The Kansas City Chiefs were the AFC Champions in 2019 & 2020, winning the Super Bowl in 2019 with a 31-20 win over the San Francisco 49ers led by Jimmy Garoppolo. Despite losing 9-31 in the 2020 Super Bowl to Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs were widely expected to make the Super Bowl in 2021.
Eight weeks into the 2021 NFL season, the Kansas City Chiefs are 4-4, tied with the Denver Broncos for last in the AFC West with a 0-1 Divisional record. Given the way the Chiefs played against the New York Giants, they should be more realistically 3-5 heading into the game against the 7-1 Green Bay Packers. To put things into perspective, this is a team that hasn't had a losing season since 2012.
AFC West Standings. (Source)
Results for weeks 1 - 8. (Source)
All 4 of the Chiefs wins in the first 8 weeks have come against teams that are .500 or worse. If you look at the rest of their schedule, all of their opponents have a .500 record or better. The only .500 team on that list is the Denver Broncos. As I mentioned earlier, the Chiefs play the Packers next. Luckily for them, they will be up against the largely untested Jordan Love after Aaron Rodgers tested positive for Covid. But would that be enough for the Chiefs to finally get that extra win to break .500? I wouldn't be so sure.
Schedule for weeks 9 - 17. (Source)
So what exactly is wrong with the Kansas City Chiefs?
The Super Bowl Hangover is Real
No, I am not talking about some mythical curse. I am actually referring to the psychological impact and ripple effect that a Super Bowl loss could have on a team. In that sense, I believe that this fits the Kansas City Chiefs to a T.
After their Super Bowl win in 2019, the Kansas City Chiefs were on a high and there was a lot of talk about repeating and winning back to back Super Bowls. Ask any player who has won the Super Bowl and they will tell you how hard is to win one, much less repeat. In fact, the last team to win consecutive Super Bowls was the New England Patriots in 2004 and 2005. That was more than a decade ago.
So when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers trounced the Chiefs 31-9 to win Super Bowl LV, doubt crept into the hearts and minds of the Kansas City Chiefs. The manner of their loss also raised questions about both their offence and their defence. More importantly, in that game, the Buccaneers showed the league that the Chiefs' explosive offence could be stopped and even gave them the blueprint to do so.
This season, teams have started playing the Chiefs the way that the Buccaneers did in the Super Bowl -- taking away the deep threat and forcing Patrick Mahomes to be patient and take the short throws. Unfortunately, "dinking and dunking" to move the chains isn't something that the supremely talented Patrick Mahomes has had to do in his short but sterling career. And watching him take all those check downs in the Giants game was hard to watch.
A frustrated Mahomes in the Giants game. (Source)
The Revamped Offensive Line
Patrick Mahomes was pressured 29 times and sacked 3 times in Super Bowl LV so it was no surprise that the Chiefs decided to completely revamp the offensive line during the offseason. After all, they had signed Mahomes to a 10-year $503 million contract extension in 2020 and they needed to protect the man who would be their franchise quarterback for the next 10-15 years.
The Chiefs had the right idea and it would have worked flawlessly if they had been playing a video game. But this was real life and the offensive line struggled as they tried to adapt to a new team and a new offence. Mahomes has been sacked 16 times this season. That's an average of 2 sacks a game. If he continues at this rate, he will have 34 sacks at the end of the regular season. In comparison, the most times Mahomes had been sacked in his career was 26. On the bright side, the offensive line should improve as the season progresses.
Mahomes strip sacked in the Giants game. (Source)
The Hapless Defence
With all the focus on the offensive line, the Chiefs neglected to shore up their defence which was 16th in the league last season, allowing an average of 22.6 points and 358.3 yards per game. In the first 8 games of the season, the Chiefs have allowed an average of 27.5 point and 391.5 yards per game. This means that the offence needs to score a minimum of 28 points a game to record a win. That's 4 touchdowns a game. Is it any surprise that the Chiefs are struggling?
Patrick Mahomes
Football is a team sport that requires every part to work in sync with each other. Right now, Patrick Mahomes is horribly out of sync. Watching him play, it seems as if he is dancing to a different tune from the rest of his teammates on offence. It is jarring to watch, especially when compared to all the film out there of Patrick Mahomes the magician who could always find some way to get the ball to the end zone through some outlandish mechanically unsound off balance throw.
But perhaps that is the crux of the issue. If you watch the games Mahomes has played in, you would realise just how risky most of his throws were. Many of them should have been interceptions but for some reason or other, those 50-50 balls ended up in the arms of a Kansas City Chiefs receiver. This season, that magic seems to have dissipated. In 8 games, Mahomes threw 10 interceptions and had 5 fumbles. In 2018, his full season as an NFL quarterback, Mahomes threw 12 interceptions and had 9 fumbles. If things do not improve for the Chiefs, Mahomes could very likely have 20 or more interceptions and 10 or more fumbles this season. For someone widely billed as the Baby Goat, those are horrendous figures.
One of those 50-50 balls that ended up as a touchdown. (Source)
Earlier, I mentioned that Patrick Mahomes had been sacked 16 times this season. I need to clarify right now that many of those sacks were through no fault of his offensive line. In the first 7 games of the season, Mahomes demonstrated a disturbing tendency to vacate a perfectly well protected pocket. Against the Giants, he made a concerted effort to remain in the pocket but he often had a deer in headlights look about him, as if the pocket was about to collapse around him and he was looking to bail sooner rather than later.
This tendency could probably be traced back to Super Bowl LV, where Patrick Mahomes spent most of the game running for his life as the Buccaneers defence pressured him every opportunity they got. Perhaps that game has left an indelible mark on Mahomes, spooking him so much that he is constantly finding a way to preempt the blitz even when there is no blitz incoming.
All of the above is well and good. But the Patrick Mahomes of yesteryear would have found some way to make it all click. So what has changed? According to Mahomes, he is overthinking the offence. And there is a distinct lack of confidence in everything that he does on the field.
There is even some speculation that the surgery he had in the offseason for his turf toe may have caused him to lose a step, making him miss the kind of throws which he should have made and taking the sacks when he should have been able to evade. It may even be all the concussions which he suffered, most notably against the Tennessee Titans where he had to be helped off the field.
Some analysts have also suggested that Patrick Mahomes might be playing hurt, after he was spotted limping after scrambling out of bounds in the game against the Giants. Whatever the reason may be, Patrick Mahomes is a huge part of the Kansas City Offence. The Chiefs will need him back to his magical best if they are to have any hope of making the playoffs this season.
A dejected Mahomes in the game against the Buffalo Bills. (Source)
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