Late in the afternoon on Thanksgiving Day — when most of us were nearly comatose after feasting on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes (and about 16 1/2 slices of pie), the Kansas City Chiefs faced off against Dallas.
As we have seen over and over this season, the Chiefs failed to make crucial plays when they needed them most. Specifically, these included stopping Dallas’ one-two punch: wide receivers CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens.
With the team’s 31-28 loss, Kansas City not only lost the Preston Road Trophy, but its third game of the last four — falling to 6-6 on the season.
Here are five things we learned from Thursday’s ugly loss.
1. The Chiefs’ secondary is good — but not great
This isn’t a bad thing. It simply is what it is. There are parts of this team that drastically need improvement. That’s not the case with the secondary. If the Chiefs had an awesome pass rush, this might not matter as much. But they don’t.
The secondary has two main problems:
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Cornerback Trent McDuffie is awesome, but he is also 5 feet 11 and 193 pounds. So he struggles when he’s up against bigger, elite players like Lamb — who is three inches taller. This may not seem like much, but NFL football is a game of inches. It can be the difference between shutting a guy down and getting roasted to the tune of seven catches for 112 yards and a touchdown.
Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s defense needs an elite safety. Having great safeties like Justin Reid (and before him, Tyrann Mathieu) allowed the defense to work the way Spagnuolo intends. He likes to blitz his cornerbacks — so when he does, he’s trusting his safeties to pick up the receivers. In Thursday’s game, this meant that sometimes, Chamarri Conner was covering Lamb — with late-arriving help from Jaden Hicks. Neither of those players is at Reid or Mathieu’s level. Kansas City needs to invest in a blue-chip safety to captain the secondary — or fix its pass rush so it doesn’t have to blitz defensive backs.
The Chiefs are not bad. They are exhausted.
They are not worn out from playing on a short week. They are worn out from playing in three straight Super Bowls — and battling through one nail-biter after another.
You could see it on quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ face as he sat on the sideline watching the game slip away. This team looks like a legion of warriors who’ve been out on an endless campaign without reinforcements.
Since 2018 (including the playoffs), the Chiefs have played 149 games. That’s 18 more than half of the league’s teams. That’s more than a whole extra season of tough games won and lost — and in those high-stakes, win-or-go-home matchups, Kansas City’s players pushed their bodies to unimaginable extremes.
I don’t think this team has lost the will to fight. But there is only so much a human body can take before it fails the spirit within it.
3. The Chiefs’ offensive line is cursed
I don’t know what deal Kansas City made with the devil to get Mahomes as its quarterback, but it must have involved annually sacrificing the bodies of its offensive linemen so the team’s Icarus (Mahomes, of course) could never fly too close to the sun.
Already without right guard Trey Smith — who missed Thursday’s game with a high ankle sprain — the Chiefs are now without both of their starting offensive tackles for an unknown period.
We are still waiting on details of the extent of right tackle Jawaan Taylor’s triceps injury, but the Kansas City Star’s Pete Sweeney reported that after the game, rookie left tackle Josh Simmons was wearing a cast and had his arm in a sling.
This is bad news — because in Week 14, Kansas City will face the Houston Texans, who boast one of the league’s best pass rushes.
4. The Chiefs are still in it, but they’re not really still in it
To make the playoffs, Kansas City needs to win all of its remaining games. Three of them will be against teams that are currently ahead of them in the playoff race.
But knowing everything we know now, do you really think this team can go on a five-game winning streak to make the playoffs?
And even if it does, that’s only Step 1. Once the Chiefs are in the playoffs, they’ll need to win four more games against the NFL’s toughest competition to win the Super Bowl.
I’m not trying to be negative. But just making the playoffs has never been Kansas City’s goal. Do you really think the Chiefs can close out the season with nine consecutive victories?
5. Maybe this is for the best in the long run
There are five stages of grief.
Denial: “It’s okay, the Chiefs can still go on a run and win the Super Bowl!”
Anger: “The team needs to stop shooting itself in the foot!”
Bargaining: “If the Chiefs beat the Bills, they can still get the No. 1 seed. If they beat the Broncos, they can still win the AFC West. If they win out, they can still make the playoffs.”
Depression: Watching Dallas line up in the victory formation.
Acceptance: “This team is tired. It needs a reset — a fresh infusion of talent. And it needs a long offseason to reflect, before deciding what the next iteration of the Patrick Mahomes era will look like.”
This offseason will define general manager Brett Veach’s legacy. He helped build the Chiefs into a juggernaut. Can he do it again?
