Week 13 Takeaways: The Chiefs Struggle for Consistency

As I sit here licking my wounds from Sunday’s embarrassing defeat to the Green Bay Packers, I want to share my thoughts on another loss for the Kansas City Chiefs.

• The refs are bad. Yes, we all know this, and no, that is not why this wasn’t a win. Good teams overcome bad calls. But they are just bad. I get the no-call on the Hail Mary. I even get the missed face masking on the Eagles. The two calls I object to are the unnecessary roughness penalty for the hit on Mahomes (yes, I know it was in our favor) and the lack of the PI call on the pass to MVS. They essentially evened out, but that doesn’t change the fact that officiating is suspect again this year and perhaps worse than last year. I wrote an article about that last week for another publication.

• We missed Drue Tranquill. Jack Cochrane did not do a lousy job, but he wasn’t ready to be Tranquill or Nick Bolton. The defense was not as cohesive with both those players out, even more so when Bryan Cook was taken out, too, with a nasty ankle injury.

• RUN THE BALL! One bright spot last night was Isaiah Pacheco. He had 110 yards rushing and an additional 14 receiving yards. Which makes it almost inexplicable that When we were in the 4^th quarter and still very much in the game we tried to run the ball once on first down and then one more time… on the final drive sort of? Neither the deep pass to MVS nor the failed 1^st down pass to Skyy Moore made any sense to me.

• Decision making is suspect. I don’t know whether it’s the coaching staff or Mahomes making poor decisions, but someone is. The 1^st being the two-point conversion early in the 3^rd. They shouldn’t have quit on the run after the first play on the initial 4^th quarter drive. After they got a fresh set of downs off a pass interference call, they should’ve leaned on the run again.  They were two points down with 5 minutes left in the game. That was the time to move slowly and methodically down the field, not to go for the quick 1^st down.

• This team has lost (at least temporarily) its magic. One thing about the Chiefs is that as a rule over the last few years one part of the team made up for the other.  Most of the time it was the offense carrying the defense prior to this year but when the offense had an off week most of the time it switched. That isn’t happening this year. Except for the Raiders game this team goes as the defense goes.

• Last minute miracles are not something we can depend on with this offense. You won’t see me crowing 13 seconds at Bills fans. That was two years ago and I just don’t think our current offense could pull that off. When Chris Collingsworth was hinting that they might still score in the final minute or so I was shaking my head. I had little doubt the game was over when Mahomes threw the interception.

This is a good team, don’t get me wrong. Kansas City is top 10 on both sides of the ball. The thing is I’m not sure if can be good enough when it counts most. That makes it just that much more frustrating. And with all this at the bac of my mind are concerns about what this team will be next year without some players that we’ve come to depend on. The Chiefs will have some tough decisions to make on who they can keep and who they have to say goodbye to. I wonder if this year is our best shot at least before 2025.

I win and lose with my Chiefs, and I can’t even imagine not being a chiefs fan before all other teams.  In all honesty, I get the feeling we’re squandering a season this year.