3 Things Patrick Mahomes and Chiefs Need to Get Right if They Want to Turn Season Around

When Patrick Mahomes and his Kansas City Chiefs reached their third straight Super Bowl, they paid NBA legend Pat Riley handsomely so that they could use the term ‘three-peat’ and its variations on their merchandise.

The franchise and its players were confident they would be the first in NFL history to win 3 straight Super Bowls. However, that confidence was blown to bits by a gnarly Philadelphia Eagles’ defense.

Gang Green exposed deficiencies in the Chiefs’ offense that were otherwise masked in their 15-2 regular-season run by controversial officiating and sheer luck.

Mahomes and star tight end Travis Kelce vowed to make amends. That mood quickly resonated with the rest of the team, who claimed that a fire had been lit inside them.

It seems they wanted to prove they are the league standard, and so was the team’s front office, which tried to fix some of their problems through new personnel. Or at least that is what they thought they were doing.

Two games in, the Chiefs look lost. Their offense stuttered against the lackadaisical Eagles in Week 2, and they were not in sync in Week 1 against the Chargers, despite what the final score says.

Those concerns have also impacted the defense, which, for the first time in Steve Spagnuolo‘s tenure as the Chiefs’ defensive coordinator, looks like they have lost its bite. Unless they fix some things, Patrick Mahomes and his teammates will look like they were all talk and no action.

Patrick Mahomes and his offense have to get the small details right

Since Patrick Mahomes took over as the starting quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, he has wowed the football world with his incredible array of passes and his ability to come up clutch.

All those highlights tend to diminish over time as opposing defenses learned his and the Chiefs’ offense’s tendencies and reacted differently. Nowadays, those flashy passes have become rare.

The lack of surprise seems to have impacted the Chiefs’ offense. Travis Kelce does not have the burst he once had. The receivers are either injured or lacking the ability to separate as they could before.

Marquise Brown is productive, yet inconsistent. Xavier Worthy has yet to prove that he can be trusted in clutch situations. Then, until Rashee Rice returns, the team will never know its true potential.

However, the team does not have time to lament on those concerns. They could struggle in the upcoming games, and would help themselves in a big way if they were to pay attention to their mistakes and stop repeating them.

Offensive line penalties have to be cleaned up. Receivers will need to work harder if they want to confuse defensive backs and create separation. Then their rushing attack needs to be better.

Even Andy Reid has to unleash his creativity. The Chiefs have become predictable, especially after the Eagles showed the world the perfect recipe to defeat the once-dominating team.

Chris Jones has to motivate his defense to step up

Last season, even though the Chiefs received a lot of grace in their regular-season run, no analyst or fan had any complaints about their defense. Instead, the young team helmed by Chris Jones was playing beyond expectations.

This season, that defense seems to have lost its fight. Steve Spagnuolo was heralded as a great teacher who could get the best out of a middle-of-the-pack unit. But so far, that has not happened.

Jones is more interested in pointing out opposition penalties than focusing on why they lost Super Bowl LIX and their opening two games. That is three losses in a row, and the chirping is overshadowing his capabilities as a leader.

Before it becomes too late, the 6-time Pro Bowler has to remind himself that the team’s defense follows his lead. Either he needs to sit down with Spagnuolo and figure out what they need to do better, or this season could go down with calls to trade his expensive contract away.

Patrick Mahomes and his teammates might want to schedule a players-only meeting

All offseason, Patrick Mahomes and his teammates believed they were going to avenge their Super Bowl LIX defeat. So far, all that talk has been thrown out of the window, as fans and analysts wonder if the Chiefs’ dynasty is over.

The players may not feel that way, and still want to prove their critics wrong. However, it seems their minds are not where they should be. Despite all the schematic and personnel-related problems, if the mind is not in the right place, no band-aid solution will work.

Mahomes, as the de facto leader of this team, should call on the players to meet. They need to discuss what is going wrong and where they need to improve.

Just having a fire to avenge their Super Bowl loss is not enough. They need to sit down and figure out how they can collectively take on the rest of the league, which has somehow figured out how to stop them.

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