NFL / Teams & Games

Chiefs Visit a Falcons Team Running Out of Season

LIVE — Chiefs 14, Falcons 3 at halftime: Mahomes has two touchdown passes, the second in the final seconds of the half.

Miles Rook2 min read Updated Nov 15, 2:35 PM ET

Patrick Mahomes in 2021 (archive); Mahomes and the Chiefs visit Atlanta on Sunday. Photo: All-Pro Reels, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Summary

Mahomes and the 6-2 Chiefs visit a 3-6 Falcons team whose season is slipping away in the early window.

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LIVE — Chiefs 14, Falcons 3 at halftime in Atlanta. Patrick Mahomes (13 of 20, 183 yards) threw two first-half touchdowns — a 12-yarder to Emmett Johnson and an 18-yarder to Josh Downs with 18 seconds left in the half. Johnson also has 50 rushing yards. Atlanta's only answer is a Jake Moody field goal; Michael Penix Jr. is 8 of 15 for 86 yards.

The early window's brand-name game is in Atlanta, where the Kansas City Chiefs (6-2) visit the Falcons (3-6) at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Kickoff is 1 p.m. ET on CBS. Kansas City is doing what Kansas City does in November; Atlanta is doing something else entirely.

The Chiefs warmed up for this one by beating the Jets 35-12 last week, and their formula hasn't changed: Patrick Mahomes makes the two or three plays a game that nobody else in the league can make, and the defense holds the rope in between. At 6-2, Kansas City is chasing Buffalo for the AFC's top spot, and these are the road games contenders aren't allowed to donate.

Atlanta's season has come apart in stages. The Falcons lost to Cincinnati last week, they're 3-6, and the division math is about to get worse — Carolina and New Orleans play each other Sunday with first place in the NFC South on the line. A loss here drops Atlanta to 3-7 with the season's second half still to play.

What Atlanta has going for it is a home crowd and the desperation of a team that knows the alternative. The Falcons' path runs through turnovers and short fields; Mahomes doesn't hand those out often, and a clean Kansas City game probably ends this by the fourth quarter. A sloppy one turns the afternoon into a referendum on the Chiefs' focus.

Jim Nantz and J.J. Watt have the call on CBS, which tells you where the network thinks the early window's weight sits. For Kansas City, the math is plain: Buffalo is 7-1 and holds the AFC's top spot this morning, so every Chiefs win is really about keeping the conference's road to the Super Bowl pointed at Arrowhead in January.

This story updates live once the game kicks off, with scoring plays and the leaders as they happen, and it closes as the game's full summary at the final whistle.