Why the Kansas City Chiefs, rough start and all, may be coming fast around that corner
Weirdest thing, but it’s true: The success and failure of the 2021 Chiefs now depends on Patrick Mahomes playing well.
Just being honest with you guys, I typed that sentence and stared at it for about two full minutes because it still seems like such a ridiculous thing to say.
But it’s true.
The pieces are in place and a brutal stretch of schedule just got a stitch less brutal. And this should go without saying, but it’s 2021 and all, so: Best wishes to Aaron Rodgers.
The Green Bay Packers announced that their Hall of Fame quarterback will miss Sunday’s game against the Chiefs after testing positive for COVID-19. Rodgers is obviously in terrific shape and (in non-football terms) young. Hopefully he gets through this without complications.
But this space is about Kansas City, and from the perspective of Kansas City, the NFL’s most difficult schedule just got a little more manageable. It’s a break the Chiefs didn’t ask for and, frankly, don’t deserve. But here we are.
Full transparency, the idea behind this column materialized even before it became known the Packers would start Jordan Love (seven career passes) instead of Rodgers (nine Pro Bowls). But the idea has more momentum now.
The idea is basically this: Much of the conversation around the Chiefs has been justifiably negative, but what if we’re in the early days of when hindsight will find the first reasons for optimism?
Come with me down path that I admittedly won’t tell you I believe to be real:
- The Chiefs’ defense is showing signs of improvement, same as it has around this time in both of defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s first two years in Kansas City.
- That includes some noticeable juice in Frank Clark’s pass-rushes, which will now be aided by more snaps with the newly acquired Melvin Ingram on the other end and the uber-talented Chris Jones inside.
- The defense’s recent improvement has one obvious exception (the first half in Nashville) and one obvious disclaimer (Washington and the Giants both stink), but it also coincides with more snaps for Juan Thornhill and Willie Gay.
- The current Chiefs conversation seems to be taking place under the false assumption that no defense has played Cover-2 against them until like 12 minutes ago.
- The problem isn’t that the NFL discovered a magic trick to defend the sport’s best quarterback; the problem is the sport’s best quarterback has stopped doing what made him the sport’s best quarterback.
You see where this might go, right?
There has been something like a rush to bury the Chiefs. That’s how this goes. The game is the game, and THE CHIEFS ARE DONE is a hotter conversation starter than, Well, actually, they’re only 1 1/2 games out in the division and 2 out in the AFC.
But the former is garbage, and the latter is true, so it’s at least worth exploring how this could go.
The Chiefs are now around a touchdown favorite against the Packers on Sunday. That guarantees nothing, of course, but the line moved 4 1/2 points with the Rodgers news and we can at least safely say the Chiefs should beat a team whose identity and game plan has always been centered around a generational quarterback but now will be starting a quarterback whose only passes came at the end of a blowout loss in the season opener.
After that, the Chiefs play the Raiders in Vegas, and that won’t be easy, but the Raiders have not beaten a team with a winning record in seven weeks and have recently been rocked by their head coach resigning after awful emails surfaced and their leading receiver being released after a tragic car wreck with such infuriatingly selfish details that it makes the blood boil.
You can make the pieces fit however you want, but the broad strokes are the same. The Chiefs, according to Mike Beuoy’s betting market numbers, project to be favored in each of their remaining nine games.
They have a defense that has recently been both improved and improving and an offense that needs only for its MVP quarterback to play even close to his accustomed level to match the high marks that remain through advanced metrics.
The season’s first eight games have largely been about possibilities diminishing: The pass rush hasn’t been nearly as productive as the resources devoted to it, which has created all kinds of problems for the back end of the Chiefs’ defensive coverage.
But in recent weeks we’ve seen subtle signs that the most obvious reasons for skepticism are diminished — a bolstered pass rush, more speed at the defense’s second and third levels — and this weird waiting game where it’s up to Mahomes to, well, be Patrick F. Mahomes again.
The Chiefs remain a better than 50-50 bet to make the seven-team AFC playoff field, and if they do it will have meant that they won a bunch of games against the NFL’s most difficult second-half schedule.
It will almost certainly have meant that Mahomes ended this weird alternative reality in which he’s unable or unwilling to take the easy yards defenses are offering, using his agility and the unique skill-set of the playmakers around him — not to mention some deservedly increased trust in his linemen — to again have answers for every question a defense can offer.
Now, we’re all adults here, so we understand that none of this is guaranteed. The Chiefs will have to play better than they have at any point going back to last season’s AFC Championship Game to make it happen.
But answer two questions:
Do you believe this collection of players and coaches is incapable of playing better?
And if they do play better, and they’re the No. 4 seed with a home game, or the No. 7 team on the road, do you think their opponent will feel good about its chances?
I have to admit, this was a different column experience for me. It started as a thought experiment: What does Chiefs optimism look like and require?
It ends as something else: the realization that the biggest hurdle for this team to make the playoffs might be its quarterback playing well again and, if that’s the case, there really isn’t a big hurdle to be cleared for this team to make the playoffs.
This story was originally published November 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.