For the first time since December 10th, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes addressed Chiefs Kingdom by answering questions from local media. On a Zoom call Thursday afternoon, the two-time
MVP talked about his recovery from the devastating knee injury; he also weighed in on the potential changes to Kansas City’s offensive coaching staff.
As offensive coordinator Matt Nagy seeks a head-coaching gig, the Chiefs have already fired two assistant coaches: wide receivers coach Connor Embree and running backs coach Todd Pinkston. When asked about the potential departure of Nagy, Mahomes wished him well.
“I love coach Nagy,” Mahomes said. “He has done a lot of great things in my career to help me become the quarterback I am. I know that he’s looking to take that step and get back to the head coaching spot. I hope he gets another opportunity to do that. He’s a great man, a great person… he gave me a lot of ideas to be better as a person, as a quarterback, so I’m hoping the best for him as he goes through this head coaching process and gets another opportunity to go out there and lead an organization.”
A change in the offensive leadership is on the horizon. That reality put significance on listening to Mahomes as he shared insight on what went wrong during the 2025 season and what he is looking for in a new offensive coordinator. Here were the three most important words he used:
“Consistent”
“I think, offensively, we weren’t consistent enough throughout games,” Mahomes said. “We had stretches in games where we played good, we had stretches in the season where we played really good, but we have to be better, and that starts with me, and it has to feed throughout the entire offense.”
The quarterback echoed a theme that Nagy pointed to when he reflected on 2025 a few weeks ago: the offense was unable to maintain rhythm from drive to drive or week to week. It was certainly the case through the first nine games, but after the bye week, there were fewer examples of the highs and many more lows during the 1-7 stretch to finish the schedule.
There were impactful injuries that factored into the unit’s inconsistency, but regardless, it was uncharacteristic of a team led by head coach Andy Reid. This past season featured the first Chiefs team under Reid without a five-game win streak. The inability of Mahomes and the offense to find a flow was one of the biggest reasons.
“Conscious” & “Counteract”
“You have to dive deep into that scheme evaluation and see what teams are seeing against us,” Mahomes acknowledged. “The one part about having so much success is teams watch a lot of film on you… You saw that this year: teams were very conscious of the plays that we’ve hit for a long time. We have to find ways to counteract that and go at teams, be able to utilize that and make more explosive plays.“
To put it another way, Kansas City’s play-calling was predictable and struggled to neutralize the opponent’s advantage of familiarity. This stood out the most against the Buffalo Bills in Week 9. It felt like Buffalo was a step ahead of the Chiefs for most plays in the 28-21 loss.
Between Weeks 11 and 14, Kansas City averaged 14 points per game over three crucial battles with eventual AFC playoff teams: the Denver Broncos, Houston Texans and Los Angeles Chargers. The familiar foes were able to shut down the Chiefs’ offense when needed, especially on third down. In 2025, the Chiefs ranked 22nd in third-down conversion rate after placing in the top-6 each of the previous two seasons.
It all points to the scheme and its play-calling lacking the innovation required to stay ahead of the curve in the modern NFL. That’s something Mahomes is looking for in a new offensive coordinator. When asked directly about that, he wasn’t shy about listing out his desires for the next coach.
“New Ideas”
“For me, I just want someone that loves football,” Mahomes began. “That cares about football, that wants to give everything they can to win, to hold people accountable and to bring new ideas every single day. I think that’s something that we have to continue to do if you want to continue to be great in this league… you have to continue to evolve and get better and better. That’s something we’ll try to do here.“
Kansas City’s quarterback is clearly ready for more innovation within the Chiefs’ scheme. However, he may value the character of the coach just as much.
“Accountable”
“I want to get back to that winning culture of being accountable to each other and going out there and playing great football every single day, practice or game,” Mahomes pointed out.
One candidate for the offensive coordinator position comes to mind when seeking accountability: Kansas City’s former offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, who is currently in his first season as the running backs coach for the Chicago Bears.
Whether or not Bieniemy is the answer, Mahomes seeks that no-sugar-coating trait in a coach. Nagy seemed to have a more friendly approach, and the optimistic, uplifting messaging may have gotten stale.
