Patrick Mahomes is still involved in the NFL playoffs — even with the Chiefs out
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs shape national playoff narrative despite elimination
- AFC contenders gain clearer Super Bowl path now that Kansas City is out
- Broncos secure rare home playoff chance and face softer path without Chiefs
The first three games of the NFL playoffs featured lead changes after the two-minute warning, all of them with late touchdowns in the final 105 seconds to flip the outcome.
The Wild Card weekend had plenty of drama, yet as it unfolded, broadcasts across TV networks at least once delved into the same topic.
The Chiefs.
The team not part of that action.
Or any action during these playoffs.
The Patrick Mahomes-sized hole in the postseason bracket is not just a Kansas City story but a national one, even as eight other stories march on to the divisional round this weekend. It’s that big, exemplifying the scale of a brand stationed in one of the NFL’s smallest markets — which probably makes sense when you consider that brand has produced three of the past five Super Bowl titles.
You have to at least mention it when a dynasty might have shown some signs of fading, right? The Chiefs finished 6-11 this season and were eliminated from the postseason dance a month before it actually got underway.
But knowing they won’t hoist a Super Bowl trophy next month, or even represent the AFC in the game that determines who will, well, somebody has to do it. Who will?
For the eight teams left standing, and particularly the four inside the conference, the Kansas City off-year is more than a compelling story worth spotlighting on a broadcast.
It’s opportunity.
At last.
Let’s be honest about that opportunity, especially when it comes to those teams still alive in the AFC. It’s about the best chance any of them — and their players — have had in a half-dozen years.
There is only one AFC team since the 2019 season that has outlasted the Chiefs in any postseason. Just one. And that team — the 2020 Bengals — lost to the Rams two weeks later in the Super Bowl.
You know how many times the Bengals have been to the playoffs in the four seasons since? Just once. They are 24-27 in the last three years.
They missed their chance.
Which is where the Chiefs, a couple of weeks after finishing off a 6-11 season with a clunker in Las Vegas, and Mahomes, more than a month after throwing his last pass for the year, are still very much alive in this postseason: the narrative.
They have inadvertently and undesirably opened a window for all customers that they’ve spent the last 1,446 days slamming shut. There will be narratives built on who takes advantage — and, perhaps even more certainly, who does not.
That brings one player in particular to mind.
Josh Allen.
Allen has had something of an excuse for not yet playing in a Super Bowl with the Bills. That excuse? The Chiefs.
It’s a plausible rationale for the gap in his resume. The Chiefs have knocked him out of four of the past five postseasons, and he’s accounted for 11 touchdowns in those four losses.
In one game, he had 329 yards and four touchdowns. But Patrick Mahomes had 13 seconds and a coin toss. Who could blame Allen for that?
The Chiefs are gone and out of the way this postseason.
The excuse is, too.
The AFC playoff field is as weak as it’s been since Mahomes entered the league. That’s an opinion, but it’s also data-driven — never has their not been a more elite team in the all-encompassing DVOA metric tracked by FTN Fantasy.
If Allen can’t get through this field, when he doesn’t have to get through that guy or that team, the narrative on his career resume will change.
It should change, right?
This is his eighth season. He will be 30 in May. His defense might be banged up heading into Denver this weekend, but he has what Mahomes does not: an effective running game. Can he finally win what Mahomes does have? And if he doesn’t, a new question will emerge: Will he ever?
Then there’s the team Allen playing against this weekend. The Broncos are led by quarterback Bo Nix, who, frankly, has not played particularly good football. They are one of the worst No. 1 seeds in league history, as measured by that same DVOA stat.
But the path is nevertheless there — especially visible when a trip to Kansas City is not. It’s been a decade since the Broncos hosted a playoff game, — and, more relevant to the point, therefore a decade since they’ve won one.
A return home has arrived.
Their chance has arrived.
They beat this year’s Chiefs team twice, though the second came against third-string quarterback Chris Oladokun making his first career start. But the point isn’t that the Broncos couldn’t beat this year’s Chiefs. It’s that the Chiefs of the previous seven years never showed up this year, and they won’t be showing up now.
Nobody has to dethrone the Chiefs to create something for themselves.
The Chiefs are watching, with the same view you and I have as they’re mentioned on those telecasts.
Home.