The season for the back-to-back champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, has started just as their fans expected, winning their first six games for the first time in the Mahomes era for the third time in their history, in the other two seasons (2003-2013) they lost until the 10th game. Despite trailing in all their games, except against the Saints, the Chiefs always find a way to turn the score around and end up winning. Basically, even when they’re down in the fourth quarter, you just know they’re going to get the result somehow, and that’s something truly admirable, or hateful if you hate dynasties. If they keep this up, they have a great chance to become the first three-peat in NFL history, but there’s still a long season ahead.
What’s really troubling is that the Chiefs are still winning without the best versions of Patrick Mahomes or Travis Kelce, their two best players. For example, Mahomes, a two-time NFL MVP and three-time Super Bowl MVP, threw two picks and posted a career-worst 44.4 passer rating against the San Francisco 49ers to lead the Chiefs to their 12th straight win dating back to last year. Mahomes has 1389 passing yards, his lowest total through six games, and has more interceptions (8) than touchdowns (6) this season and a career-low 82.5 passer rating, and still the Chiefs are winning.
Andy Reid worried about Patrick
No doubt, even with the wins, Andy Reid must be worried about his offense and his star players, because at the beginning of the season, at least for me, it was expected that Mahomes would throw for over 4500 yards, 40 or more touchdowns, and have the renewed Chiefs’ offense rolling. But injuries to his two main receivers and his starting running back, coupled with Travis’ drastic decline, but we’ll get to that later, have left Mahomes in the league’s mediocre in every statistic except the most important one: wins. Obviously, Reid would never bench him, first because Carson Wentz wouldn’t do any better, and second because they’re still winning, and even if it’s ugly, a win is a win.
Last season, the big reason the Chiefs were back-to-back champions was the defense that Steve Spagnuolo commanded, and this season, he’s the one who has the Chiefs at the top of the NFL. I don’t want to say that the offense is doing nothing, but rather that Andy Reid is adapting to create a game plan based more on the running game. Yesterday, they scored all four touchdowns that way. Why is he doing that? Because he knows that rookie Xavier Worthy, or veterans Mecole Hardman and JuJu Smith-Schuster, are not dominant enough for Mahomes to throw their way 35-40 times a game.
Upcoming games for the Chiefs
With their bye week now behind them, the Chiefs face a grueling 12-game stretch to end the season. First, the Chiefs will close the month playing away against the Las Vegas Raiders. The game will have a special flavor because of what happened in the offseason when a Raiders player mocked Mahomes for having a voice similar to Kermit the Frog. Then they will start November at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and then against the Denver Broncos, so the Chiefs could tie the franchise’s best start to a season (9-0). The great test for the 10-0 would be in Buffalo against the Bills.
