The Missing Piece in Kansas City: What Analysts and Fans are Saying
We’ve been saying it all season: the Kansas City Chiefs have yet to play a full four-quarter game of football at a high level, and now Patrick Mahomes is craving it.
With the 19-17 win over the Las Vegas Raiders, which moved the Chiefs to 11-1 and clinched a playoff spot, Mahomes knows that the team overall has to get better.
So often this season, one side of the ball has struggled, and the other plays well, but never both together, and in another mistake-riddled win, the Chiefs again got themselves into a sticky late-game situation, which, thankfully for them, the Raiders blew.
But Mahomes knows the team must improve significantly if it is to win a third consecutive Super Bowl. … and he’s saying what everybody else is saying, too, about a lack of consistency.
“We just hold ourselves to such a high standard that we don’t feel like we’re playing our best football,” Mahomes said. “It seems like every game it’s offense does good, defense does good, kind of vice versa, we got to find a way to build up so we can play great as a full entire team. It’s awesome that we’re finding ways to get wins at the end of the day, that’s what you’re going for, but our goal is to get to that Super Bowl. So we’re going to try to continue to get better, and better so that we’re playing our best football hopefully by the end of the year.”
Given the high standards they’ve set over the last few seasons, it feels like we are just waiting for things to “click” for the Chiefs.
But the longer we wait to see it, the more doubt creeps in that this team can actually do it. Of course, having Mahomes and Andy Reid as a quarterback/head coach duo will always give you confidence, but the team isn’t playing the kind of football we’ve become accustomed to over the years.
That’s not to say that the Chiefs can’t claim another Super Bowl under Mahomes’ guidance, but things need to improve if they are to have a genuine shot at it.
And Mahomes knows it.
