Tyreek Hill caught one of the most improbable touchdowns that never was.
With just under 11 minutes left in the second quarter of Sunday night's 3-3 game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos, Patrick Mahomes lofted a pretty pass from just beyond the 50-yard-line, arching toward a streaking Hill in the end zone. The wideout prematurely jumped, and the ball ricocheted off his hands as he fell to the turf.
The pigskin followed.
After glancing off Hill's hands, the ball caromed off the helmet of trailing corner A.J. Bouye and popped into the air. With a newly found spiral, the oblong followed Hill to the ground, grazed the wideout's helmet and nestled snuggling into the crook of his arm.
The play happened so fast that to the world it looked like an incomplete pass. Even Hill had no idea he'd made the catch. It wasn't until after slow-motion replay showed the improbable catch did the world realize it'd been completed.
At that very moment, however, Chiefs punter Tommy Townsend was booting the ball away. Andy Reid could no longer challenge.
"I'll take the blame for that one," Reid said, via the Kansas City Star. "I've never had a receiver that didn't know he caught the ball. He came off and said he didn't catch it.
"I probably should've hung on to that a little bit longer to look at the replay. I've been doing this a couple years -- I've never had that situation. It was a new experience."
The missed chance for a TD kept the game close, with K.C. trailing 10-9 at halftime. The Chiefs eventually pulled away for the 22-16 win.
The most explosive play of the game, however, went unrewarded.
"They were on it right when they saw it. That was right when we were punting the ball," Reid said of his crew seeing the replay. "It was a bang-bang thing. We didn't have time to really look at it before we kicked the ball. We kicked it without about 10 seconds left, and normally that's kind of where you let it go down -- right in that area -- and go with it.
"I checked with Tyreek. He came off. You can normally tell with a receiver whether he had it or not. Especially Tyreek. He was as surprised as any of us that he ended up with the football."
With the Chiefs pulling out the win, the missed TD catch will become a footnote as K.C. moves to 11-1 in its quest to repeat as champs.
"Man," Mahomes told Hill, "you're so good at receiver (that) you don't even know when you catch touchdowns these days."
