KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has never lost in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs, one of the successful streaks that has helped his team build a dynasty that includes the past two Super Bowl championships and three of the past five.
The Houston Texans still have never won beyond the wild-card round.
With the two-time NFL MVP connecting with tight end and best football buddy Travis Kelce seven times for 117 yards and a touchdown toss to pace the offense, and the defense boosted by a pass rush that sacked Houston quarterback C.J. Stroud eight times, the top-seeded Chiefs rolled to a 23-14 victory Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium and will play in the AFC title game for the seventh consecutive season.
The Chiefs (16-2), who had a bye in last week’s opening round of wild-card games, are the fourth team in NFL history to follow winning back-to-back Lombardi Trophies by advancing to the conference title game, and the three previous lost. They will try to avoid that fate next weekend, when the opponent will be either the second-seeded Buffalo Bills (14-4) or the third-seeded Baltimore Ravens (13-5), who face off Sunday in Orchard Park, New York, for the other spot in the AFC title game.
“It’s been a special run,” said Mahomes, whose wife, Brittany, gave birth to their third child last Sunday. “… These are the moments that I’ll cherish my entire life.”
The run isn’t over yet, though. Not with the Chiefs chasing an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl title.
Mahomes — who was 16-of-25 passing for 177 yards, including the touchdown to Kelce even while being dragged to the turf by Houston’s Mario Edwards Jr. — improved to 16-3 in the postseason, tying Joe Montana for the second-most playoff wins by a starting quarterback in NFL history behind seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady. That includes the peerless 7-0 mark in divisional playoff games for Mahomes, a three-time Super Bowl MVP.
Meanwhile, Andy Reid became just the fourth coach in NFL history with 300 career wins.
“I joked to the guys, you know, you get a couple of more and you might be able to equal my weight,” said Reid, a former offensive lineman who coached the Philadelphia Eagles from 1999 to 2012 before taking over the Chiefs the following season.
There was plenty of joking in the Kansas City locker room Saturday night, where the nine-time reigning AFC West Division champions know they’ll be back next weekend.
The mood was obviously different in the space occupied by the fourth-seeded Texans (11-8), who for the second year in a row won the AFC South and prevailed in a wild-card game at home only to falter on the road the following weekend.
The franchise that debuted in the NFL’s 2002 season still has never won in six divisional games, twice losing to the Chiefs in devastating fashion. Five years ago, the Texans built a 24-0 lead at Arrowhead only to lose 51-31.
Stroud was 19-of-28 for 245 yards but couldn’t avoid all of Kansas City’s pressure, while running back Joe Mixon — who had been questionable to play with an ankle injury — rushed for 88 yards and Houston’s only touchdown.
Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn missed a 55-yard field-goal attempt and a PAT try, then had another field-goal attempt blocked with 1:46 left, when a make would have kept the visitors’ comeback hopes alive by making it a one-possession game.
“Knowing what we were up against in this game, we can’t make the mistakes that we made,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said. “We had a lot of self-inflicted mistakes that happened, whether it was special teams not converting, defensively not being where we’re supposed to be in coverage, offensively not protecting our quarterback and keeping him clean.
“On top of everything else we have to deal with, that’s going to be an uphill battle.”
AP photo by Charlie Riedel / Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud (7) fumbles as Kansas City Chiefs defensive end Charles Omenihu tackles him during Saturday’s game in the divisional round of the AFC playoffs in Kansas City, Mo.The Texans’ special teams were a mess right from the start. The Chiefs nearly opened the game with a kickoff return touchdown, a bizarre play that ended with Houston cornerback Kris Boyd nearly shoving his own assistant coach to the ground.
The Texans held Kansas City to a couple of field goals early, but their defense was unable to stop the Chiefs late in the first half, when the bruising Kareem Hunt barreled into the end zone to give the home team a 13-3 lead.
Houston managed a 48-yard field goal through cold, swirling winds to make it a one-possession game at the break, and that late kick seemed to have revived the Texans when they returned to the field for the second half.
Stroud deftly led a 15-play, 82-yard drive that soaked up most of the third quarter, picking up four third-down conversions, including one in which the second-year pro scrambled to the sideline and absorbed a wicked hit. Mixon finished the drive with a 13-yard run, only to watch Fairbairn’s extra-point kick that would have tied the game get blown wide right.
That miss just might have swung the momentum the other way.
Just as they have so often in winning their past eight playoff games, the Chiefs responded with a time-consuming drive of their own. Mahomes connected with Kelce four times on the 81-yard march, including the 11-yard touchdown pass to his trusty tight end even as Edwards had the quarterback in his grasp.
“I thought it was going to be an interception,” Hunt said.
The Texans had two opportunities to drive for a tying touchdown. The first ended when Stroud was sacked by George Karlaftis on fourth down near midfield with close to 10 minutes left. The second was stopped when Stroud misfired on back-to-back passes and Houston was forced to punt with just more than seven minutes to go.
Kansas City proceeded to drive inside the Houston 10-yard line, and Harrison Butker’s field goal with 4:32 left put the game away.
The Chiefs will be hosting the AFC title game for the sixth time in seven years, and it will be a rematch from the regular season regardless of who visits. The Ravens lost 27-20 at Kansas City in the opening game of the NFL’s 2024 schedule way back on Sept. 5, while the Bills won at home against the Chiefs, 30-21 on Nov. 17.
“We’re fortunate we’ve got a lot of great character guys in the building,” Kelce said. “On top of that, as the years have gone on, we only got here by focusing on the task at hand. And right now, this one was great. We’re going to enjoy this one tonight. But the task at hand is going to be that AFC championship.
“You don’t get a (Super Bowl title) three-peat by looking past that.”