The ability to threepeat is obviously an extremely difficult task to take on for any team, even the defending two time Super Bowl Champs Kansas City. The 2000s dominant New England Patriots from 2001 to 2007, weren’t able to put together a three consecutive championship run in their prime. Pittsburgh and Dallas from back in the 70s were able to win – but neither of them were able to get three in a row. There’s a reason why it’s so hard. Whether it’s injuries, bad play, improvement from opponents, or drive.
Last year, Kansas City won more with defense than they did with offense. They gave up just 17.3 oppg /game putting them 2nd in the NFL. Their offense ended at 21.8 ppg /game, which was 15th. This year, the Kansas City Chiefs are putting up 23 per contest and giving up just 18, but they just have a different feel. I’m not expecting explosive 35-point games right now, and I just don’t know if I can believe in the defense to carry them.
There’s nobody who would say that Patrick Mahomes is having one of his “typical Patrick Mahomes” seasons.
Mahomes in his first 33 games was blowing the lid off of defenses putting up 303 ypg, 85 TDs and 17 picks without batting an eye.
Nobody knew what to do with him and the odds were in his favor.
This year, Mahomes has been mortal, he has made some bad decisions, he has thrown some errant passes, as shown with his 5 interceptions and 6 TD passes. Now, some of that can easily fall on the fact that Travis Kelce has not been able to get freed up as well as he was, at least it appears that way now. With an injury to WR Rashee Rice – it could get a little more difficult for Mahomes to get the passing game rolling. And if we’re being honest here, Mahomes has been “human” over his last 14 games, going back to midseason 2023, with numbers of 249 YPG, 22 TD and 14 int, this is not saying the Patrick isn’t a great QB – but what it’s saying is his “supernatural heroic aura” that he created early in his career, has come back a couple of deep steps.
Kansas City’s running game lacks, as they have struggled. Losing Isaiah Pacheco at RB, has hurt them greatly, last year he gave them 4.6 yd /rush and a nice receiving RB out of the backfield – which is a lot to try and replace. Defenses are able to concentrate even more now on the Chiefs receiving crew, because nobody’s all that concerned about the running game that the Chiefs are putting on the field.
When Kansas City picked Xavier Worthy in the draft this year, they knew they were getting a true speed burner.
But, from what we’ve seen so far, he’s pretty much a “go route guy” – without much else, and that’s going to make him far easier to defend. So if Kansas City intends to use him as their WR1, that might be a stretch, and that’s going to really be dependent on Mahomes being able to shift off DBs with his eyes to try and free up XW more.
It’s really easy to be comfortable with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, they have proven time in and time out that they can get it done some way, somehow. But to me, there’s something about this season that just doesn’t have “that feeling.” Without a true problematic WR to deal with, I have a problem believing in Kansas City being able to manage rolling their way through the AFC with teams like Baltimore, Buffalo and even Houston.