Leading 17-7 at halftime the Kansas City Chiefs found yet another way to defeat themselves. Turnovers, penalties, and dropped passes, sealed their fate as the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the home team 21-17. This loss is significant and unfortunately, there is no quick fix to the offensive woes plaguing this football team.
In the NFL if you turn the ball over in the red zone, not once but twice, your defense plays its tail off for three quarters, and you have a generational quarterback, you come to realize Patrick Mahomes is on the island all alone.
He can deliver the ball perfectly to his receivers, but when drop passes, including the one Marquez Valdez-Scantling did that would have given Kansas City a lead late in the game, you realize how broken Andy Reid’s offense has become.
I can count at least two other passes Mahomes made that would have resulted in 14 points for the offense. MVS stopped his route and turned himself around in the third quarter when he had burned the Eagles corner. Justin Watson did the same running upfield toward the safety instead of near the sidelines where Mahomes perfectly placed the football that would have been an easy six points.
As far as I’m concerned, MVS needs to be inactive for the rest of the year. He’s simply not a good receiver. With the big drop, you have to question his desire to be great. I’ve seen enough of MVS. Reid should give Mecole Hardman his snaps moving forward.
Even though Justin Watson made some great plays as well, he dropped three passes all of them huge in the game. The last on fourth and forever on the Chiefs’ final drive, when the ball hit him in the hands that would have given Kansas City an improbable first down.
The lack of concentration from those veteran receivers is quite remarkable and trusting them further will be problematic for Mahomes.
However, the blame for this loss goes to Head Coach, Andy Reid for not adjusting the game plan in the second half. He had no feel for the ebb and flow of his receivers. Once again he didn’t use Kadarius Toney or Rashee Rice in the second half where they made plays in the first half. It’s a shame because the Chiefs’ defense time and time again stopped the Eagles and did all they could do to win this game while the offense put up a goose egg in the second half for the third straight week.
The Eagles scored two touchdowns for the comeback win and the Chiefs are reeling with self-doubt and a low level of confidence from their fans. The fact all their issues arose offensively, which has plagued them this season in this one game, leads me to believe this team isn’t destined to win back-to-back Super Bowls.
I hate to say it but unless the entire offense plays out of their minds, and learns from this loss bitter loss the Chiefs might be playing a road playoff game this year – that’s assuming they get out of the first round.
The bottom line the Eagles made the plays in the second half and the Chiefs didn’t. Even Travis Kelce had a pair of dropped passes, and his fumble inside the ten-yard line with Kansas City on track to extend their lead by at least three points toward the end of the third quarter. That turnover gave the Eagles all they needed to believe they could finish the comeback.
In the off-season, General Manager, Brett Veach refused to land a big-time wide receiving target. Instead, he put resources elsewhere signing two starting tackles who are struggling and that’s being kind. By doing that, he hoped his young receivers and the two holdover veterans (MVS & Watson) would be enough to do the job. He also counted on Justyn Ross who is on the commissioner exemption list.
In reality, the Chiefs are doing Mahomes a disservice. They refuse to give him the weapons that teams fear, especially late in the game, that he needs to push the deep ball. Instead, Mahomes is doing everything he can with a pair of deuces dinking and dunking against a full house defense that doesn’t fear any receiver on the roster.
If Kansas City is not careful, even though Mahomes will publicly never call out his receivers, they are going to ruin his prime years.
For me, even though MVS had two steps on the defender, I knew he’d drop that pass. Had he gone all out instead of diving for the ball, Kansas City could have had a glorious franchise comeback.
If Reid is a master motivator, on a short week, he’ll raise hell to his players to focus on getting their minds right, but even the Hall of Fame coach might not reach enough of them in time to regroup for the Raiders game this Sunday.
Instead, it’s late, Chiefs fans who began lining up at Arrowhead gates at 6:00 AM, deserve better.
The Eagles showed the Chiefs what a championship team looks like. Despite struggling much of the night offensively, they found gaps in the Chiefs aggressive style that turned into 14 second-half points. Those chunk plays, something KC’s offense is incapable of getting, proved how patient they were in taking their shots offensively.
The Chiefs offense was running for its life with no rhythm, substance, or ability to score points in the second half. Instead, Reid keeps asking Mahomes to run for this life in the pocket and make the impossible play. When he does, his receivers drop the ball.
In summary, I don’t see this offense getting much better. Sure they’ll have games where they do some nice things that give the impression they have fixed their woes and are back on track. However with two weeks to prepare for the Eagles, the Chiefs proved they either don’t have the players offensively to overcome their roster deficiencies on that side of the ball or the roster construction is flawed.
Time will tell if I’m wrong, and I sure hope I am, but on this night as upset as the Chiefs Kingdom is at the moment, there is serious doubt Reid and Mahomes can fix it by themselves.
