The latest
Five biggest culprits of Chiefs’ nightmare season | Yardbarker
2. An untrustworthy receiving core
When Rashee Rice returned from his six-game suspension with a two-touchdown performance against the Las Vegas Raiders, there was some talk that this would be Mahomes’ best receiving core since the Tyreek Hill days. It’s safe to say that has not come to fruition.
Speedster Xavier Worthy has failed to take the next step in his second NFL season, deep threats Tyquan Thornton and Marquise Brown have been unable
to remain consistent contributors and tight end Travis Kelce has lost nearly all of his run-after-catch ability in his age-36 season. Even Rice, who has a 17-game receiving pace of over 1,250 yards, has had a number of key drops, including a crucial one on fourth down against the Texans. The Chiefs have still been able to move the ball with ease against defenses like the Raiders and Dallas Cowboys, but great defenses like the Texans can dominate them in man coverage and force Mahomes into critical mistakes.
NFL Week 14 takeaways: What We Learned from Sunday’s 12 games | NFL.com
Next Gen Stats Insight for Texans-Chiefs (via NFL Pro): The Chiefs were without three starters on the offensive line before the game started and lost fill-in left tackle Wanya Morris on their first offensive play. The Chiefs’ offensive line allowed a 43.9% pressure rate from the Texans’ vaunted pass rush. Will Anderson had a team-high seven QB pressures. Left tackle Esa Pole made his NFL debut replacing Morris and allowed five QB pressures (12.2% pressure rate) and one sack.
NFL Research: Patrick Mahomes lost for the first time facing DeMeco Ryans. He was 3-0 against Ryans previously as a head coach with the Texans or defensive coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers.
NFL Week 14 grades: Steelers earn ‘B’ for wild win over Ravens | CBS Sports
C- Chiefs
The Chiefs have watched Patrick Mahomes save the day so many times that it seemed destined to happen once again on Sunday night, but instead, the Texans defense landed a knockout punch on the Chiefs. Mahomes struggled against Houston, throwing for just 160 yards with three interceptions, but he also got no help from his teammates, who dropped a total of six passes. Two of those drops came from Travis Kelce, including a back-breaking drop in the fourth quarter that led to a game-sealing interception for Houston. Basically, the Chiefs didn’t make the plays that we’ve become accustomed to seeing them make in crunch time. Andy Reid also made an aggressive decision to go for it on fourth down from his own 31-yard line in the fourth quarter. After the Chiefs failed, the Texans took over and ended up scoring what proved to be the game-winning touchdown. The Chiefs look old this year: They look a step slow, they’ve been sloppy at times and the offensive firepower hasn’t been there since the calendar hit November. At 6-7, it’s looking more and more like the Chiefs are going to miss the playoffs for the first time in Mahomes’ career.
14 . KANSAS CITY CHIEFS: CB JERMOD McCOY, TENNESSEE
The Chiefs have struggled in the secondary this season, and Jaylen Watson and Josh Williams are set to hit free agency. They drafted Nohl Williams last year, and he could step into one of those outside spots, but if they have a chance to land a player with McCoy’s size-speed-talent profile, I could see them taking it.
McCoy hasn’t played this year due to an ACL tear, but if the medicals check out on his recovery (and if he declares), he brings true one-on-one coverage ability, highlighted by his 89.5 coverage grade as a sophomore in 2024. Running back — such as Jeremiyah Love — could also be an option, but Kansas City can address that later. It’s much tougher to do that at cornerback.
The Winners and Losers of the NFL Week 14 | The Ringer
Loser: The Chiefs Dynasty
According to The Athletic’s playoff prediction model, there’s now an 84 percent chance that we’ll see something that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago: the Chiefs, with a healthy Patrick Mahomes, in his prime, missing the playoffs. Sunday’s 20-10 loss to the Texans dropped their odds of earning a postseason berth to just 16 percent; that jumps to just 52 percent if they win all of their final four games.
With a month left in the regular season, the three-time defending AFC champs find themselves in a three-way tie with Baltimore and Miami for ninth place in the conference. If Andy Reid and GM Brett Veach didn’t have so much goodwill—with the three Super Bowl rings and whatnot—I wonder if they might have found themselves on the hot seat. Missing the playoffs with one of the most talented quarterbacks this league has ever seen and a very favorable schedule that featured nine home games and only seven true road games would typically be viewed as a fireable offense. That’s not likely to happen here, but the reality is that right now the Chiefs are a poorly coached team that lacks high-end talent outside of the quarterback position.
Reid and Veach haven’t delivered this season, though the team they’ve built is probably better than its 6-7 record indicates. After running the table in one-score games a year ago and finishing the regular season 15-2, the Chiefs haven’t won a single close game all season. The loss to Houston on Sunday night was the first time all season they’ve lost by more than one score. In an alternate universe, this team, with largely the same roster as last season, is still enjoying that same devil’s magic and is cruising into the playoffs.
Around the NFL
Chargers pull ahead in OT to defeat Eagles in tight MNF win | ESPN
The Chargers’ defense was suffocating, forcing five turnovers from Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts, the most in the Super Bowl MVP’s career. But after an opening-drive touchdown, the Chargers’ offense stalled.
But L.A.’s defense got a stop when it needed it most as safety Tony Jefferson intercepted Hurts’ pass to secure a 22-19 overtime win. Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert rushed for 66 yards, the third most in his career, just seven days after surgery on a fracture in his left hand.
It was the biggest win of the season for the Chargers, who appeared to be spiraling out of playoff contention. The victory could help propel them into the postseason for the second year in a row.
2025 NFL MVP race: Case for and against top 8 candidates entering Week 15 | NFL.com
Seattle Seahawks · WR · +15000
Why he could win: Smith-Njigba has a chance to break the league’s single-season record for receiving yards. He’s produced eight games with at least 100 yards, and his emergence has been crucial to the success quarterback Sam Darnold has enjoyed in his first season in Seattle. To put this into perspective, Smith-Njigba has 121 targets this year. Cooper Kupp is the next closest on the team with 53.
Why he couldn’t: It’s always an uphill battle for a wide receiver to push into this conversation. Smith-Njigba also has cooled off. He has 115 receiving yards in his last two games combined.
Final verdict: He would need 2,000 receiving yards to be a real contender. He needs to average 143 yards per game over the final four games. The idea was fun while it lasted.
In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride
5 things we learned from Chiefs’ era-ending loss to Texans
1. The cat in the box was dead
In 1935, German physicist Erwin Schrodinger described, in a letter to Albert Einstein, a thought experiment designed to mock the absurdity of quantum mechanics when scaled up to everyday objects. The thought experiment describes a situation where you put a cat in a box with a radioactive device designed to have a 50% chance of killing it within an hour. According to quantum mechanics, until you open the box to determine the fate of the cat, it exists in both a living and dead state simultaneously.
It’s kind of how the Chiefs’ 2025 season has felt: both alive and dead at the same time, a strange zombie that has stumbled from week to week, unsure of whether it could find a heartbeat again.
But now that the box is open and we can see clearly that the cat (this season) is dead. It’s time to mourn its passing and remember all of the good times.
We have been privileged to watch one of the greatest seven-year runs in sports history.
So, in the misattributed words of
Dr. SeussLudwig Jacobowski, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
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