The Kansas City Chiefs have dug themselves in a hole with a sloppy 0-2 start following Sunday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in their Super Bowl rematch. They lost this game by only three points and had a slim chance to pull off a comeback at the end, but they came up short and couldn’t get across the finish line again.
For a team with Patrick Mahomes as its starting quarterback, 0-2 is hardly the same hole as other clubs with the same record. But the quality of play around Mahomes is becoming hard to ignore.
Mahomes is still very much a super elite quarterback and has not become worse over the past few years even as his statistics drop, but the Kansas City Chiefs are so limited right now that we’re getting a version of Mahomes that is normally reserved for the playoffs.
Life is not easy in this Chiefs offense. Kansas City’s offensive line, while talented, is going through a retooling with a youth movement up front. The Chiefs don’t have any credible threats at running back, and their wide receiver room is barren with Rashee Rice serving a six-game suspension and Xavier Worthy out with a shoulder injury.
For most quarterbacks, this would be too much to overcome — and for good reason! It’s incredibly hard to generate offense in an ecosystem like this, but Mahomes is so damn good he’s still given this lackluster team a small chance to win over the first two weeks. However, the way he’s doing it is not sustainable.
Right now, Mahomes is doing an impression of Atlas. The passing game has become an extremely difficult operation, but now he’s been scrambling like a trip to the Super Bowl is on the line. Mahomes is currently the Chiefs’ leading rusher with 123 rushing yards and two touchdowns this season on 13 carries. His 10 first downs on 13 rushing attempts is making this an efficient play, but Mahomes has run over defenders in back-to-back weeks, which is a risk the Chiefs would rather not have to take. Kareem Hunt and Isaiah Pacheco, the Chiefs’ main running back duo, have combined for 94 yards on 28 carries. Mahomes is one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the game and is athletically capable of churning out yards with his legs, but his current pace (only two games) of 1,045 rushing yards is a failure for Kansas City.
The problem is, there isn’t one sure fix coming. Getting Rice back will be huge, but he hasn’t played a regular-season game since Week 4 last season when he tore his ACL. Worthy has dangerous speed, but he hasn’t developed into a consistent threat yet, and everyone else beyond that can’t be counted on just yet. Travis Kelce is clearly at the end of his career with good plays becoming increasingly infrequent, and there are no easy buttons to press on this offense. It’s a boon for this Chiefs team that Mahomes is so damn good that they have a chance in almost any game as long as he suits up, but at some point they need to take a hard look in the mirror at where they stand organizationally.
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They have the best quarterback in football! Life should not look this hard on Sundays, but this year is really going to stress the limits of the personnel they’ve acquired over the years. At 0-2, no one should be saying their season is on life support just yet, but their Week 3 game Sunday night against the Giants will define where their season can go from there.
Awfully silly talk for a team with a first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback in his prime. The bar has gotten too low, and it looks like the Chiefs are set to slog through another year with Mahomes pulling off mythological feats each week.
