ARLINGTON — An amateur survey of AT&T Stadium’s seats Thursday afternoon returned equal parts Kansas City Chiefs colors and Dallas Cowboys colors. The road team fans punctuated the pregame national anthem with a “home of the Chiefs” chant. The bulk of off-field intrigue was directed toward whether a certain tight end’s uber-famous fiancée made the trip.
The discussion in the days that preceded Thursday’s marquee event included a debate as to whether the dynastic Chiefs had stolen the “America’s Team” crown from the Cowboys in recent years.
They could’ve passed as Arlington’s team for parts of the game.
They may no longer pass as a playoff squad.
Cowboys
The Chiefs are 6-6 and two games back of an AFC playoff position after Thursday’s 31-28 loss to the Cowboys with five left to play. The Pittsburgh Steelers and Houston Texans both currently stand above them in the first-teams-out leaderboard. They’ve lost three of their past four games by a single score.
“We’ve got to take a look in the mirror,” defensive end George Karlaftis said. “We’ve got a few days off. We’ve got to dig deep now.”
The Chiefs had a 63% chance to make the playoffs before Thursday’s loss, per ESPN’s statistical model, but now sit in third place in the AFC West with three games against teams seeded above them in their final five contests.
They’ve made the postseason in each of the last 10 previous seasons and reached the Super Bowl in five of the last six. On Thursday, though, they were penalized 10 times for 119 yards, punted five times and let the Cowboys convert nine third-down attempts.
“They understand we’ve got to clean up a few things,” head coach Andy Reid said. “We have to do better as coaches, we have to do better as players. So you go back to the drawing board, and you keep working, it’s what you do. We’re close here. But we had too many opportunities that we gave away and you can’t — [when] two good teams play each other — you can’t have those things.”
A standout performance from wide receiver Rashee Rice, a North Texas native, wasn’t enough to save them. The North Richland Hills and SMU product caught eight passes for 92 yards and two touchdowns in his first game against the Cowboys in three professional seasons.
Rice pleaded guilty in July to charges that stemmed from a March 2024 incident in which he caused a multivehicle crash on U.S Highway 75 in a rented Lamborghini and fled the scene.
The 25-year-old was sentenced to five years’ probation and required to pay the medical expenses for the people injured in the crash. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail as part of his plea deal but has yet to serve it, and was suspended for the first six games of this season.
Rice changed into an all-blue SMU sweatsuit before he exited the locker room postgame but declined to speak with reporters.
He scored the game’s first points on a 27-yard untouched catch-and-run touchdown down the left sideline less than two minutes into the first quarter. He scored his second in the fourth quarter on a 3-yard reception in the end zone that gave the Chiefs a 21-20 lead.
The Cowboys scored twice — once on a 3-yard pass from quarterback Dak Prescott to running back Javonte Williams and once on a 26-yard Brandon Aubrey field goal — before the Chiefs scored with 3:30 left to cut the lead to three points. The Chiefs were flagged twice for defensive pass interference on a game-clinching Cowboys drive, though, and helped extend a possession that ate up the game’s final three-and-a-half minutes.
The visitor side’s jeers matched the fervor of the home side’s cheers when each of the two penalties was called.
“If we’re going to make the playoffs,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said, “we’re going to have to win them all.”
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