Kansas City didn’t get the score it wanted against Philadelphia, but took some steps forward.

Facing a fourth-and-1 at their own 36-yard line in their first drive of the second half, the Chiefs chose to go for it — but running back Kareem Hunt was stuffed for a loss. At that moment, the score was 10-10. It was too soon to be desperate enough to go for it on fourth down inside the opponent’s field-goal range. The defense proved it was the wrong decision on the Eagles’ next drive, forcing a three-and-out that resulted in a 51-yard field goal that gave the Eagles a lead they would not relinquish. If punter Matt Araiza had been brought in to flip the field before that stop, the game might have played out differently.

Just the same, there were positives to be found in the loss.

If there was one thing the Chiefs didn’t want to do on Sunday afternoon, it was to come out playing flat. The Eagles got the ball to begin the game — and right from the opening snap, it was obvious the Kansas City defense was loaded for bear. It was so energized that Chris Jones was called for neutral zone infractions twice in the opening series. Both defenses got stops in their opening drives — and both continued to hold the opposing offenses to very little production. Both teams managed to cobble together drives to put touchdowns on the board during the opening half, but both needed fourth-down conversions to stay alive.

In the nine days since the Chiefs lost their season opener to the Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil, there was a lot of talk about how bad the defense had become — and based on what we saw in São Paulo, that criticism was justified. But on Sunday afternoon, the defense was able to keep Philadelphia’s vaunted trio of playmakers under control. Wide receivers DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown — along with running back Saquon Barkley — combined for 16 touches and just 88 yards in the first half.

The trouble, however, was that the Eagles’ defense also played very well — and without wide receivers Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy, it was hard for Kansas City to keep pace with the Eagles. The Chiefs didn’t complete a big play until their final score: a 49-yard touchdown pass to wideout Tyquan Thornton with just over three minutes left in the game.

Everywhere you turned in the last week, you would find people talking about the Philadelphia quarterback’s ability to make plays with his feet. On Sunday, neither quarterback was able to make many big passing plays — but only one of them routinely made plays while scrambling: Kansas City’s Mahomes. He carried the offense on his back in the first half, scrambling five times for 60 yards and the team’s first touchdown, while Hurts had just two runs for 13 yards.

But at the beginning of the fourth quarter, Mahomes did something else that Hurts hadn’t done during the game: throw an interception. His pass to Travis Kelce at the goal line — what should have been the scoring play of an exquisite 14-play drive — went through the tight end’s hands into the waiting arms of the Eagles’ Andrew Mikuba, who was on the way to a 100-yard pick-6 before rookie tackle Josh Simmons found the speed (and the angle) to knock him out of bounds at the Philadelphia 41-yard line. Four plays later, Hurts found Smith for a 28-yard pass that put the Eagles on the Kansas City 3-yard line — and the Eagles took a commanding 20-10 lead with a tush push.

In the end, though, Hurts threw for just 101 yards — while Mahomes collected 187.

This will be a very tough loss for the Chiefs to handle. It is likely to reverberate throughout the season. But the team actually played well enough to have a real opportunity to win the game. There were at least three points where single plays could have made the difference: Harrison Butker’s 58-yard miss in the first quarter, Mahomes’ interception (which represented a 14-point swing) and Andy Reid’s fourth-and-1 call in the third quarter.

So in many ways, this one-score loss was very similar to a number of games the Chiefs played in 2024. It’s just that things didn’t fall their way — or they didn’t execute well enough — at critical moments. Does this game represent the beginning of a return to the mean, or the team losing its ability to find a way to win?

Time will tell.