The Kansas City Chiefs showed echoes of last year as they relied on their defense to get them through Week 2’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2024/25 NFL season, leaving Patrick Mahomes with a strong message for his colleagues.

The star quarterback only managed to throw for 151 yards and two touchdowns at the Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday, September 15 and allowed two interceptions as the offense found themselves soundly snuffed out by the visitors.

But they managed to do enough to get over the line and emerged with a 26-25 victory when a cool Harrison Butker managed to land a 51-yard field goal attempt as the clock ticked down to zero.

And the off-colour showing from the defending champions, looking to win an unprecedented third Super Bowl in a row, left Mahomes demanding they step it up ahead of Week 3 on September 23.

“Obviously we made too many mistakes today,” Mahomes told CBS Sports at the Arrowhead Stadium. “Our defense picked us up there in the fourth quarter and then we got it to Harrison and he knocked it through.

“We’ve got a lot to learn from but I’m glad we got a win and we’re going to learn from it that way. We got put in a lot of bad positions today but we’ll get better, we’re going to get better and it’s early in the season.”

“We’ve been in these situations before and we have full confidence in how the game’s going and we’re going to do enough to win and that’s what we did today.

“We’re gonna have to learn from this because we didn’t play our best football on the offensive side of the ball.”

Who do the Kansas City Chiefs play in Week 3?

So far, the Chiefs haven’t looked particularly convincing against the Baltimore Ravens or the Bengals in the opening two fixtures of the 2024/25 NFL season but they have managed to secure two victories.

They will look to make it three in a row against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, September 22 at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium live on NBC. The game is expected to kick off at 19:20 ET/16:20 PT.