KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Chiefs beat the Giants, and that’s swell. Wins are good. Wins are precious. Every win in the NFL should be celebrated.
This particular one is stretching the rule.
They beat the woeful Giants 20-17 at Arrowhead Stadium on Monday, and they’ll take the positives where they can find them — good luck — but they’ll also know this season keeps getting worse.
They began as the prohibitive Super Bowl favorites, then had some turnovers that people thought would clear, and then a loss or two that good teams shouldn’t have, and now they are flat out of excuses.
They stink, and while it’s true they’ve stunk before, they have not yet stunk like this — outplayed by a bad team playing poorly while missing its best two players.
The defense played well, as far as that goes, but it’s also true that the Giants should be no defense’s source of confidence.
The Chiefs have problems, and while we’ve known that for weeks, it remains stunning how prolonged and deep those problems have now become.
Patrick Mahomes followed the worst game of his career as the Chiefs quarterback with one that wasn’t far off — an interception on the Chiefs’ first drive started a stretch of just 6 completions in 19 tries.
There are moments he looks bored with the short stuff defenses are beginning him to take, and other moments he looks incapable of making throws we’ve grown used to seeing him make easily. It was hard not to notice how many of his passes against the Giants weren’t close to receivers, and the frustration it all caused.
For three years, Mahomes’ greatness overwhelmed opponents. At the moment, that talent appears like a burden, something for him to carry. The whole operation is off.
We are now eight games into a season in which the Chiefs have seen the same defense. The Giants exaggerated the strategy — they appeared to play more two-high safeties, and played them deeper — but we are way too deep for the Chiefs to still be powerless against this stuff.
Andy Reid wears a head coach’s share of this blame. For long stretches against the Giants, there appeared to be no discernible strategy, no cohesion, no plan. The Chiefs are too gifted to be this stagnant. Receivers standing in place on scramble drills is a problem. If only that was the Chiefs’ biggest problem.
The offensive line isn’t good enough, not for the mountains the Chiefs front office moved to build better protection. Too many receivers aren’t catching balls they should. Daniel Sorensen is still being isolated in coverage. Ben Niemann is in the game because he knows where to be; he’s nowhere near his assignment on a short touchdown.
This season has been a wreck so far, with Mahomes’ worst decisions and worst games, and two flatly uncompetitive showings against AFC rivals. It’s about to get even more difficult, too, because how the Chiefs have a short week before starting a brutal stretch — the Packers this weekend, at the Raiders next, and the Cowboys after that. If the Chiefs play the way they played these last two games they’ll lose each of the next three by a bunch.
This team keeps talking about feeling better and getting confidence and being at their best with their backs against the wall, but this team keeps showing us that things are getting worse, not better, and that the Super Bowl standard they earned the last three seasons does not apply to this group.
It’s a long season. The Chiefs are talented. Hope is not lost. But it’s also getting harder and harder to find.
