How Patrick Mahomes’ message to teammates defined Chiefs’ comeback win vs. Bengals

As he sat in front of his locker early Sunday evening after the Chiefs concocted yet another victory by the most minuscule of margins, safety Justin Reid looked down at his injured hands — one with a mangled finger he said was broken, the other with an issue he couldn’t yet put a name to.

But the intense pain seemed to vanish as a suddenly radiant Reid considered what had just happened.

Again.

And, really, still.

Because the two-time defending Super Bowl champions had done virtually all they could to be on the verge of losing this game to visiting Cincinnati before salvaging a 26-25 victory.

They committed three turnovers and a couple pivotal and crushing penalties, for openers.

They made a coaching decision that was highly debatable, and they flashed a left-tackle vulnerability.

They summoned all of five yards from superstar tight end Travis Kelce and were left to solve a fourth-and-16 predicament while trailing with 48 seconds left.

Oh, and then they needed a 51-yard field goal by Harrison Butker to win on the last play of the game.

All a week after winning their opener against Baltimore by virtue of a couple of centimeters.

“I don’t know how much smaller (a margin) can get,” Reid said. “Is there something smaller than a millimeter?”

If there is, you might expect the Chiefs to exploit it.

Because the “it” team still has the it factor.

“It’s just you’ve got to find a way,” Kelce said. “Pat’s telling everybody ‘stay alive.’ The initial play might not be there, but you’ve got to make something happen out of nothing.”

That’s a critical intangible advantage.

And it’s amplified by seeing the vaunted competition and sworn enemies — like the two teams the Chiefs have beaten — demonstrate they lack that certain something through their 0-2 starts.

None of which should strike anyone as miraculous or even unexpected anymore. Not when we’ve seen this preposterous stuff so many times over the last six-plus seasons since the advent of Patrick Mahomes changed everything.

And that extends beyond the phenomenon of Mahomes himself into the contagious mindset that comes with playing in four Super Bowls in five seasons and still yearning for more.

If it wasn’t clear long ago, the Chiefs have a certain faith and mojo and resolve that just keeps replenishing itself.

Of course they’re a terrifically talented team, again, with the best quarterback in the game and a Pro Football Hall of Fame-bound head coach and remarkable cohesion with general manager Brett Veach and his staff.

But there is almost a living, breathing and ever-abiding extra dimension to it all now:

Hmmm, things look dire ....

Should work out.

“That’s the culture of this team, though,” Reid said. “The culture of this team is we don’t start pointing fingers, we don’t break down, we don’t lose confidence in ourselves or our teammates.

“We fight, we scratch, we claw and we find a way. Whatever way it is. It doesn’t have to be pretty; it just has to get the job done.”

Or as Mahomes put it: “It just shows that we can still do it.”

Promising as this sign of that recent identity being extended might be, of course, there’s no guarantee of where the Chiefs are headed.

The season is in its infancy, after all, and it remains to be seen how the Chiefs will clean up some of this sloppiness.

Not to mention how they’ll reconcile their situation at left tackle — where coach Andy Reid yanked rookie Kingsley Suamataia after a holding penalty effectively cost the Chiefs 51 yards … only to have replacement Wanya Morris get nabbed for illegal use of hands to negate a 21-yard pass and leave the Chiefs in that pesky fourth-and-16 scenario.

“Our best plays were called back,” said Andy Reid, also noting that that amount of turnovers typically will “kill you.”

But here’s the thing: No matter how deflated or pessimistic any fan must have been after that call on Morris, who among you really assumed it was over just because it was, you know, unfathomable and all?

“Anytime it’s within a score and we’ve got Pat Mahomes, I’m betting on us,” Kelce said in the locker room afterward.

Presto: Mahomes scrambled to buy time and put the ball up to Rashee Rice, who was interfered with by defender Daijahn Anthony to give the Chiefs a first down at the Cincinnati 36 with 38 seconds left.

Although officials have been known to muzzle their whistles in that situation, the infraction was blatant and the call entirely appropriate.

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“You’ve got to give guys chances in those situations,” Mahomes said, “and that’s what we did.”

In essence, that’s what they did all game: created chances and breakthroughs out of a looming mess, one that wasn’t helped by Andy Reid’s decision to settle for a field goal on fourth and goal at the Cincinnati 1 on the team’s first drive of the game.

On a day the Chiefs scored only two offensive touchdowns, for instance, Chamarri Conner’s 38-yard fumble return for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter kept them afloat with a 23-22 lead when the Bengals had a chance to take a double-digit advantage.

It will be easy for skeptics to scoff at such pivotal plays as mere fortune for the Chiefs.

But the truth is that this team, in this time, tends to make its own breaks — a trait the Chiefs seem to have brought back for more, even as they set out to cultivate this season’s persona.

“Obviously, we’ve done that (come back) in so many different ways, and so we’re prepared,” Mahomes said. “We come in with that mentality that if we get the football with the chance to win the game, we’re going to do that.”

Sure, that mentality can only go so far without the right talent — or without the right fixes.

But all else being equal, and fortified by the ever-evolving Mahomes’ X-factor, it’s hard not to feel like these first two games offer promise about the potential for a three-peat — especially considering how the Chiefs’ regular-season went in 2023.

“Obviously, I want the offense to be high-flying and explosive,” Mahomes said. “But I feel like in years past, if I played like we played offensively, we would have lost that game. But we have a great football team. …

“We’re not even playing our best football, but we’re still getting these wins against great opponents.”

Thanks to a little something extra that you can feel more than you can see.