left.
Something they’ve got a long way to go to demonstrate, but something they sure had to start with the Colts.
This story was originally published November 23, 2025 at 7:24 PM.