KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Patrick Mahomes had stood inside the tight quarters of a room inside Highmark Stadium, recapping the Chiefs’ first loss of the year in generic, big-picture terms.

After a few minutes, I inquired about a specific play.

Can you walk us through the interception?

“Uh, the first one or the second one?” he responded.

Right. There were two last Sunday.

The Bills officially put the Chiefs away when linebacker Terrel Bernard picked off Mahomes with about a minute left. That came shortly after quarterback Josh Allen put the Chiefs in desperation mode with his fourth-down scramble for a 30-21 lead, the eventual final.

The end of the game stole the headlines — that includes one from me on that Allen dash. It was, after all, statistically the most impactful play of the outcome.

But another trailed pretty closely behind, even if perhaps lost in the shuffle of the 121 snaps that would follow.

Which interception?

“The first one,” I replied.

Just two plays into the loss in Buffalo, Mahomes stepped through a crowded pocket and lofted a pass toward tight end Noah Gray, but Bills defensive lineman DaQuan Jones grabbed Mahomes as he threw. The pass sailed. Bills safety Taylor Rapp won’t find an easier interception all year.

The Bills flipped the turnover into six points, the lone first-quarter score for either team.

A bad start.

Yet another one.

If there’s a lesson in the Chiefs’ first loss in 11 months, it ought to be this: The second snap of a football game can impact the outcome just as meaningfully as the 123rd. That interception — ahem, the first one — ranked as the Bills’ second most favorable play of the day, per Ben Baldwin’s analytics-based website rbsdm.com. (The Allen run, unsurprisingly, was No. 1.)

They all count, first play or last, and even through an unbeaten 9-0 run (now 9-1), the early plays have been counting in the wrong direction.

The Chiefs, believe it or not, have been one of football’s worst first-quarter teams this season, and that’s a statement attributed almost solely to one side of the football.

The offense has averaged only 2.7 points per first quarter, ranking 27th in the NFL, per TeamRankings.com. In the last eight games, the Chiefs’ opening drives alone have produced three turnovers and just two scores. So much for the opening script.

It’s bad, and it’s been bad for awhile. The Chiefs are just good enough overall to overshadow it.

Until they weren’t.

The lousy starts might have magnified after the result in Buffalo, but the trend has been bubbling for awhile. Mahomes has posted brutal numbers in the opening 15 minutes all season: 0 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, a 62.9 passer rating.

He’s the only quarterback in the league with five first-quarter interceptions. And no one has a worse passer rating. That’s the equivalent of 2 1/2 games.

How can this be?

Allow me a theory. The Chiefs are too careless early in games because history suggests everything will still work out just fine late.

As in, their own history.

A toe out of bounds. A fourth-down defensive stop. An overtime touchdown drive. A last-second blocked field goal. Nobody closes out games better than the two-time defending Super Bowl champions do. It’s their identity.

But that history, that identity, has provided a feeling of invincibility and a false reassurance of inevitability.

“We have to have a better sense of urgency — or I have to have a better sense of urgency — throughout the entire game,” Mahomes said.

That has to be the takeaway.

Because the Chiefs are still really good when they need to be really good. They aren’t atop the AFC standings by accident.

It might be ugly in the first quarter, but it’s still picturesque in the final one.

The Chiefs are fourth in the NFL with 9.1 points per fourth quarter, and that’s particularly notable when you consider they were dead last a year ago. Mahomes has the third best passer rating (109.9) among qualified quarterbacks in the final 15 minutes.

It comes alive late. Just look at last week. The Chiefs fell behind two scores with 12 minutes to play, and they promptly drove 66 yards over 10 plays for a touchdown — without even facing a third down.

Mahomes was on one. He completed 5 of 6 passes during the drive. The touchdown throw to Gray was perfection.

“You can tell a lot of times in the fourth quarter whenever we need a score, we go right down the field and score,” Mahomes said. “If we can play the entire football game like that, it won’t put us in these situations where we’re in one-score games at the very end.”

It’s a reminder of what they can be.

It doesn’t have to wait until late in a game.

Or especially, like on Sunday, after it’s too late.

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