The Chiefs keep winning close games. A good sign? Or something ominous?
Patrick Mahomes jumped in place initially, before he skipped down the Chiefs’ sideline, his right fist swinging through the air in celebration. He embraced no one in particular but rather simply enjoyed the moment, without a care for who enjoyed it with him.
This is how Mahomes spent the final seconds of the worst game of his season, a game which prompted him to open a press conference by listing the mistakes he’d made.
But they’d survived.
It’s kind of become a theme with these guys.
The Chiefs have won seven straight games by one score or less after the 17-14 victory Sunday against the Falcons, and when they made it six straight last week, that was already an NFL record.
The Chiefs would want you to believe this is a gift, a sign of their mental toughness to have the wherewithal to find a seemingly different way to survive. And they’re not wrong about that, either.
“That’s just that championship swagger, as Tyrann (Mathieu) would say,” Mahomes said, “of knowing how to win a game, even when you’re not playing well.”
The Chiefs have sort of mastered this, with perhaps a bit of luck involved here and there.
But is it a trait you want to master?
That’s a bit more complicated. Chiefs coach Andy Reid thinks — knows — there’s something to this trend. Anytime the subject is mentioned, he reverts back to some form of the same answer.
“Every (win) is not going to be the prettiest one you’ve had, but the bottom line is you’ve got to keep battling,” he said. “If you don’t battle, you can’t do anything. There’s no way you’re going to survive this. The mental toughness is the part I respect.”
It’s a quality, though immeasurable, most championship teams have. Mathieu, as Mahomes pointed out twice in his post-game Zoom call with media, calls it championship swagger. It’s a nice fit.
But how much are they really just flirting with danger? Are the Chiefs simply too good at finding avenues to winning, or is this streak masking problems that could loom larger in January?
The answer could be a little bit of both. The quarterback was admittedly not good Sunday. The offense hasn’t looked quite its best in a month.
“But then again, at the end of the day, the defense played their tail off to keep us in that game, to give us a chance, and the offense found a way to score a touchdown when we needed to,” Mahomes said.
It’s all accurate. The Chiefs, though, aren’t escaping the occasional upset that many others — all others, really — succumb to at some point in a season. They’ve almost become reliant on the escape routes.
In winning seven straight by six or fewer points, they’ve beaten three potential playoff teams but four who will be watching the postseason from home. They needed a missed field goal to survive Carolina, a game-winning drive to win in Las Vegas, a defensive stop to beat Denver and a missed 39-yard chip shot Sunday against Atlanta. None of those teams compare to what the Chiefs will see in January and potentially February. The Chiefs were favored by at least a touchdown against all of them.
They will have to be better, right?
Well, there is one last interesting piece of all of this. The Chiefs had their fault last year, too. They got behind early a lot. After their comeback against the Texans in the AFC Divisional Round, they were warned not to repeat the mistake against the Titans. After all, that would allow Derrick Henry to take over. Well, the Chiefs trailed by 10 early and then rolled.
OK, but the San Francisco defense is too good to get away with repeating the mistake once more. Well, the Chiefs trailed by 10 in the fourth quarter and you know the rest.
So, no, there’s nothing that says these such streaks will come to a conclusion — even as unlikely or even historical as they might be in the moment.
There is, of course, nothing that guarantees they will last, either.
“These guys are tough. Our guys are mentally tough,” Reid said. “And to put together what they have to this point, my hat goes off to them. I appreciate the effort. And I get to see it every day — they battle through.
“And that’s going to help us down the road.”
This story was originally published December 27, 2020 at 4:43 PM.