The Kansas City Chiefs aren’t only on the outside of the AFC playoff picture after Thursday’s 31-28 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, their playoff possibilities have dipped beneath 50% for the primary time this season. They most likely have to go, at the least, 4-1 over their remaining 5 video games to have even a sensible probability, and even then they may want some assist. Their margin for error is nearly non-existent.
Given the way in which the season has gone there may be not a lot proof to counsel they’re simply going to flip some kind of magical swap and simply begin enjoying just like the yearly Tremendous Bowl contenders they’ve been because the arrival of Patrick Mahomes.
It’d take a Herculean effort from Mahomes to get this group within the playoffs. He is perhaps the one individual able to it as a result of all the pieces else relating to this specific model of the Chiefs appears damaged.
The Chiefs have points all around the discipline and sidelines
The largest drawback for the Chiefs is there isn’t just one drawback holding them again and that has put them on this place.
It is all the pieces. It is each facet of the group, all around the roster and all around the teaching employees.
There’s not one factor they do exceptionally properly on both aspect of the ball, they now not have elite playmakers and their teaching employees — as soon as an enormous power — has struggled to regulate to a roster that may not play the way in which they’ve been accustomed to enjoying.
However it’s additionally a matter of personnel. The line of defense has not confirmed to be able to producing any kind of a pass-rush with simply 4 gamers. That has pressured the Chiefs to depend on a blitz-heavy strategy to try to generate stress on opposing quarterbacks. However in doing so that they have left elements of the secondary uncovered and exploited in protection. All of that was on show on Thursday as Cowboys extensive receivers CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens carved them up all day.
On offense, they’ve been at instances shockingly conservative with a few of their decision-making. That was very true on Thursday when head coach Andy Reid determined to punt from the plus-side of the sphere, on a 4th-and-short, in a sport his group was dropping. Placing his belief right into a protection that had not confirmed it may get a cease on Sunday and never trusting his future Corridor of Fame quarterback.
Given the shortcomings of the roster and the struggles of the teaching employees this season would possibly come down totally to Mahomes’ capability to place the group on his again and carry it in a means he has by no means needed to earlier than.
The issue is that may not even be sufficient. On Thursday he threw for 261 yards, 4 touchdowns, no interceptions and posted a QBR of 85.1 and a passer ranking of 129.7 (each considerably increased than his common season numbers). It nonetheless was not sufficient for the Chiefs to win.
The Chiefs are 12 video games into the 2025 season and have persistently demonstrated they’re a really flawed, very common soccer group. It’s not an accident that they’re on this place. The one means out of it’s if Mahomes can do one thing actually particular.
