KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The play call was strange. The route was run short of the first-down marker. And the throw was off the mark.

Everything that could go wrong on one play did go wrong for the Giants, when they were 7 yards away from improbably tying the score late in the first half Monday night against the Chiefs. To somehow make matters worse, the Giants compounded the one play with two doses of conservative decision-making that loomed large later in a 20-17 loss at Arrowhead Stadium.

Here’s what happened: Trailing 14-7, the Giants faced third-and-4 at the 7-yard line. Sterling Shepard lined up to the outside of two receivers bunched in the right slot and ran an out route. Daniel Jones threw on the roll in Shepard’s direction, but Shepard cut his break 2 yards short of the sticks and went to the ground on the sideline to make the catch as he rolled onto his back.

As if he could see the future, just moments before the third-down snap, Giants great Michael Strahan, appearing live on ESPN’s Manningcast broadcast, asked Peyton and Eli, “Why when it’s like third-and-4, do they throw a 3-yard pass? All the time. Everybody does it. It bothers me.”

Peyton’s reply was that coaches see it as four-down territory. Joe Judge did not, however.

Judge opted to send automatic Graham Gano out for a 23-yard field goal rather than go for the first down — or the touchdown — from the 5-yard line. Analytics ridicule decisions like Judge’s, but math doesn’t consider that the Giants’ first six opponents outscored them 42-0 in the final two minutes of the first half.

It is more difficult to understand what happened next, considering the Chiefs’ defense ranks last in the NFL allowing 6.6 yards per play.

The Chiefs stalled out while barely taking any time off the clock, so the Giants were gifted another possession at their own 26-yard line with 1:26 to go. Instead of attacking soft coverage and positioning Gano — who has made 10 field goals of 50 yards or more in the past 23 games — for a long kick, the Giants seemed wary of making a catastrophic mistake.

Using the no-huddle, the Giants lacked all sense of urgency as gains of 5, 4 and 2 yards moved the chains — preventing the Chiefs from regaining possession on a punt — but took 71 seconds off the clock. When it looked like the Giants might kneel out the clock, they chose to up the aggressiveness. But Shepard injured his quad, the victim of a defensive pass interference penalty.

If Shepard’s injury was a wrench in the plan, three penalties in the final 21 seconds were an anvil.

On first-and-10 and 5 yards shy, Will Hernandez false started. Then Nate Solder held. Then Jones didn’t get the snap before the play clock expired. Seeing enough, Jones kneeled and ended the second of two opportunities for points that the Giants were left to wish they had back.