K.C. earns unlikely trip to playoffs

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Sometimes teams that enter the final game of the season needing half a dozen things to break their way get their wish.

The Kansas City Chiefs went around all week grumbling at themselves for failing to make the playoffs for the eighth time in nine seasons.

Now they're rubbing their eyes and getting ready to go to Indianapolis on Saturday, thanks to a 35-30 victory over Jacksonville and losses by Tennessee, Cincinnati and, most improbably, Denver, which lost 26-23 in overtime to San Francisco. That handed the Chiefs (9-7) the sixth seed in the AFC playoffs and a trip to Indianapolis next week.

First, the Chiefs had to beat Jacksonville, which they did, 35-30 behind Larry Johnson's three touchdowns and record-breaking rushing day. Then they needed New England to beat Tennessee. Check.

Then Pittsburgh had to upset Cincinnati. Check again, after the Bengals' Shayne Graham was wide right on a 39-yard field goal try with 8 seconds left in regulation.

Then, 3 1/2 hours later after players and coaches had scattered to their homes and New Year's Eve parties, the most improbable leg of all in this farfetched four-team parlay came through.

It was a fitting tribute to Lamar Hunt, the team's founder, who died on Dec. 14.

Even Clark Hunt, the chairman of the Chiefs, wondered if his father was somehow involved.

"I've had some people in the locker room suggest that maybe my father had a hand in that," the younger Hunt said after the Chiefs won.

"I don't know, we'll find out how well he does in the Broncos-49er game."

The Chiefs had feared that for the second year in a row, they'd wound up the regular season with a hollow winning record.

Johnson rushed for 138 yards, scored three touchdowns and set an NFL record for carries in a season, but still they needed Denver to lose.

"It won't be that disappointing if we don't get in. It really won't," guard Brian Waters said then. "It's out of our control. And if we don't make it, it was our fault. It's nobody else's fault."

Said defensive end Jared Allen, "It's frustrating that we're 9-7. Either way this turns out, the regular season's been disappointing."

Johnson's 416 carries erased the record of 410 set by Atlanta's Jamal Anderson in 1998. Johnson's 1,789 yards rushing broke the team record of 1,750 yards the durable 230-pounder set last year in only nine starts.