Time Runs Out on Chiefs’ Comeback

Drew Bledsoe and the New England Patriots won’t soon forget one of the season’s least meaningful Monday night matchups.

They got a rare victory, beating the Kansas City Chiefs, another team that is going nowhere, 30-24. Bledsoe threw for a season-high 282 yards and Adam Vinatieri kicked three field goals in New England’s highest-scoring game of the year.

For a change, the Patriots held on at the end after the Chiefs cut the lead to 30-24 on Elvis Grbac’s 19-yard pass to Kevin Lockett with 3:58 left.

Kansas City drove down to the Patriot 12-yard line but had no timeouts and time expired when Tony Gonzalez was tackled by Tebucky Jones in the middle of the field after a five-yard completion.

“That was not the play that I wanted,” Chief Coach Gunther Cunningham said. “He didn’t see anyone open, but the ball should have been thrown into the end zone.”

In their other Monday night game this season, the Patriots (4-9) gave up two touchdowns in the last 6:25 and lost to the New York Jets, 20-19, in Week 2.

“We were able to build a big enough cushion to sustain it, but overall, that’s not what we want to do,” New England Coach Bill Belichick said.

The Chiefs (5-8) gave up two fumbles after losing only four all season and wasted Grbac’s 81-yard touchdown pass play to Derrick Alexander, who has three scoring catches of over 80 yards in his career.

The win was some consolation to the Patriots after their 34-9 loss in Detroit on national television on Thanksgiving Day.

“After the last game, we were really faced with a challenge,” Bledsoe said.

“Which way were we going to go? Were we going to mail it in the last four games, or come out and compete?”

Bledsoe, who had thrown only two touchdown passes in his previous six games, threw two on Monday--a 17-yarder to Troy Brown and a one-yarder to tight end Jermaine Wiggins, signed seven days earlier after being cut by the Jets.

Bledsoe overcame a sore thumb he’s played with for four games by completing 33 of 48 passes, including all seven on the drive to Wiggins’ touchdown that made the score 27-10 with 7:09 left in the third quarter. The completions were the third most of Bledsoe’s career and his most since 1995.

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Head of the Class

With 147 yards in 11 catches Monday night, Tony Gonzalez broke the NFL record for most 100-yard games by a tight end in one season:

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Season 100-Yd. Gms. Tony Gonzalez, K.C. 2000 6 Mike Ditka, Chi 1961 5 Pete Retzlaff, Phi 1965 5 Kellen Winslow, S.D. 1980 5 Kellen Winslow, S.D. 1982 5 Ben Coates, N.E. 1994 5

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