The Kansas City Chiefs beat the New England Patriots, but suddenly that’s not enough
The bright red T-shirts led with capital letters across the chest: THE WEST IS NOT ENOUGH. The message came clear, but Frank Clark made it much clearer when asked what it meant that the Chiefs clinched a division title Sunday for the fourth straight season.
“To me, honestly, it don’t mean spit,” he said, and while he did not say “spit,” he did say a word that rhymes with “spit.”
Clark spoke after the Chiefs’ 23-16 win over the Patriots, the first time a visitor had celebrated a victory on New England’s field in more than two years, and he meant a few different things. First, wild-card teams often boast extra fire. Division winners are done quick if they don’t match it.
But more than that, Clark meant that the Chiefs have the kind of goals that are marked with rings, not just T-shirts.
Beating the Patriots in this building is a significant achievement toward the Super Bowl, and Clark showed more than most how much it meant. He barely practiced this week, first because of a shoulder injury, but then because of a stomach virus so bad that he spent time in the hospital, according to a locker-room source. He spent most of Friday afternoon vomiting, and lost some 10 pounds. The Chiefs’ coaching staff didn’t think he’d play.
The first bit of optimism may have come early Saturday morning, when he posted a picture of Michael Jordan’s flu game.
Clark didn’t just play Sunday. He made a real difference, with a sack, two tackles for a loss and another hit on Tom Brady.
After the game, Clark even talked trash when asked whether Brady talked trash.
“He didn’t say nothing,” Clark said. “He knows better. No, don’t say nothing to me. Don’t get in a talking game with me.”
Chris Jones also sacked Brady, and did talk trash on the field to him, later saying it was an attempt to affect the quarterback’s play. Asked whether it actually had such an effect, Jones deadpanned: “I mean, you see the score.”
Maybe this is the natural process of a team sticking its chest out after beating the AFC’s bully — the one that’s beat them in two of the last four postseasons.
Or it could be something more significant: what a team does when it believes the bully is no longer the bully.
“They’re a really good team,” Chiefs guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif said. “I think everybody knows also, and I don’t want to sound like I’m (disrespecting) them, but everybody knew the second half of their schedule was going to be against tougher teams. That’s starting to show up.”
The implication is that the Chiefs may or may not play the Patriots again in the playoffs, but their path to the Super Bowl now also goes through the Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans.
Each of those teams also beat the Patriots, though not in Foxborough. The Chiefs beat the Ravens at home and lost to the Texans at home.
If the season ended today the Chiefs would be seeded third for the playoffs, behind the Ravens and Patriots and ahead of the Texans, Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers.
The Chiefs will be favored in each of their final three games, but even if they win out they’ll be stuck at the No. 3 seed without a first-round bye unless the Ravens lose two of their last three, or the Patriots lose at least once (their toughest remaining game is Buffalo at home).
This will be a more difficult path than some of us thought, then, not just without the bye but because there are now four AFC teams worthy of playing in the Super Bowl instead of just two.
Which makes this point even more relevant: The Chiefs’ performance against the Patriots won’t be good enough to win the AFC.
The Chiefs’ defense is playing terrifically. This is now three games won predominately because of defense, a year after their performance on that side of the ball was so bad it proved to be the only defense capable of beating Patrick Mahomes.
Clark and Jones are too much for most opposing offensive lines, and safety Tyrann Mathieu leads a secondary that’s playing better all the time. This is, essentially, the optimist’s preseason hope turned into reality. Guys are moving faster, with more confidence and with more knowledge of where teammates will be and comfort that the whole thing will work.
The first playoff game is still about a month away, but consider this: In their last three games the Chiefs’ defense has given up a total of 42 points on 32 possessions.
That rate would rank fourth-best in the league, and we can all make our Philip Rivers jokes — and many will be funny! — but each of the Chiefs’ last three opponents entered this week in the top half offensively, according to Football Outsiders’ DVOA.
What’s more, nine of those points surrendered came after the Chiefs’ offense or special teams provided bad field position, and the defense scored or directly set up 35 points.
But — there’s always a but — the rest of the team is showing some cracks.
The Chiefs’ special teams unit protected a punt so poorly that either of two Patriots could’ve blocked it. More concerning, Kansas City’s offense is now undeniably diminished from where it was last year and where it needs to be now, even with an improved defense.
Other than a few flashes — early at Jacksonville, the second quarter at Oakland, most of the Ravens game and the jump-pass at Tennessee — Patrick Mahomes simply has not looked sharp.
Passer rating is an imperfect metric, but his last three games represent three of the worst six of his career.
Mahomes and Chiefs coach Andy Reid will deny this, but the most logical explanation is health. He hurt his hand in the first half Sunday, which limited his feel and effectiveness throwing deep. He had x-rays after the game.
That’s been his season, really. He’s bailing clean pockets, and his footwork is often a mess. This is speculating, but it makes sense that the ankle and knee injuries he dealt with earlier in the year have left him uncomfortable stepping into throws.
Coupled with the Chiefs’ general inability to run the ball, it means that even more responsibility is being put on Mahomes at a time when he probably needs the help he’ll never ask for.
It’s the wrong kind of football cycle: Defenses don’t have to devote as much toward stopping the run, particularly up the middle, which allows them to focus more on the Chiefs’ advantages on the edges.
That means Mahomes is throwing against less-advantageous calls, including pass rushers with clear minds, which means more hits and eventual wear on Mahomes’ body.
The Chiefs are talented enough that it might not matter. Between Mahomes, Mitchell Schwartz, Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill, Jones, Clark, and Mathieu, there may not be an opponent in the AFC who can match the Chiefs’ high-level talent.
But they’ll need to be more than their current selves.
The defense’s improvement — assuming it continues — will reshape the way the Chiefs can, and will, try to win games.
But in the same way that the league’s highest-scoring offense brought the Chiefs within a coin flip of last year’s Super Bowl because the NFL’s gravitational forces have never been more tilted toward offense, Mahomes’ side of the ball needs to get closer to its ceiling for the Chiefs to have their best chance to get there now.
These are football’s version of First World problems. The Chiefs just beat the Patriots. But the Chiefs also live in a world where that is suddenly not enough. The Super Bowl is a moving target.
This story was originally published December 8, 2019 at 10:05 PM.