The Chiefs want to talk turnovers. Their problems stretched far beyond that in Denver
Patrick Mahomes’ unbeaten streak was never going to last forever, and the fact that I have to be more specific about which streak I’m referencing — his undefeated record against the Broncos or his run through AFC West opponents on the road — tells you just how good the Chiefs have had it since his arrival.
(It’s both streaks, by the way.)
But this is not a column about past beauty. Nor is it a column to suggest that, you know what, the Broncos were just due to finally get one against the Chiefs.
This is about the ugly.
And we’ve got some things to talk about.
The Broncos humiliated the Chiefs 24-9 on Sunday afternoon at Mile High, though, come on, the Chiefs didn’t need much assistance there. They took care of most of the humiliation themselves.
Where to start? Well, if you allow them the opportunity to start, you’ll receive some familiarity within the responses.
“Five turnovers,” head coach Andy Reid said to commence his opening remarks.
“It’s unacceptable. You can’t win any football games with five turnovers, no matter how good you are,” wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling said as part of his initial response.
And in his first thought, punt returner Mecole Hardman took the blame for the loss because of, yep, his own turnover.
They’re all right in their own way. Those were indeed the biggest point-swings in the game. But they’re only halfway to the explanation of what unfolded in Denver. The truth is fully presented here:
“Obviously, the turnovers, but the execution in general,” Mahomes said. “I mean they did a good job against us with their defense, but we have to execute at a high-enough level, and we clearly haven’t done anything in the two games we played against them.”
Oh, yeah. Twice the Broncos have done this.
If I’d have been told the Chiefs were going to navigate an entire game without reaching the end zone once — just the third time a Mahomes-led team could say that — I’d have guessed the opposition just fooled them.
The Chiefs are, after all, more prone to seeing unscouted looks than any other team in the league. Maybe a team just blind-sided them.
But the Broncos didn’t pull some rope-a-dope. Eighteen days ago, in fact, they showed the Chiefs exactly what was coming, and they were even kind enough to let the Chiefs run 70 offensive plays against it.
Yet then they went out and busted the world champions with the same scheme. Let me re-phrase that: The league’s 32nd-ranked defense busted the Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce offense with the same stuff they put on tape against them less than three weeks ago. Changed hardly a thing.
That’s a concern.
And it isn’t just about the turnovers.
“It worked once. They ran it again. It obviously worked again,” Mahomes said.
We’ll get into that here, but don’t lose sight of the main point that the Chiefs allowed any scheme to work twice in the span of just 18 days.
The Broncos have twice begged the Chiefs to throw the ball shallow, even behind the line of scrimmage, and they insisted they find someone other than Travis Kelce to serve as that outlet. That search, by the way, marches on.
Mahomes threw the ball 38 times Sunday, more than two-thirds of which were within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. The ones that weren’t? Well, that brings us to more of the ugly. On throws beyond 10 air yards, Mahomes finished 3 of 11 with two interceptions.
After an early lead, the Broncos robbed the Chiefs of a deep passing game, threw extra numbers to Kelce and told the Chiefs they’d have to nickel-and-dime their way back. The Chiefs have seen that greeting before, but in Denver they were left shrugging their shoulders to find a solution, as though they were wondering what we are all wondering as watched.
Now what?
Mahomes was staring and pump-faking into oblivion, pleading for someone — please, anyone — to get open. Beyond Rashee Rice, the Chiefs’ receivers aren’t creating enough separation, perhaps with no better example than Sunday. And Mahomes doesn’t seem to have a lot of trust in throwing to small creases unless No. 87 is on the other end.
That’s a bad combo.
“The Broncos did a great job of making us be patient,” Mahomes said.
Look, the Chiefs seem to have a game like this practically every season – the Colts in 2022, the Titans in 2021, the Colts and Texans in back-to-back weeks in 2019— and on the other end of this one, they’re still 6-2 and in line for everything they want. The division isn’t suddenly a place of discomfort because Mahomes finally lost one on the road.
A bad afternoon — even a really bad one — doesn’t have to turn into a bad month. Andy Reid excels at turning big problems into short-term blips.
But at the very least, the very best case scenario, this is need of that kind of attention. Those past results have produced better days because of honest assessments, and the most honest thing the Chiefs can tell themselves after Sunday is this: They didn’t stink because of turnovers. They turned it over five times because they stunk. There’s a difference.
The Chiefs finished at 4.82 yards per offensive snap, their worst mark since 2021, and that’s a statistic in which every turnover counts the same as an incompletion. They were bad with or without the five giveaways.
Reid had far from his best day as a play-caller. His red-zone choices, well, let’s just let his words there stand: “The things that I called weren’t very good,” he said.
He whiffed on fourth-down decisions once more, both early and late. The receivers not only struggled with separating, as mentioned, but Rice and Skyy Moore dropped first down and touchdown catches, respectively. And, yes, the punt-return unit produced negative points again, with Hardman muffing one.
The offensive line didn’t have its best day, either, or at least you hope it’s just a day.
It was a lot. That’s a long list.
But that’s the point. It’s a lot beyond the turnovers, and it’s a lot of what the Chiefs should be talking about in the short-term because it’s what they’ll be forced to change over the long-term.
The Chiefs might be done with Denver before Halloween, but that strategy that Denver produced?
Expect that to stick around.
“I’m sure other teams are going to watch that,” Mahomes said. “And we have to prove that we have answers for that.”
They had none Sunday. The best traits of past Mahomes and Reid teams? They kept that sentence in the past tense.
This story was originally published October 30, 2023 at 6:30 AM.