KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The quarterback of a 3-3, third-place-in-the-division football team walked into an interview an hour before midnight. At some point over the course of the next several minutes, he uttered a phrase that best captured what we’d all seen over the previous few hours.

“We’re not afraid,” Patrick Mahomes began, “to go up against anybody.”

The Chiefs are back, just as quickly as they were dismissed, and that’s in more than ways than post-game one-liners exuding some confidence after a convincing 30-17 win against the red-hot Detroit Lions.

They’re back to frustrating the best teams in the NFL to the point of violent aggression. They’re back to employing a quarterback who looks capable of winning an MVP — because they’re back to providing him the environment in which he can flourish.

It’s almost as if last week’s game had provided the sign: They have a ceiling offensively they did not reach the last two years.

But there’s one way — one tweak to a longstanding formula — in which they actually could be better.

All it took? A simple Andy Reid decision.

Go for it.

There are a number of reasons the offense is clicking like it’s 2019 again — from an improving offensive line, to a healthier group of wide receivers, to a competent running game, to creative play design that asks Mahomes to move a little.

There is but one thing, however, that kickstarted the offensive domination of the NFL’s hottest team on Sunday night.

Reid, the head coach, left his offense on the field. He made a specific decision he’s never made before.

With the Chiefs facing fourth-and-3 inside the 10-yard-line, kicker Harrison Butker took a couple of steps off the sideline before Reid waved him back. He didn’t want the kicker. He wanted Mahomes.

They had discussed this possibility throughout the week, predicting Detroit would try man-to-man coverage on fourth downs, and so they settled on a couple of plays. They called a good one. Xavier Worthy won easily off the line of scrimmage, and Mahomes didn’t look anywhere else. He hit him in stride and Worthy walked in for a 6-yard touchdown.

The Chiefs were off and running.

Because the quarterback stayed on.

If you’ve arrived here in the past, you know there have been plenty of words written about fourth-down decisions. There have never been these exact words, though, because Reid has never pulled the move I just described.

Since Mahomes became the organization’s starting quarterback in 2018, the Chiefs have faced fourth down with at least three yards to go from inside the 10-yard line some 25 times in the first halves of their games. And in every single one of those 25 instances, Reid had sent out the field-goal team.

Oh, it gets better. They had faced the same decision inside the 30-yard line some 86 times in the first halves of their games. And in every single one of those 86 instances, Reid had sent out the field-goal team.

He created an exception Sunday.

At last, he’s riding with the exceptional.

Maybe it’s unfair to make that sound so simple, but I’ve always boiled down these difficult fourth downs to one question: Acknowledging NFL games are tough to win, don’t you want the best player on the planet determining whether or not you actually do win them?

That’s the decision Reid made Sunday. He rode with Mahomes.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Reid attempted three fourth-down tries in the first half alone, and I’ll compliment the one the Chiefs missed every bit as much as the two they converted. They’ve been ridiculous on fourth downs this season — 11 of 13 — but to focus on their success is to overlook the importance of what preempts it.

The decision.

This is a statistical edge, one in which the Chiefs have bypassed. It’s not easy to pull the trigger. Those decisions don’t and won’t always work out. But the odds will always work in their favor. The ESPN Analytics model showed attempting the initial fourth down improved the Chiefs’ chances by 3.6%.

The conversion proved the most significant play of the game for the Chiefs, at 4.0 expected points added, and it increased their win probability by 10%, per rbsdm.com.

“These are all subjective decisions, and I know if you talk to the stats guys, they’re going to tell you to go on every fourth down,” Reid said, before saying the Chiefs’ own analytics guru, Mike Frazier, “does a good job of keeping it within reason.”

“Listen, it was the right time to do it.”

The models have long requested Reid tilt the scale a little more sharply, and the talent of his quarterback has long begged him to do it more frequently ... and he’s now arriving at that decision more frequently.

The Chiefs won a huge game and looked like their old selves while doing it, and Reid played a huge role in putting them in position. We don’t know how that game unfolds without him embracing the odds and willing to live with the risk of a failure.

In the last eight seasons, Reid has never attempted three fourth downs in the first half of a game. He’s attempted two in the same game just six times, and three of those have come this season.

He has suggested the opposition’s aggression has persuaded him to match. I’m not saying the opponent means nothing, but the most important thing moving forward is how his own team is built.

The offense is on a roll, returned to the unit you’d prefer be on the field with the game on the line. This isn’t a one-game reaction. The Chiefs have scored 95 points over a three-game stretch for the first time in four seasons. They would have averaged at least 6 yards per play in back-to-back games for the first time in more than two years if Mahomes hadn’t taken three knees to end the game.

It’s why this kind of aggression ought to stick around.

For once.

Well, OK, it’s not the first time. See, there’s a reason I had to set the parameters of that never-been-done-before decision to since Mahomes took over — a reason I specified that Reid has never made that decision with Mahomes piloting the plane.

Reid had attempted a fourth-and-5 from the 12-yard line just one time — way back in December 2014 in Pittsburgh.

That play involved a couple of Chiefs team Hall of Famers. Travis Kelce caught a 6-yard pass to convert it.

The quarterback? Punter Dustin Colquitt.

As I said, exceptions for the exceptional.

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