It took a game-winning drive from Patrick Mahomes to get past Bryce Young and the Panthers, but the Kansas City Chiefs left North Carolina with a win on Sunday afternoon.
The Chiefs rallied in the final two minutes to pick up a 30-27 win at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte on Sunday. Spencer Shrader, who is in for the injured Harrison Butker, kicked a 31-yard field goal as time expired to give them the narrow win. That pushed the Chiefs to 10-1 on the season, and brought them back after they dropped their first game of the year last week in Buffalo.
Though they didn’t get the win, the outing was easily the best of the season, if not his career, for Young. He was benched earlier this season after leading the team to an 0-2 start, but he regained the starting job after veteran backup Andy Dalton injured his thumb in a car crash last month. Young went 21-of-35 for 262 yards and a touchdown in the win, and kept them in it late against one of the best teams in the league.
It’s just the second time this season he’s surpassed 200 passing yards in a single game, and it marked the second-highest output he’s had in his career. Young’s career-high came last December when he put up 312 yards in a loss to the Green Bay Packers.
“I thought he played his tail off, man,” Mahomes said of Young, via the Charlotte Observer. “He throws a really good football … It’s been cool to see him bounce back these last few weeks and play some great football, because I know he has it. I’ve seen it for a long time, and he gave us a scare today because he played his tail off.”
The Chiefs, who were a step ahead nearly the entire day, looked like they were going to cruise to the win late in the fourth quarter. But a brutal pass interference call on safety Chamarri Conner, who ran into Adam Thielen in the end zone, set the Panthers up at the goal line.
From there, Chuba Hubbard ran in an easy 1-yard touchdown to bring the Panthers back within two points.
The Panthers got two looks at the two-point conversion after a second pass interference call on the first attempt. Hubbard punched that one in, too, which tied the game up and erased an 11-point deficit.
But, like he has plenty of times before, Mahomes quickly put the Chiefs in scoring position. After a pair of quick passes, he broke out a huge 33-yard run to suddenly get Kansas City into field goal range. That set up Shrader’s final field goal and won the game for the Chiefs.
The Panthers offense struggled to do much of anything in the first half, and they entered the locker room at the break with just nine points off three field goals from Eddy Pineiro. The Chiefs jumped up to an 11-point lead at halftime after Mahomes hit Noah Gray for a pair of touchdowns — first a 35-yard toss on their opening drive of the game and then an 11-yard reception late in the second quarter.
But Young led the Panthers on two critical touchdown drives in the second half, including one right away in the third quarter. That drive, a 15-play, 70-yard endeavor, ended with a 1-yard touchdown pass to David Moore.
Mahomes went 27-of-37 for 269 yards with three touchdowns in the win for the Chiefs. He had 60 yards on five carries on the ground, too, just shy of Kareem Hunt’s 68 rushing yards. Gray finished with 66 yards and two scores on just four catches.
The Chiefs now have eight wins by a single score this season, which matches the NFL’s record through a team’s first 11 games.
“You want to have some blowouts,” Mahomes said, via ESPN. “You want be a little calmer in the fourth quarter. I’ve always said it can be a good thing as you get to the playoffs and later in the season, just knowing that you’ve been in those moments before and knowing how to kind of attack it.
“But I would love to win a game [before] the very last play.”
While Young didn’t get the win in the end for the Panthers, Sunday’s showing was still incredibly impressive for the former Alabama standout and Heisman Trophy winner. After losing his job just a few weeks ago, the Panthers now have reason to stick with Young to once again see if the 2023 No. 1 overall pick is part of their future.
Whether he can keep that going into next week’s matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders and for the rest of the season, however, remains to be seen.