Kansas City Chiefs are still capable, but their aura of invincibility has left the chat
For three-plus years, the Chiefs were on a magical mystery tour. They routinely conjured victory from defeat, you’ll recall, often with unprecedented flourishes furnished by the transformative talents of Patrick Mahomes.
And that vibe and sense of faith it engendered seemed here to stay for the foreseeable future.
The era of everything is possible, even probable, wasn’t without its funks or fits and starts. The Chiefs started 6-4 in 2019, for instance, before winning their first Super Bowl in half a century. And their encore appearance was punctuated by getting demolished by Tampa Bay.
But in the process of exorcising 50 years of futility and getting to the verge of a repeat a year later with a nucleus intact this year, the Chiefs created an abiding sense of promise in their trajectory and a mystique with a certain presumption of plenty more ahead.
Those days may well still be on the horizon, and perhaps they’ll get their groove back in this yet-young season.
But all the mojo and unflinching resolve the Chiefs had built up and projected these last few years unraveled in drastic fashion on Sunday night at Arrowhead Stadium, where the Buffalo Bills dissected them 38-20.
In some ways, it was the end of an era of a sense of inevitability about their direction.
And in the jarring reality of the moment, embarrassment oozed.
The term was stated directly by coach Andy Reid, and here by safety Tyrann Mathieu: “It’s a simple game. Cover your guy. Make the tackle. When you don’t do those things, it’s embarrassing and looks bad.”
And it was spoken in as many words by Mahomes, who was off-kilter much of the night even if one of his two interceptions was on Tyreek Hill for letting the ball glance off his hands into a pick-six … and even if you can be certain that several of his 21 incompletions on 54 attempts went awry because a receiver wasn’t where Mahomes expected him to be.
“This is one you’re going to remember,” Mahomes said, adding that Buffalo (4-1) is a good team, but the Chiefs “don’t lose games like that, especially at home.”
Correction: Other than the Super Bowl in Tampa, they didn’t lose games like that in the age of Mahomes.
Now, they most certainly have.
And unless and until the Chiefs can reverse the flux capacitor on this season and get back to the future we’d imagined, this one is going to be remembered as the game that drove a stake through any idea that they’re now enchanted.
They’re as fallible as any team, as it happens.
And maybe more so if they keep putting out the same defensive personnel and schemes expecting different results.
Because whatever they are doing behind the scenes appears to be materially changing almost nothing. Opponents have now scored 29 points or more against them in every game this season.
It would be one thing if this were their first loss of the season, of course, some sort of aberration. But it’s decidedly part of a continuum, with the Chiefs falling to 2-3 in a game that had loomed as a statement and a chance to reset after they’d faltered these first few weeks.
The Bills, though, were the ones who delivered the message, one that leaves the Chiefs stranded at the bottom of the AFC West and for at least the time being outside any talk of a postseason top seed and the home-field advantage that has served them so well the last few years.
Moreover, any perceived psychological spell the Chiefs had held over the Bills by beating them twice last season, including in the AFC Championship Game, was vaporized on Sunday … much like the same notion of having another team’s number was purged by Baltimore when the Ravens and Lamar Jackson at last beat the Mahomes-led Chiefs a few weeks ago.
But it seems silly to even be considering potential postseason scenarios right now.
Because the Chiefs have gone from seemingly indestructible to a baffling question mark, a team you could once see induce panic in opponents that now seems only to bring out the best in them … with a little bit of self-inflicted compliance in the cause.
Name your poison.
Certainly, turnovers (four) and penalties (seven) were crucial: “It’s got to stop,” Reid said.
Then again, how about those long passes by Buffalo’s Josh Allen (particularly the ones that victimized Daniel Sorensen)? “We’ve got to take care of that,” Reid said.
And even what Mahomes is setting out to do: “I have to re-evaluate where I’m at,” he said, “what decisions I’m making … I have to cut it out.”
Add it all up, and Reid is right when he says, “We’re not playing the right way.”
The hints had been there all season. But there’s a thin line between patience and denial, and it still seemed reasonable to believe that the Chiefs essentially were going to be fine once they navigated some what might’ve been dismissed as curious growing pains.
After all, they’d won 25 of the last 27 games Mahomes had started entering this season.
And they easily could have been 4-0 without what seemed an uncharacteristic set of offensive gaffes, including the first fumble of Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s NFL career on the would-be game-winning drive in what became a 36-35 loss at Baltimore, and four turnovers in a 30-24 loss to the Chargers.
The Chiefs had back the core of a defense that was much more asset than liability in earning back-to-back Super Bowl berths. And defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has a substantial history of coaxing improvement from his defenses through the course of a season.
So it wasn’t hard to envision that, presto, everything could get better with the right tweaks and a fully healthy lineup and a personnel move or two and, you know, better communication.
But … no.
This is no quick fix, and the Chiefs have some serious internal auditing to do about how to proceed from here.
Even if the season isn’t lost, at least not yet, the aura of dominance has faded out from fans and opponents.
And who knows how the Chiefs’ coaching staff and players are processing this … and what they’ll do about it?
Maybe the veneer of invincibility was a spoiled and unsustainable state of mind, if you get right down to it. And it’s hard not to think that this team with this coach and this star quarterback isn’t perfectly capable of finding itself and making more history.
But the time for assuming anything is over, alas, for a team that has suddenly misplaced its direction and identity.
This story was originally published October 11, 2021 at 2:17 AM.