For the first time in a long time, the Chiefs won’t be in the playoffs this year. It’s a thought that has been practically unimaginable in the dynastic Patrick Mahomes era, but on a cold wintry day at Arrowhead, it turned into reality.
The Chiefs fell 16–13 to the Chargers in a loss made more bitter by Mahomes’s painful-looking knee injury, which saw the star quarterback leave in the final minutes of the fourth quarter. Reid said Mahomes’s injury “doesn’t look good,” and that he’ll get an MRI in the coming days.
With Sunday’s defeat, Kansas City is officially out of playoff contention for the first time since 2014 and fell to a 6-8 record. Their remaining games (Titans, Broncos, Raiders) feel very winnable, yet when it counted the most Kansas City couldn’t get the job done.
“Guys are down,” Reid said, when asked about the Chiefs’ locker room. “They busted their butt to win the game, and I wouldn’t expect anything less. It’s not a great feeling, but I wouldn’t expect it to be after losing a game.”
Following the Chiefs’ defeat, Reid kept things curt and to the point. He admitted that the team made too many costly errors that ended up deciding the score.
“All in all, we came up short,” Reid said. “We had a few mistakes, and that ends up costing you against a good football team. … They battled. Wasn’t for a lack of effort or battling, just had some mistakes that cost us.
“We’ve got to do better,” continued Reid. “Get opportunities in the red zone or field position, you’ve gotta take advantage of that. With special teams, we gotta create field position, and then defensively, we’ve gotta maintain it. And so in those cases, we weren’t quite good enough, and in all three phases. Again that’s my responsibility to make sure that you don’t have these kinds of mistakes, and so I’ll look in the mirror first on this.”
Sunday’s disappointing result was a tale of stalled offensive drives and wasted opportunities for Kansas City, as Reid alluded to. After an efficient opening touchdown drive, the Chiefs went three-and-out on back-to-back drives and then settled for a pair of field goals, with Mahomes failing to connect on key third-down passes and misfiring on seemingly simple throws.
The second half brought about more woes, as Kansas City ended up being held scoreless in the final two quarters. Usually not one to make bad decisions, Mahomes recorded a costly interception early in the fourth quarter on a pass intended for Kareem Hunt. He then injured his knee on the Chiefs’ final drive, backup Gardner Minshew threw a game-sealing pick, and the rest is history.
