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Adam Teicher, ESPN writer
CHARLOTTE, NC – After the Kansas City Chiefs secured their fifth win of the season on Sunday, quarterback Patrick Mahomes said he’ll take wins any way he can get them, but he’d prefer them to be less stressful in the end.
“You want to have some blowouts,” Mahomes said after the Chiefs beat the Carolina Panthers 30-27 on rookie Spencer Shrader’s 31-yard field goal as time expired. “You want to be a little calmer in the fourth quarter. I’ve always said that can be a good thing as you get into the playoffs and later in the season, just knowing that you’ve been in those moments before and knowing how to attack them.
“But I would love to win a game [before] the last play.”
The Chiefs (10-1) have eight one-score wins, tying an NFL record for most by any team in the first 11 games of a season. Half of his victories have come down to the final play. One of those wins was decided by a blocked field goal, another by an overtime touchdown, another when an opposing receiver missed getting a foot into the end zone by inches and now two by field goals.
Mahomes led the Chiefs in the winning streak against the Panthers. It started with two short completions, but the big play was a 33-yard Mahomes scramble that put the Chiefs within field goal range.
Mahomes, by his own admission, is not the fastest quarterback or the most elusive when running. But it is effective.
“He has great feel for the game,” coach Andy Reid said. “He knows from the coverage where guys are and what they’re trying to do and accomplish with the coverage and he can feel the front.”
Mahomes has made some long runs for the Chiefs at the end of some of their most notable victories. The longest play on their winning drive in Super Bowl LVII against the Philadelphia Eagles was a 26-yard Mahomes run, and the longest play on the winning drive in their Super Bowl LVIII victory against the San Francisco 49ers last season. last was a 19-yard Mahomes run. run.
“It’s not that I plan those things in advance,” Mahomes said. “It’s just that when the time comes and you have to make the play, I feel like I try to go out and make the play, and that’s why sometimes I feel like it happens later in games.
“You don’t want to slide. You have to put your body out there knowing you can take hits and things like that, but we’ve been able to make some big runs and some big moments.”
Shrader joined the Chiefs two weeks ago as an emergency replacement for Harrison Butker, who had surgery for a torn meniscus. Shrader appeared in two games, one for the Indianapolis Colts and one for the New York Jets, before arriving with the Chiefs in time for a game against the Buffalo Bills.
“I knew I would have a chance, so I tried to stay calm, understanding that it was going to come at some point,” Shrader said. “So when it came, I was ready. That comes from the belief in the team that you’re going to get caught in that situation, and then you go out and overcome it.”
Butker has made many key kicks for the Chiefs, including his other game-winning field goal this season, a 51-yarder against the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Chiefs said they believed in Shrader, but couldn’t know for sure how he would respond in a pressure situation that isn’t new for this year’s Chiefs but is new for him.
“That’s a lot of pressure for a new guy,” Reid said. “He’s here replacing a future Hall of Famer for us right now. That’s not easy to do in these games.”
