Worried about the Kansas City Chiefs & all the close wins? Here’s why you shouldn’t be
Following yet another harrowing game on Sunday at Carolina, the prevailing vibe among Chiefs fans online seemed to be outrage. A quick scroll through social media featured posts calling the game “embarrassing” and denouncing defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo — even as others already have been grumbling about offensive coordinator Matt Nagy.
One email I received got into what’s wrong with Patrick Mahomes. Another was about how unsightly the Chiefs are to watch.
And then some.
For that matter, coach Andy Reid felt the need to offer consolation in the postgame locker room.
“So, look, I don’t want to see anybody hanging their heads, men; this league is crazy,” Reid told the team, per a Chiefs video. “That’s the way this thing goes …
“Nothing’s given to you, and you’re getting their best shot. So you keep your heads up, men. And we get this thing rolling, right? We’ve got some things we’ve got to clean up, but we keep it rolling here. That’s the most important part.”
ICYMI, though, the Chiefs actually won the game 30-27 — their 16th win in their last 17 games as they improved to 10-1 while seeking to become the first team ever to win three straight Super Bowls.
They’re quite on trajectory to some serious history.
And style points notwithstanding, this all seems a thing to appreciate instead of denigrate until they, you know, lose games more than once every few months.
Maybe we’re forgetting where this all was not so long ago.
And getting hung up on visions of perfection vs. the great?
Yes, they’ve got to get better.
Which is basically what they do every year around this time ... or later.
As it happens, Mahomes had his best game of the season in terms of quarterback rating, 120.2, completing 27 of 37 passes for 269 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. He also uncorked a vital 33-yard run to set up the game-winning field goal.
Oh, and the offense had its best production in 363 days as it scored on six of eight possessions.
Dud of a defensive day as it was, especially after they surrendered 30 points at Buffalo the week before, the Chiefs remain fourth in the NFL in yards yielded and ninth in points allowed.
And, incidentally, the formidable Spagnuolo remains the only defensive coordinator to be part of four Super Bowl champions (three with the Chiefs and one with the Giants) and hasn’t suddenly just lost it.
Most to the point, each of these apparently unsavory wins, including five on the last play of the game, are steadily assembling the scaffolding toward what matters most: securing the AFC No. 1 seed in the playoffs to ensure the road to the Super Bowl goes through Kansas City.
So maybe things actually are pretty OK for a Chiefs franchise that has won twice as many postseason games (16) in the last nine seasons as it did from 1960 to 2014, has played in four of the last five Super Bowls and still features most of its best players from a season ago.
And for a team that is soon to get fresh juice with the impending returns of running back Isiah Pacheco, defensive lineman Charles Omenihu — and perhaps even receiver Hollywood Brown — and some relief at the ailing offensive tackle spot with the addition of DJ Humphries, a former Pro Bowl-player for Arizona.
None of this is to say the Chiefs don’t have some distressing concerns to navigate. That includes their exasperating offensive tackle play, defensive backfield lapses and frequent inability to pressure the quarterback reflected by the fact only four teams have fewer than their 1.9 sacks a game.
And none of this is to say anything is promised going forward.
While they figure to beat the visiting Las Vegas Raiders on Friday, for instance, that’s hardly certain and they have ample challenges ahead.
But all of this is to say that thus far they’ve been doing exactly what they need to do to put themselves in the best possible position to have success in the postseason — when they’ve displayed what might be called a certain aptitude for peaking at the right time.
That’s reasonable to anticipate again for a team guided by a coach who has the second-most playoff wins in NFL history (26) and that is animated by a revolutionary quarterback whose next postseason victory will tie Joe Montana for second in that category (16) behind Tom Brady (35).
Again, past performance is no guarantee of future success in the NFL. Everything is fluid, from the flux of a roster to the dynamics of the opposition in a league that quite successfully cultivates parity.
This season’s vulnerabilities for the Chiefs are their own unique problems to solve, and one of these days, maybe even in the weeks to come, they’ll come up against something they can’t reconcile.
Still, it bears mention that the Mahomes era Chiefs have been doubted and perceived as flawed in nearly every one of his six previous seasons as a starter — including in the four that ended up with Super Bowl berths and three that they won.
And maybe it’s soothing to remember that their ultimate defining success hasn’t necessarily correlated with their ability to blow opponents out along the way.
Or even with who they are at this time of the season.
*Flash back to November 2019, when the Chiefs lost 35-32 at Tennessee in Mahomes’ return from a knee injury.
That was their fourth loss in six games and the sixth time in 10 games that the defense gave up 26 or more points.
Next thing you know, the D saved the day against the Chargers in Mexico City when Daniel Sorensen intercepted Philip Rivers at the goal line with 18 seconds left to preserve a 24-17 victory.
That was the start of giving up just 69 points in the final six games and coming through in the clutch as the Chiefs rallied from a double-digit deficit in a third straight postseason game to beat the 49ers to win their first Super Bowl in 50 years.
*In 2020, the Chiefs were 14-1 before resting their key starters in the regular-season finale. Even so, angst loomed because at one point they won seven straight games by a mere total of 30 points.
They went back to the Super Bowl only to get blasted 31-9 by Tampa Bay. But that wasn’t because they weren’t winning big enough along the way; it was largely because of a decimated offensive line.
*Then came 2021, the only season in the last five the Chiefs have been stopped short of the Super Bowl.
Funny thing is, that team seemed to be rolling right about now as it was mounting an eight-game winning streak underscored by five double-digit wins and three blowouts (41-14 and 48-9 over the Raiders and 36-10 over the Steelers).
Alas, none of that mattered against the Cincinnati Kryptonite, which ended both their winning streak and weeks later snuffed out their season with a 27-24 overtime loss in the AFC Championship Game.
*The “can’t put ‘em away” frets arose again in 2022. The Chiefs won seven of their regular-season games by six points or fewer. Evidently, that braced them to do the same in the postseason with wins of 27-20 over Jacksonville, 23-20 over the Bengals and 38-35 over the Eagles in the Super Bowl.
The story of last season likely remains fresh.
*As the Chiefs struggled to find themselves, they lost five games by eight points or fewer and fell to 9-6 with a repulsive 20-14 loss to the Raiders on Christmas Day.
Then they reset, simplified and started a winning streak through the thorniest postseason path in NFL history that didn’t end until they lost at Buffalo on Nov. 17.
What they’ll do from here remains to be seen, of course.
And, look, there’s plenty to worry about if you’re so inclined, including some rumbling echoes of the 2018 defensive fiasco as The Star’s Sam McDowell noted the other day.
But there’s also ample reason to just gird yourself for the wild ride with a team that has nothing to hang its head about and everything in its grasp — including some monumental history that it’s been at least building toward.
This story was originally published November 27, 2024 at 8:00 AM.