One of my favorite skills Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes possesses is his ability to be one step faster than any player chasing him. It doesn’t matter if it’s a defensive tackle or a cornerback; he’ll outrace them to the sideline to get his throw off. It’s magic.
That ability has seemingly rubbed off on the Chiefs over the years. Think about how many times we’ve seen this team be so much better than the opposition. It doesn’t really matter who the opponent is on the opposing sideline.
The Chiefs just seem to find a way. It’s that Mahomes Magic.
I miss it.
Things changed last year. The team couldn’t find that extra gear early on, especially against the quality opponents on the schedule. The Chiefs’ one-score sorcery evolved into one-score nightmares. The entire season was a disaster from start to finish. This year would be different.
It certainly felt different in the first month. The Chiefs sprinted to a 5-0 start. The vibes were generally positive. Things were back on track.
Everything seemed to flip on a dime. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but one play against the Seattle Seahawks sticks in my mind that I haven’t been able to shake.
In the second quarter, the Chiefs line up rookie running back Emmett Johnson behind Mahomes in the pistol formation. Mahomes fakes a pitch to Johnson to the right and rolls to his left, and he has to beat a defender to his spot to get the throw off as he had done so many times before. A step faster than every defender, right? Not this time. He has met his match. Safety Nick Emmanwori chased down Mahomes from behind and forced a bad throw to Jalen Royals, resulting in a Seahawks interception. The Chiefs were trailing 3-0 at the time. The Seahawks took a 10-0 lead on the next drive and never looked back.
Was that the moment the bad vibes returned? It’s hard to say. The Chiefs didn’t immediately follow that game with another terrible performance. They were leading 24-13 entering the fourth quarter on the road against the Broncos. That’s a game they should win.
But they didn’t. They fell short. Again.
It’s becoming a trend, the kind I never thought we would see under head coach Andy Reid and Mahomes. This team just doesn’t seem to have that ability to keep quality opponents at arm’s reach any longer.
The Chiefs were 16-7 from 2022-2024 in the regular season with Patrick Mahomes as the starter against teams that finished the year at or above .500. They have gone just 3-9 against that same caliber of opponents over the past two seasons. They went from the second-best winning percentage in the NFL from 2022-2024 against opponents who finished with at least a .500 record to the team with the 13th-worst record in the league over the past two seasons against opponents with at least a .500 record.
What gives?
A little bit of everything.
As you have probably learned by now, I’m a bit of a contrarian by nature. After their past couple of performances, my initial suspicion was that the defense was the main culprit for the Chiefs’ downward spiral against quality opponents. It seems, at least anecdotally, that the Chiefs have struggled to get off the field on key downs. And we all know the pass rush has steadily declined in recent years. Maybe that’s the issue?
The defense has, indeed, regressed against quality opponents. But not as much as I suspected. They’re effectively giving up an extra field goal per game, and the pass rush has fallen off a bit. But we knew that. The rest of the numbers are… fine? They’re mostly right in line with where they were from 2022-2024.
Okay, so if it’s not the defense that’s taken a serious step back, I guess it’s the offense? Well… Kinda.
The Chiefs offense, much like the defense, is basically a field-goal-worse per game. The passing offense has taken a pretty significant step back, as one would expect, and that shows up prominently in the Chiefs’ inability to convert on third downs. It’s worth noting the offense is a field goal worse per game, and roughly half of those points reflect missed field goals by Harrison Butker.
The truth is it’s a bit of everything. The Chiefs are losing on the margins. The pass rush isn’t getting home quite as often. The passing offense isn’t connecting on key third downs. The kicking game isn’t as strong. The Chiefs just don’t have that one thing that keeps opposing coaches up at night the way they once did.
None of this is to say they can’t develop that thing. The trade deadline is still a week away. There’s time to get this back on track. I suspect this team will look quite good over the next three games against the New York Jets, Atlanta Falcons and Arizona Cardinals, and they’ll likely enter Week 12 against the Buffalo Bills with an 8-2 record and the ability to control their own destiny down the stretch with contests looming against the Bills, Los Angeles Rams, Cincinnati Bengals, New England Patriots and San Francisco 49ers. That’s a month of games looming against quality opponents.
It wasn’t that long ago the Chiefs thrived in these kinds of games. It’s time to recapture that magic. It’s going to take a slight uptick in play from each and every player.
And probably a trade or two, to boot.
