KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. He is the digital reporter for our Chiefs game-day coverage. Share your story idea with Tod.
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Until further notice, the division-title chase is done and dusted, at least for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Coach Andy Reid’s squad had a chance to control its own fate with a win Sunday at Denver, but that went begging when Will Lutz’s 35-yard field goal split the uprights and the clock struck triple-zero.
After a 22-19 loss at altitude, Kansas City’s (5-5) hopes of extending a nine-year division championship win streak, the second-longest in NFL history, have cratered.
The Chiefs sit in third place in the AFC West — 3 1/2 games behind the division-leading Broncos (9-2) and 1 1/2 games behind the Los Angeles Chargers (7-4), and already having lost to both teams.
“Obviously, it’s going to be tough to get back in the division race,” Patrick Mahomes said.
No kidding.
The more pressing concern right now is to get back in the playoff race with a surging Indianapolis Colts team heading to GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium fresh off its bye and eager to stay in the fight for the AFC’s top seed.
Kansas City currently sits ninth in the AFC pecking order.
The top seven teams make the postseason, so the Chiefs’s season is far from over, but a dismal 2-4 conference record and losses to two teams currently in the Wild Card spots — Jacksonville, which effectively has a two-game lead, and Buffalo, which essentially has a three-game cushion — increase the degree of difficulty for coach Andy Reid’s to play past the first weekend in January.
“At the end of the day, all the goal is is to get into the playoffs and try to make a run at it,” Mahomes said.
Kansas City still said the right things after squandering a chance to turn the AFC West into monthslong rock fight.
“The season still can go how we want it to go,” defensive tackle Chris Jones said.
The problem is that so far it hasn’t.
After the loss in Denver, Jones talked about having “self-evaluation at an all-time high, sense of urgency at an all-time high,” but he had a similar message — one that was supposed to get addressed during the bye week — after the loss to Buffalo two weeks ago.
“I felt that energy; I felt that sense of urgency,” Jones said. “We’ve just got to execute.”
The Chiefs have reached the AFC Championship Game in seven consecutive seasons — every single season that Mahomes has started at QB.
Kansas City has gone 5-2 in those games and 3-2 in the subsequent Super Bowls during that span, so the pedigree suggests Reid’s squad will fight its way into the postseason and be a threat when they get there.
But pedigrees don’t win games — and that’s what has to happen, beginning at noon on Nov. 23 against the Colts.
“We’re kind of at that point where we’ve just got to find a way to win football games and you’ve got to keep moving forward,” Mahomes said. “That’s what this league’s all about. ... It sucks; don’t get me wrong. You’ve got to feel that, but you’ve got to be able to kind of use that energy to push it into the next week and the rest of the season.”
As bleak as it may feel, there’s ample reason to believe the Chiefs’ defense, when at its best, can contain Jonathan Taylor and confuse Daniel Jones enough to give the offense a chance to get rolling.
Next comes a visit to Dallas on Thanksgiving. Kansas City should be favored, but there are seldom any guarantees when traveling on a short week.
But if the Chiefs can win those games, back-to-back home games against Houston and the Chargers await before a trip to Tennessee, so 10-5 isn’t unreasonable — even if that seems foolish to say given how the season, so far, has played out.
“I think we have the pieces to win out, but it starts with one game,” Jones said. “It starts with us, especially the offensive line and defensive line. These next few games are going to be critical for us, individually and also as a group, to make sure we control the trenches.”
Kansas City wraps up the regular season by hosting Denver on Christmas night and traveling to Las Vegas, which will be more worried about offseason vacations than the playoff picture.
“It’s not how we want it to go, but that’s the beauty of life,” Jones said. “It never goes how you want it to go; you get what you earn. Right now, for us, we’re .500, and we’ve got seven more games left.”
The Chiefs’ championship mettle will be tested, but at least they have that to lean on.
“It’s not always been championships,” Mahomes said. “We’ve dealt with adversity and guys have learned and gotten better from it. Obviously, we haven’t dealt with it so early in the season. But at the same time, I know the guys in that locker room and know how they’re going to respond. ... I think we’re really talented and we’ve got a lot of great players, so it’s just about being more consistent.”
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