Here’s what we still don’t know about 2022 Kansas City Chiefs as season opener nears
Some 44 days ago, the Chiefs gathered on a college campus an hour north of Kansas City as preparation for a season that is now just a few days away. Six-plus weeks later, it seems appropriate to open the discussion on what we don’t know.
On what the Chiefs don’t even yet know.
On what they hope takes them awhile to find out.
See, there is a mystery about this group — OK, there’s probably more than one mystery heading into a season opener, but let’s call it one of their more compelling mysteries, considering it defined their 2021 season:
How will the Chiefs react when something doesn’t work out?
A play.
A game.
Maybe an entire month.
At some point, something will go wrong, and we remain in the dark on the exact response. That’s not just you and me, either.
Turns out, those involved are at least a little in the dark, too.
“I’d tell you (that) you have an idea, but you don’t know,” head coach Andy Reid said. “You don’t know until you get in there and go. Every week tells you a new story. Are you going to continue to progress? Where do you plateau, if you plateau? If you take some dips, how do you handle those?
“That’s what seasons present you. You have to work through all that. If you haven’t gone through it with some guys, or the chemistry of all guys together, how’s that going to take? We’ll see.”
Look, there is an element of this baked into every season, an element inside every NFL team facility. There are things you just cannot replicate in training camp, nor during preseason games.
But we’re highlighting it here, in Kansas City, because of the most recent history.
This particular quarterback, this particular head coach and a heavy chunk of this particular locker room don’t require a reminder that some of the teams with Super Bowl aspirations hit a lull. Maybe it’s for a quarter (or three) in the playoffs. Or maybe it’s more long-lasting, even a month or longer.
The book on the 2021 Chiefs’ season will be remembered for its final chapter, or lack thereof, but the plot actually heated up midseason. The Chiefs finished 12-5 and hosted their fourth consecutive AFC Championship Game, but the ride to get there had its bumps. We don’t need to rehash those struggles, most of them offensively— it’s the response that’s important.
They fell to 3-4 after a disaster in Tennessee. Afterward, they enjoyed a stretch against the listless Giants, the Packers without Aaron Rodgers, the Raiders shortly after firing their head coach, the injury-ravaged Cowboys and then a bye week.
The offense topped 20 points in just one of those four games. Guess what? They won them all. As the offense took time to dig out of its slump, to get things right, the record didn’t suffer.
The get-right stretch this year?
Gone. Erased from the NFL’s most challenging schedule.
The first eight opponents on the Chiefs’ 2022 slate all had winning records a year ago, and even after facing Jacksonville in their ninth game, the Chiefs will travel to Los Angeles to face the Chargers, followed by back-to-back games against the two most recent Super Bowl participants.
And that’s why this topic — how the Chiefs will respond if confronted with the same abrupt, midseason adversity this year — becomes not only relevant but important. The Chiefs won’t be offered much time to figure it out. If they slump, the record will show it.
Less certain? For how long.
Don’t take this as an expression of doubt. Patrick Mahomes is a good place to start, after all. Take it as another expression — a shrug of the shoulders.
“When you’re in the preseason or when you’re in training camp, you’re grinding and doing different stuff. And you’re going through adversity, but at the same time, you know it’s not real (games),” Mahomes said. “When it becomes real, you see what a guy truly has underneath.”
Saw it in 2021, though that team didn’t exactly respond well to some blunders in the second half of the AFC Championship Game. Saw it even more in 2020. The way that team responded to setbacks, namely postseason deficits, drove their Super Bowl run.
Every team takes on its own personality — Reid is insistent about that — even one with consistency at the top. Still, Mahomes’ presence offers a clue the 2022 Chiefs will have at least a trace of that quality. He captains the ship.
It takes more than one, though. This has been a key characteristic of an entire team, not simply of an individual.
For what it’s worth, Mahomes has spotted, albeit a smaller scale, the way some of his receivers have reacted when a play breaks down. They search for solutions.
Another clue.
“I think we have the guys that have it, and they can go out there and find ways to win at the end of the day,” Mahomes said.
They think.
They can’t know. Not until that moment arrives.
And here’s the irony of it all — they hope that moment never does. Or at least not anytime soon.
This story was originally published September 8, 2022 at 12:02 PM.