There is no easy way to put it. The Kansas City Chiefs are against the ropes.
After losing a crucial road game to the AFC West’s top team — the Denver Broncos — last Sunday, Kansas City’s margin of error
is slimmer than it’s ever been since quarterback Patrick Mahomes took over the offense.
At this point, winning the division is secondary to remaining in the playoff race. If the season ended today, the 5-5 Chiefs would find themselves on the outside looking in.
According to NFL.com, Kansas City currently has a 45% chance to make the playoffs — and that percentage drops to 25% if the team loses to the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday.
But according to head coach Andy Reid, there is no panic in his locker room.
“We know what we need to clean up — and we need to do it,” he told reporters on Monday. “But the guys, they get it. Some of these guys have been through some pretty good seasons — and it isn’t like this one’s lost.”
But Reid believes his players do realize what’s at stake in the season’s final games — and understand what they have to do.
“We’re not overreacting,” he said on Wednesday, “but there is a certain urgency you’ve got to have to make sure that you clean up some of the stuff we’ve had. Overreacting doesn’t help. What helps is that you take care of your business individually — and then collectively as a team.”
For Reid, that’s been a consistent message ever since Sunday’s loss.
“I mentioned that to them after the game, actually,” he noted. “What can you do? What you can do is get yourself ready to play Indianapolis. That’s what you can do. Everything else is involved with a crystal ball. You can take care of today and tomorrow and the following day. Let’s start there.”
Still, players know they will have to treat this Sunday’s game against the Indianapolis Colts like it’s a postseason matchup.
“Just like if you were going to a big divisional game or a playoff game — or whatever it is,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes explained to the media on Wednesday. “You just have to know what’s at stake.”
From ample experience in such games, Mahomes knows how to approach it.
“You try to prepare yourself throughout the week,” he observed, “and do the little extra stuff so that your mind can be settled on game day. Then you can go out there and just play — knowing that you need to go out there and win the football game, and knowing we’re playing against a really good football team that’s playing great football right now.”
Middle linebacker Nick Bolton believes it’s about focusing on the details.
“The margin of error in this league is super small,” he said, “so [we] just make sure everybody’s in the right space at the right time [and] executing the game plan — just doing little things that give us a chance.”
Bolton said that in the final analysis, that’s all players can do: focus on what they can control.
“I can’t look too far ahead,” he noted. “So our mindset is literally just on this day, this practice, this 10 plays, this 20 plays — whatever that might be — just to give ourselves a chance to go out there on Sunday and play fast, get into the fourth quarter and see what happens.”
Will the Chiefs turn things around? Or will this be the first time since Mahomes became the starting quarterback that Kansas City not only fails to win the AFC West and make the AFC Championship, but misses out on the playoffs altogether?
There’s one thing we know: during his eight-year career, the 30-year-old quarterback — who has been to five Super Bowls, winning three of them — has played in as many big games as nearly anyone in NFL history.
“It’s a great opportunity, at the end of the day,” he said. “Obviously, we’re 5-5 — not where we want to be at — but we get to write the rest of this season’s story. It starts this week with Indianapolis at Arrowhead. I’m excited for us to go out there and do it.”
