The Kansas City Chiefs’ 2025 season has been a colossal failure in every sense of the word. Given the preseason expectations and what past iterations of this team have accomplished, one could argue this is the most disappointing season the franchise has endured in a long time. When the clock hits zero in Las Vegas on Sunday, many Chiefs fans will mimic Andy Dufresne raising his arms to the sky in The Shawshank Redemption to celebrate that this season is finally over.

Ultimately, Sunday’s game against the Raiders doesn’t matter for much beyond pride, draft position, and the chance to beat a division rival for the twenty-second time in twenty-six tries during the Andy Reid era. Instead of expending energy previewing a late-afternoon showdown between Chris Oladokun and Kenny Pickett, it is worthwhile to reflect on the season that was and what went wrong for the Chiefs in 2025.

As is the case in most scenarios, there wasn’t one singular thing you could point to as the reason the team fell short of its goals, as there were many factors that led to a six-win campaign. Here are the top five reasons why the Chiefs went from five Super Bowl appearances in six seasons to not even coming close to the postseason.

1. The Chiefs’ non-existent running game

While the Chiefs’ average yards per rush has actually increased from 4.0 to 4.2 this season, a good portion of that number can be credited to Patrick Mahomes’ scrambling ability. Among Chiefs players who have carried the ball at least twenty times this season, Mahomes’ yards per carry lead by an astronomical margin, averaging 6.6 yards on 64 rushing attempts.

The Chiefs’ primary running back tandem of Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt are both averaging south of four yards per rush, with marks of 3.9 and 3.8, respectively. While Hunt has been effective in short-yardage situations, he lacks the necessary explosiveness to be an every-down back. Pacheco was once a quality running back but has declined significantly since suffering a fractured fibula in early 2024. On the season, the fourth-year back has carried the ball 118 times for just 462 yards. For comparison, that is just forty more yards than Mahomes.

The running back position has been a significant weak spot for Kansas City’s offense over the past two seasons, and it must be addressed in the offseason.

2. Chiefs’ biggest stars coming up short in key moments

While Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Chris Jones all played well individually this season, there were numerous instances in which each made pivotal mistakes that played a key role in losses. Here is every instance in which one of the three future Hall of Famers made a critical error that cost the Chiefs.

Week 1: 27–21 loss to the Chargers
Both Kelce and Jones made costly mistakes in the fourth quarter of the Chiefs’ season-opening loss. On a late offensive drive, Kelce ran an erroneous route in the red zone, which resulted in an incompletion. Had Kelce run the correct route, he almost certainly would have scored a touchdown. Instead, the Chiefs were forced to settle for a field goal, which prevented them from cutting further into the Chargers’ lead.

On Los Angeles’ ensuing drive, Kansas City had them pinned in a third-and-long situation. If the Chiefs’ defense had simply gotten off the field, Mahomes would have gotten another chance to win the game. Instead, Jones badly lost contain on the edge, allowing Justin Herbert to scramble for the game-sealing first down.

Week 2: 20–17 loss to the Eagles
Once again, Kelce made a game-changing error while the Chiefs were in scoring position. While trailing 13–10 early in the fourth quarter, Mahomes threw a pass that hit Kelce square in the hands on what would have been a touchdown. Instead, Kelce failed to secure the ball, allowing it to clang off his hands and into the waiting arms of Eagles rookie safety Andrew Makuba. Makuba returned the interception 41 yards to midfield. This drop by Kelce took at least six points off the board in a game the Chiefs lost by three.

Week 5: 31–28 loss to the Jaguars
Mahomes and Jones each made game-changing mistakes that played a significant role in the Chiefs’ Monday night collapse in Duval. With the game tied at 14 late in the third quarter, Mahomes had a red-zone pass picked off by Jaguars linebacker Devin Lloyd and returned 99 yards for a pick-six. While Mahomes played well in this game aside from that play, it was a game-changing error.

On Jacksonville’s final offensive drive, the Jaguars had the ball in Chiefs territory, needing a touchdown to take the lead. On a third-down play, Trevor Lawrence dropped the snap, fell down, picked up the ball, and ran it into the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown. On this play, Jones clearly gave up when he could have touched Lawrence down to create a more difficult fourth-down attempt.

Week 11: 22–19 loss to the Broncos
The critical errors came on the Chiefs’ opening offensive drive, when Mahomes missed numerous open receivers on what could have been game-changing plays. After picking up a first down on the opening snap, Mahomes had Xavier Worthy, Noah Gray, and Tyquan Thornton all clearly open on three consecutive plays. He failed to connect with all three, including overthrowing Worthy on what would have been a walk-in touchdown. If Mahomes had simply made accurate throws, it could have created early momentum in a game the Chiefs lost by three.

Week 14: 20–10 loss to the Texans
Realistically speaking, this game was the last stand for the 2025 Chiefs. While the loss didn’t mathematically eliminate them from postseason contention, it ended any real hope Chiefs fans had for the season. Jones bore no responsibility for this loss, as he was the Chiefs’ best player that night and wreaked havoc in Houston’s backfield throughout the game.

While Mahomes’ stat line—14 of 33 passing for 160 yards, zero touchdowns, and three interceptions—is an eyesore, it makes his performance look worse than it actually was. In his final full game of the season, Mahomes suffered several key drops, including one by Kelce that effectively ended both the game and the season. Trailing 17–10 late in the fourth quarter with one last chance to score, Mahomes lofted a pass that once again bounced off Kelce’s hands and into the waiting arms of a defender, with Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair being the beneficiary. The Texans then took over in Chiefs territory and kicked the game-sealing field goal.

3. Harrison Butker’s decline

Harrison Butker has suffered the worst season of his career by a comfortable margin. Butker has missed five field goals this season. While that might not seem alarming on the surface, his misses have come at inopportune times. A glaring example occurred in the Houston game, when Butker missed a 43-yarder with just over a minute remaining.

Butker has also struggled on extra points, missing four attempts following Chiefs touchdowns. The Chiefs’ three-time Super Bowl–winning kicker’s most costly missed PATs came in losses to the Chargers in Week 1 and the Broncos in Week 11, both one-possession defeats. Butker has also had issues executing kickoffs, committing a costly free kick out-of-bounds penalty against Jacksonville and failing to reach the landing zone against Denver.

Barring something unforeseen, Butker will be back in Kansas City in 2026 due to his contract. If the Chiefs want to return to Super Bowl contention, they will need their veteran kicker to be much better than he was in 2025.

4. An anemic pass rush for the Chiefs

Despite ranking in the top 10 in both points and yards allowed, the clearest shortcoming of the Chiefs’ defense this season was its inability to get to opposing quarterbacks. The Chiefs recorded 30 sacks as a team, but 11 of those came from either Jones or George Karlaftis, the only two established players on the defensive front. Charles Omenihu ranks third with just 3.5 sacks, and no other Chief has more than two. Outside of Karlaftis, the Chiefs have no edge rushers who pose a legitimate threat, which has contributed to allowing more third-down conversions than in years past.

5. Poor offensive coaching

While Andy Reid’s résumé in Kansas City speaks for itself, 2025 was far from his best work. For the third consecutive season, the Chiefs’ offense was underwhelming, ranking 20th in points per game and 17th in yards per game. Far too often, the Chiefs displayed puzzling personnel decisions—such as playing JuJu Smith-Schuster over Tyquan Thornton—poor situational play calling, like running the ball on second-and-long out of the shotgun, and signs of a flawed and predictable offensive scheme.

A recurring theme throughout the season was Mahomes being forced to scramble due to the Chiefs’ inability to scheme receivers open. These shortcomings were further exposed over the final two games without Mahomes, as the Chiefs failed to reach 200 yards of offense in both contests. Even more damning was the scoring output, as the Chiefs managed just one offensive touchdown across those two games.

On Monday, Reid all but confirmed he will be back on the sidelines in 2026. Based on how this season unfolded, his top offseason priority should be evolving the offense to make life easier for Mahomes and his pass catchers. The Chiefs’ offense should not be mediocre and boring to watch, and it is on Reid to ensure it becomes a high-scoring unit once again next season.