Chiefs Run out of Time After Poor Clock Management Sinks KC in Playoff Loss

The Kansas City Chiefs rolled into the divisional round of the playoffs as the hottest team in the NFL. They're limping out as a team that was merely close to being a contender.

Kansas City ended the regular season with 10 consecutive wins and just blew out the Houston Texans 30-0 on Wild Card Weekend. Against the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, however, the Chiefs simply weren't good enough.

Kansas City certainly made the game competitive. Despite lacking an array of playmaking offensive weapons, Alex Smith and Co. managed to overcome a 21-6 deficit and pull within a touchdown late. Unfortunately, some awful clock management by head coach Andy Reid derailed the Chiefs' comeback chances.

The issues first started in the opening half, when the Chiefs were forced to burn two early timeouts in order to get the offense properly set. In fact, Reid used the first two timeouts on Kansas City's opening drive—a drive that yielded a mere field goal.

This created problems at the end of the first half, when the Chiefs had the ball inside Patriots territory at the two-minute warning. Kansas City moved from the New England 46 to the New England 11 in just three plays, but it was forced to take its final timeout there with 40 seconds remaining.

A scramble by Smith, a spiked ball and a couple of incomplete passes forced the Chiefs to settle for another field-goal attempt just before the half. Had the Chiefs even had one more timeout, they might have been able to settle the offense and get a better chance of reaching the end zone. 

Instead of potentially heading into the break down just 14-10, the Chiefs went in down 14-6.

Clock management was an even bigger issue late in the second half, when the Chiefs got the football with 6:29 remaining and facing a two-touchdown deficit. 

It took nearly four minutes to move the ball near the goal line, but the Chiefs reached a goal-to-go opportunity from the 1-yard line with three minutes remaining.

Now, it's hard to truly criticize the Chiefs for taking a while to get to this point. A banged-up Jeremy Maclin was out of the game, and the Patriots were doing an excellent job of limiting star tight end Travis Kelce, who finished with just 23 receiving yards.

"We went hurry-up offense," Reid said of the drive, per NFL Media's Conor Orr. "We do that normally when we're down by two scores. Time was of the essence. We got down to the one-yard line and we end up going backwards."

What happened at the 1-yard line was inexcusable.

The Chiefs reached the New England 1-yard line on a 19-yard pass from Smith to Albert Wilson. Wilson didn't get out of bounds or into the end zone, and the Chiefs ran just one play between Wilson's reception and the two-minute warning. That play was a one-yard loss on a run by Charcandrick West.

Reid could have called a timeout (the Chiefs had all three this time), called for a spike or even a pass to the end zone to squeeze more plays in before the two-minute clock stoppage. He didn't, and by the time West finally did find the end zone, there was just 1:13 remaining.

Even though the Chiefs still had all three timeouts, they essentially had no choice but to go for the onside kick after the score. That failed, New England earned a first down, and time ran out.

Even if Kansas City had forced a three-and-out, they likely would have faced terrible field position after a New England punt. Had they scored on the opposite side of the two-minute warning, kicker Cairo Santos could have attempted a traditional kickoff and the Chiefs could have at least been playing for decent field position.

Had the Chiefs scored a touchdown in the first half, they might have even been playing to find field-goal range.

The way things unfolded, Kansas City was almost dead in the water when it scored for the last time. The end result was a 27-20 loss and the death of an impressive winning streak.

Now, to be fair, the Chiefs were facing an uphill battle throughout the second half. Yet the culprit for the disappointing finish is definitely Andy Reid.

"Andy Reid and clock management go together as well as Peyton Manning and cold-weather games," Chris Chase of USA Today wrote during the regular season. He isn't wrong.

This isn't the first time Reid's clock management has cost his team, and it probably won't be the last. The most famous example is easily his mismanagement in Super Bowl XXXIX, as Jim Trotter of ESPN.com was quick to point out:

At the end of that game, Reid's Philadelphia Eagles wasted nearly four minutes while cutting their deficit from 10 to three points, not leaving enough time to mount a comeback.

A more recent example can be found earlier this season against the Denver Broncos. 

At the end of that Week 2 matchup, Reid's Chiefs were at home in a tied ballgame with just 36 seconds remaining and one timeout. Instead of kneeling to go to overtime or attempting a safe, quick pass that might result in reaching field-goal range, Reid called for a run that was destined to go nowhere from the beginning. This was the end result:

Obviously, Saturday's gaffe proved more costly than the Broncos miscue because Kansas City had an opportunity to extend its winning streak and appear in the AFC title game. It wasn't as costly as the mismanagement that cost Reid's Eagles a realistic shot at a Lombardi Trophy, but just try telling that to Chiefs fans right about now.

Their team went on one heck of a run and deserve the most sincere of congratulations. It's just a shame that Reid's boneheadedness caused it to come to such a flat end.