KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Harrison Butker watched his 44-yard field goal split the uprights, the clocks inside Arrowhead Stadium reading zero, and the Chiefs kicker turned and sprinted the other way in celebration.
The first person to join him? Patrick Mahomes.
The reigning league MVP, who missed his second straight game while recovering from a dislocated kneecap, looked just fine as he joined Butker and the rest of his Kansas City teammates in a midfield mob after their heart-stopping 26-23 victory over the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.
I was sprinting down, maybe just from my soccer background growing up thats what you do when you score, said Butker, who thought the winner may have been tipped. When I was going I saw Patrick, and I wanted to embrace him and Im like, Nah, he cant get hurt.
Matt Moore started in Mahomes place and threw for 275 yards and a touchdown, and he made the crucial plays when they mattered. He hit favorite target Tyreek Hill to convert a key third down and set up Butkers career best-tying 54-yard field goal to knot the game, then found Hill again a couple minutes later to make the winner a little more manageable.
I thought, Matt, that was a gutsy performance by him, said Chiefs coach Andy Reid, whose team snapped a three-game skid at Arrowhead Stadium. He took a couple of licks there and he got back up and finished. But just him calming the storm I thought was good.
Hill finished with six catches for 140 yards for the Chiefs (6-3), including a spectacular TD grab, while Damien Williams ran for 125 yards most of it on a 91-yard touchdown run.
Kirk Cousins threw for 220 yards and three touchdowns for the Vikings (6-3), though he struggled to deal with the Chiefs blitzes late in the game. Dalvin Cook was held to 71 yards rushing while top wide receiver Stefon Diggs had a single catch for four yards.
The Chiefs largely controlled the first half, building a 10-7 lead with the ball in the closing minutes. But they proceeded to go three-and-out, the Vikings marched downfield for a tying field goal, then got the ball back when Mecole Hardman fumbled the opening kickoff of the second half .
Suddenly, it was the Vikings who had taken control.
They needed just five plays to punch it into the end zone, despite a holding penalty setting them back. Amir Abdullah finished it with a 17-yard catch in which nobody was within 10 yards of him.
Hardman hurt the Chiefs again by failing to call a fair catch on a punt downed at their 3. But that flub was rendered irrelevant when Williams took a handoff, found a gaping hole on the left side of the line and made the only safety in front of him miss on a 91-yard touchdown run .
We misfitted a little bit, Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said. We had a pressure coming off the outside, we got a little wide and then we missed tackles.
Minnesota answered in the seesaw affair.
Leaning heavily on Cook, the leagues leading rusher, the Vikings marched 75 yards without facing third down until the final play. Thats when Cousins hit Kyle Rudolph from 3 yards out for the score, taking advantage of a Kansas City defense with just 10 players on the field.
