Mahomes knew the OT rule. The Colts captain didn't.
Kansas City beat Indianapolis in overtime to move to 2-0, and the game-deciding moment wasn't a touchdown or a turnover. It was a coin toss. A Colts captain, unfamiliar with the NFL's second-year overtime format, made a choice that handed Mahomes the advantage he needed. Two outlets covered the same game and walked away with entirely different stories.
Patrick Mahomes leads Chiefs offense, exploits Colts' OT coin toss confusion
2 sources · hover a dot to see coverage
What happened
The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Indianapolis Colts in overtime in Week 2, improving to 2-0 on the season. The game was significantly closer than Kansas City's season-opening win over the Broncos, which featured a standout performance from running back Kenneth Walker. The decisive sequence came in overtime, when a Colts captain, apparently unfamiliar with the NFL's current OT rules now in their second year, made a coin toss decision that Mahomes recognized and exploited. Mahomes afterward told reporters the Chiefs showed they can do everything offensively. Two outlets covered the game; one led with Mahomes's offensive confidence, the other with the procedural breakdown that may have decided the outcome.
Yahoo Sports gave Mahomes the podium; PFT gave you the coin toss
Yahoo Sports built its piece around Mahomes's postgame quote, 'We showed we can do everything offensively,' treating the win as a showcase of Kansas City's versatility. PFT ignored that framing entirely and reported the specific procedural story: a Colts captain did not know the NFL's current overtime rules, which have been in place since 2022, and Mahomes recognized the confusion in real time and moved to exploit it. One piece is a winner's press conference. The other is a game-deciding rules breakdown that the league should probably be embarrassed about entering year two of the format.
What one side told you that the other didn't
The Colts captain didn't know a two-year-old rule.
PFT is the only outlet in this set that reported the specific mechanism: a Colts captain, in the second season under the current OT format, made a coin toss decision without understanding what it meant. Mahomes knew. The Colts captain didn't. That gap, not Kansas City's offensive versatility, is what the final score turned on. Yahoo Sports' Mahomes quote is accurate and quotable. It just isn't the story.
Two outlets, one game, zero overlap in what mattered.
Yahoo Sports and PFT covered the same Chiefs-Colts game and produced pieces with no factual overlap beyond the final result. That's not framing variation. That's two reporters deciding the game contained entirely different news. With only two sources, there's no way to know which framing the broader press settled on, but PFT's procedural angle is the one with a consequence: if players still don't know the OT rules after two seasons, that's an NFL operations problem, not a footnote.
What to watch
If the NFL or the Colts organization addresses the coin toss confusion publicly before Week 3, watch whether the story shifts from 'Mahomes exploited it' to 'the league failed to educate its players.' That reframe would change who owns the embarrassment.
See how outlets across the political spectrum framed this differently — and what each side left out.