For a brief moment, it looked like an all-time heads-up decision by Travis Kelce was going to give the Kansas City Chiefs a thrilling go-ahead touchdown in their showdown with the Buffalo Bills on Sunday afternoon. And then, a penalty against the teammate who scored the touchdown negated the score, which led to a series of events that culminated in Buffalo walking out of Kansas City with a 20-17 win.
Facing a second-and-10 from near midfield with just under 90 seconds left, Patrick Mahomes dropped back and hit his All-Pro tight end over the middle of the field. Kelce rumbled towards the end zone, and as the Bills defenders surrounded him, he saw Kadarius Toney with no one near him. He’s tried laterals in the open field before, and this one could not have gone any more perfectly, as Kelce threw a dime to Toney and let him walk into the end zone.
Play was called back but can’t believe Kelce tried this
: #BUFvsKC on CBS
: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/pWMED8SAQa pic.twitter.com/LREwwhaQ1N— NFL (@NFL) December 11, 2023
But there was a flag on the play, and ironically enough, it was on Toney. Kansas City went hurry up on the play before this, and as you can see, Toney narrowly lined up offsides, leading to a flag that negated the play.
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) December 11, 2023
After the penalty, Mahomes threw three straight incompletions en route to a turnover on downs. From there, Josh Allen was able to kneel it out to help Buffalo move to 7-6 on the season.