KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Patrick Mahomes was just goofing around during a special teams segment of practice when he dreamed up this audacious play in which he'd put himself in motion, then take the snap and look downfield for a wide receiver.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid liked it so much that he put it in the game plan.
The play, which Mahomes called "Ferrari right," wound up going for a first-half touchdown against Carolina on Sunday, and was merely one highlight in a game full of them.
Mahomes finished with 372 yards passing and four touchdowns, most of that offense going to Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce, and the Chiefs survived the Panthers' late comeback attempt for a 33-31 victory when kicker Joey Slye missed a 67-yard field-goal attempt wide right on the final play.
"The last three weeks Pat's been messing around with it," Reid said of the newfangled play, "so I told him, 'We're going to put it in.' He looked at me like I was crazy. He'd been doing it and it looked good, so let's try it. So we tried it."
That touchdown — all of them, really — wound up being crucial to the outcome.
The Chiefs (8-1) were left clinging to the lead when Christian McCaffrey, just back from his ankle injury, scored from a yard out with 1:26 to go. The Panthers' onside kick was recovered by Kansas City, but they used their three timeouts to get the ball back, and Teddy Bridgewater's 23-yard pass to Curtis Samuel with 9 seconds remaining gave them hope.
Carolina (3-6) tried to get a bit closer with a pass to McCaffrey, but the incompletion brought on Slye, who had plenty of leg with the wind behind him. His kick dropped just outside the uprights, though, allowing the Chiefs to escape.
