The Chiefs get to the Denver 1 with the game on the line and lose anyway

Patrick Mahomes got his touchdown passes back on Sunday. The Kansas City Chiefs still lost 28-24 at Denver, and the way they lost will be the topic all week.

Down four with 1:56 left, Kansas City drove inside the Denver 5. Kenneth Walker III ran 3 yards to the 1 on first-and-goal. Mahomes threw incomplete on second down. Walker was stuffed on third. On fourth, Malcolm Roach sacked Mahomes on the final play of the game, according to the AP recap on ESPN.

The Chiefs should not have needed that drive. They led 24-13 late in the third quarter after Mahomes found Noah Gray for a 4-yard score. Denver went three-and-out on every third-quarter drive. Then Bo Nix led two touchdown drives in the fourth, and Kansas City's kicker handed him the second one.

After Alex Singleton sacked Mahomes for a 6-yard loss, Harrison Butker missed a 54-yard field goal wide right in the rain. The AP called him scuffling. Two plays later, Jonah Coleman had turned a Nix pass into a 51-yard gain and scored from the 5. Denver led with 1:56 left.

Mahomes was good. He went 30 of 41 for 321 yards and three touchdowns with no picks, a week after a loss to Seattle that left him without a touchdown pass in back-to-back games for the first time in his career. Rookie Emmett Johnson caught a 73-yard touchdown on a lob Mahomes threw under pressure.

The rest of the team kept giving it back. Kansas City was flagged 11 times for 105 yards. Walker averaged 3.3 yards on 21 carries and could not get the last one. The secondary was down two cornerbacks, L'Jarius Sneed and Mansoor Delane, and Nix threw for two touchdowns without an interception.

That is two straight losses for the Chiefs (5-2), and Denver (6-2) now sits alone in first place in the AFC West. Kansas City hosts the Jets next Sunday.