The Kansas City Chiefs currently sit atop the AFC West with a 9-6 record. With two games left to go in the season they sit as the three overall seed going into the AFC playoffs. If everything were to stay the same, this would be the first time the Chiefs play a playoff game on the road in the Patrick Mahomes era.
Kansas City started off the season with a shocking loss the Detroit Lions on the opening night of the season 21-20. In that game, Mahomes didn’t have his biggest weapon in Travis Kelce as he dealt with a bone bruise. The Chiefs defense was also without perennial all star DT Chris Jones as he was seeking a new contract.
After the shock of opening night, Kelce and Jones both came back to the lineup and Kansas City rattled off six straight wins before finally losing again to the Denver Broncos. Then after beating the Miami Dolphins 21-14 in Germany, they got their bye week. Whatever had been stirring in the locker room before the bye started to hit them hard.
Since the bye week they are 2-4 with losses to the Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers, Buffalo Bills, and Las Vegas Raiders. The two wins they got in this six game stretch… the New England Patriots and the Raiders. The Chiefs, for the first time, have not looked the 2000’s Patriots dynasty everyone had said they would be.
In the NFL you can only go as far as your QB will take you, so let’s start with Patrick Mahomes here. He is on pace to have the worst season of his career. He would need to throw for close to 800 yards in the last two games here to match his career low for a full season that is currently 4,740 passing yards (2020). With 3,938 so far this season, it’s unlikely he reaches his 2020 number. *Editor’s note: He had 4,019 in 2019 in 14 games*.
Mahomes passing yards isn’t the only stat that matters though, we all know this. He’s been sacked 25 times so far this season with is only three away from tying his career high of 28 (2021) and he’s currently only 4 yards on sacks away from having the most yards lost on sacks in his career. He’s already thrown his career high in interceptions this year with 14.
We can’t put all of the blame on Mahomes for the struggles of the Chiefs offense. Travis Kelce had also had the worst season of his career. At 34 years old, you can physically see that age is starting to hit him like a brick. This is not unusual for his position, however, Andy Reid and the Chiefs have done absolutely nothing to get him the same type of help that someone like Rob Gronkowski got as he started to get up in age.
Taking a look at Kelce’s stats on and off the field. My man has the number one sports podcast on the planet with “New Heights” which he co-hosts with his brother. We aren’t going to get into the curse of Taylor Swift in this article, but that’s most definitely a contributing factor to the conspiracy theorists. Every single stat for Kelce is down including targets, receptions, yards, yard per game, touchdowns, and first downs. When the number one option to the number one QB in the league is down like this, the offense will look flat.
Looking at the Rushing attack that they have put on the field this year, their leading rusher is Isaiah Pacheco. He has 805 yards and 7 touchdowns. Pacheco is a little harder to say he’s having a down season because he was not the number one back to start the 2022 season. What we can say is that overall, the rushing yardage and touchdown numbers as a team are down from 2022. In 2022, they had four player with 291 rushing yards or more, in 2023 they only have Pacheco and Mahomes over that number. They have 1,529 rushing yards as a team this season with 9 touchdowns. When we compare that to 2022 where they had 1,970 yards and 18 touchdowns, there’s a glaring problem in the rush game.
Losing Tyreek Hill hurt this offense a lot and they just won’t admit it. Juju Smith-Schuster filled in that role as number one WR for last season before departing to New England. Juju is the receiver that Hill was, but he helped open up the field for other guys while still getting his own numbers. Smith-Schuster was the teams top WR (not including Kelce) last year with 933 yards and 3 touchdowns. There has really not been a guy to free up everyone else this year like that.
Rookie Rashee Rice has come into his own over the second half of the season but the damage to this offense has already been done. Skyy Moore, Justin Watson, and Kadarius Toney keep dropping balls in key moments and the offensive line has Mahomes running for his life just like he was in Super Bowl LV against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This is evident by him already having his career high in rushing attempts and yards with two games left (71 attempts and 387 yards).
If we put all of what is said above together, we come to the fact that the Kansas City Chiefs offense is down overall. If you don’t think so, all we have to look at is how many points the team has scored over the last few seasons. With two games left they have put up 333 points this season, down from 496 in 2022, 480 in 2021, 473 in 2020, and 451 in 2019.
It really looks like Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, and the rest of the Chiefs have peaked since the loss of Eric Bieniemy. The Offensive Coordinator seems to have been the mastermind behind the entire operation. I mean come on, he’s made Sam Howell look like a superstar in half of this season where pretty much everyone was ready to brush him aside.
The Chiefs end their season with games against the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Chargers. Both games on paper should be wins for them going into Wild Card Weekend. I wouldn’t count out the Bengals yet, as they fight and claw for a Wild Card spot with backup QB Jake Browing. That could pose an issue for a team that struggled mightily against the worst Patriots team of the 2000’s.
There is a very good chance this Kansas City team could be a one and done in the playoffs. Even with the game at Arrowhead. The record at home this year is only 4-4 as opposed to 5-2 on the road. If standings ended today, they would be hosting the Buffalo Bills in the Wild Card round and then would likely have to travel for the Divisional round to Miami, assuming they win as well. For a team that has been to 5 straight AFC Championship Games, anything less would be a failure.
This season will more than likely be a failure for the Kansas City Chiefs.
If you would like to discuss the possibility of joining our team here at Pro Football Debate, please reach out to Jake’s e-mail at J.jollymore8@gmail.com.
Pro Football Debate 
Leave a comment