The Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes look like their old selves, but now with new help

Chiefs' Jalen Royals, center, celebrates a touchdown with Kenneth Walker III, left, and Patrick Mahomes, right, at Arrowhead Stadium. Jamie Squire / Getty ImagesShareAdd NBC News to GoogleSept. 21, 2026, 6:01 AM EDTBy Andrew GreifThe Kansas City Chiefs last season lost more than Patrick Mahomes, their franchise cornerstone player, to a season-ending injury.

Well before the star quarterback injured two ligaments in his left knee last December, the Chiefs had already lost the air of invincibility they’d built while becoming the NFL’s most-feared team in close games.

That quality had earned the Chiefs three Super Bowl titles under coach Andy Reid, and a 17-game winning streak in games decided by eight points or less. That streak was snapped in last year’s first game, and from there only got worse.

By last season’s end, their record in one-score games was 1-9, a turnaround some attributed to Mahomes’ inconsistent play before his injury, or a supporting cast of receivers and running backs had grown thin. Tight end Travis Kelce, one of the most prolific pass-catchers in the position’s history, was in the middle of one of his worst statistical seasons. On the ground, the Chiefs ranked near the league’s bottom third in yards per carry.

But two games into this new season, Kansas City is 2-0 and again looks like a team that could be feared in the AFC.

Mahomes appears uninhibited by his knee injury, and now has a number of playmakers surrounding him — led by a familiar face, and one new. And in Sunday’s 33-30 overtime win against Indianapolis, the Chiefs showed again they know how to win a close game while overcoming a wild play that might have changed the outcome.

“There was never a doubt that we were going to get that win,” Kelce said.

A walk-off 40-yard field goal as time expired by Harrison Butker gave the Chiefs their eighth consecutive overtime win in the regular season, tying an NFL record also held by San Francisco (2003-10). Mahomes, who threw for 382 yards and three touchdowns, now has 25 career game-winning drives in the fourth quarter or overtime. The Chiefs join Las Vegas, Cincinnati and Buffalo as the only remaining undefeated teams in the AFC.

“That’s what this NFL is about is just finding a way to win games,” Mahomes said on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.”

Kansas City thought it had the game won five five minutes remaining in overtime.

Tied at 30-30, Colts quarterback Daniel Jones connected with Laquon Treadwell for a 48-yard gain down to Kansas City’s 17-yard line when Treadwell bobbled and recovered the catch while evading one tackle by L’Jarius Sneed. Trying to gain more yardage, Treadwell was then tackled by Chiefs cornerback Nohl Williams, who punched the ball out for a fumble recovered by Kansas City. Under regular-season overtime rules that have been in place since 2025 that allow each team at least one possession each, Kansas City believed it had won the game by forcing a turnover and stopping the Colts short of tying the game on its first overtime drive.

An official review, however, found that Sneed’s left hand grazed the right hip of Treadwell at the same time he secured his bobbled catch — a brush of a few fingers that was barely enough to count Treadwell as down by contact, however slight, at that moment. It negated the fumble that followed. The Colts were still alive.

A touchdown would win the game for Indianapolis, but three plays later it still wasn’t close to the end zone. On fourth and 8, 15 yards from a score, the Colts put their offense on the field and looked ready to snap if they had seen the defense they wanted. When they didn’t, the Colts kicked the field goal for a 30-30 tie. By doing so, Mahomes was left with plenty of time to mount a comeback.

“Had a play called,” Colts coach Shane Steichen said of the fourth-down decision. “Had to love the look to run it there.”

Mahomes jogged into the huddle with 3:06 remaining in overtime knowing the next score would win. He and the Chiefs made it a reality by turning to the franchise’s newest weapon, Kenneth Walker, the Most Valuable Player of last February’s Super Bowl for Seattle who became the team’s prized offseason signing as a free agent.

Walker rushed the ball three times for 18 yards, caught a 22-yard pass from Mahomes, and rushed two more yards to set up Butker’s game-winning kick.

One week after producing a career-high 191 yards from scrimmage during his Chiefs debut in Week 1, a total helped by Walker’s league-best 14 broken tackles, he finished with 117 rushing yards on 24 carries and added 61 yards receiving against the Colts. Walker has looked every bit the missing piece capable of taking pressure off of Mahomes on the ground and opening up the passing game.

“We able to, I guess, freestyle it,” Walker told NBC in a postgame interview of his connection with Mahomes. “If I’m open or if somebody open, play break down, he able to make plays, so it’s great to play with him.”

Even more encouraging for Kansas City was not just how quickly a new addition in Walker has integrated into the offense, but how much Kelce — the record-breaking tight end who helped jump-start the team’s dynasty alongside Mahomes — resembled his old self Sunday.

Kelce has debated whether to retire each of the last two offseasons after producing career-low yardage totals and just eight touchdowns combined in 2024-25. He was targeted on fewer than seven passes per game last season.

On Sunday, a faster, more agile Kelce was targeted 11 times, more than any Chiefs pass-catcher. He caught nine passes for 101 yards including a touchdown that left his pop superstar wife, Taylor Swift, pointing to her wedding ring in a suite in celebration. It was his first game with 100-plus yards and a touchdown since Week 7 of 2023. Kelce now has 128 yards after contact this season, the most in his career through a season’s first two games, per ESPN.

“We’re in a zone right now where everybody’s feeding off each other and it’s only making us better and it’s making us play harder for each other.”

The contributions from Mahomes and his co-stars, and the team’s late-game moxie, have kept the Chiefs undefeated. Still to be seen is whether those factors also can reverse a troubling trend over the course of a long season. Between 2017-22, the Chiefs ranked among the league’s 10 best in scoring every season and led the NFL in points in 2018 and 2022. In the last three years, though, they ranked 15th in both 2023 and 2024 before dropping to 21st last season.

“The parity in this league is crazy,” Chiefs coach Reid said. “You’re going to have some once-score games. You have to bear down, and our guys did that.”

Andrew GreifAndrew Greif is a sports reporter for NBC News Digital.