KANSAS CITY, Mo. — We come here to criticize, even as we understand this could be the best team in Chiefs history and a Super Bowl champion in six weeks.
We come here to criticize, not because we don't understand how good this team is, but specifically because we do understand.
The Chiefs beat the Falcons 17-14 Falcons on Sunday, and in the process secured the AFC's No. 1 seed. The next time they will wear white uniforms or play away from Kansas City will either be in the Super Bowl or early in the 2021 season.
This group is fully capable of being the NFL's first repeat champion since the 2004 Patriots — but not playing like this. Not relying on the defense being (mostly) terrific, and a paid professional kicker missing from 39 yards with the game on the line.
What the Chiefs showed us against the Falcons was something like a confirmation of many fans' playoff fears — the Chiefs seem to play down to weaker competition, are soft on the interior of the offensive line, and rely too heavily on Patrick Mahomes playing like football Jesus.
Mahomes saved them, again, this time with 75-yard touchdown drive that overcame penalties and lack of separation. But the Chiefs will know this isn't good enough, same as everyone here in the stadium and watching at home will know.
Mahomes played his worst game of the season, and did it against one of the league's worst pass defenses. He was uncertain in the pocket, indecisive with his reads, and threw perhaps the first head shaker interception of his career at the goal line — the ball was intended for Travis Kelce, but Mahomes didn't see linebacker Foyesade Oluokun sitting underneath in zone coverage.
The defense played terrifically, keeping the Falcons scoreless on seven of nine possessions and that should not be discounted. Chris Jones and Frank Clark applied pressure up front, and L'Jarius Sneed continued a breakout rookie season — it's not just the plays he makes, but the lack of snaps where he looks like a fourth round pick with lots to learn.
That's all great, and it should be pointed out and appreciated. The Chiefs defense tends to wear it on bad days, and be forgotten on the good.
But this team will succeed or fail with the offense, and none of the explanations with varying degrees of validity — injuries along the line and at running back, for instance — are as convincing as the idea that a week after their most impressive win of the season the Chiefs took a significant step back with just one more game left in the regular season.
Much of this is on Mahomes, as weird as that is to say. This could be described as his first statistically bad game, and the eye test matched. Football is complicated, and plays work or don't based on a thousand factors.
But there were too many passes that didn't have a chance, too many slow decisions, too much hesitation to believe he felt effective. It's a strange thing to see. This offense is so overwhelming when it's right. The bad moments — or in this case, a bad afternoon — look almost foreign in contrast.
If this was your first time seeing the Chiefs, you would wonder why the hype. You would've seen a mediocre offense with little push up front, some receivers who struggled to get open, and a quarterback who couldn't make anything work. As much as anything else, you would have seen an offense with little energy.
The coaches have talked occasionally about guarding against complacency, and maybe it's as simple as that. If it is, then this is a one-off and there's nothing to worry about in the postseason.
But the Chiefs offense has always been like a Ferrari: gorgeous and mind-blowing when right, but prone to mechanical slowdowns when something is off.
Andy Reid will talk about how those issues start with him, that it's up to the head coach to put the players in better spots and those words will not be without truth. When something performs this far below fair expectation, there is more than one problem.
But the Chiefs are champions because of their talent. They're the favorites to be champions again because they have a young, ambitious, accomplished and focused group.
We didn't see that on Sunday. If that's a one-off, fine. This can still be the NFL's champion. But if this is the beginning of a new trend, the Chiefs are going to have a lot more than a close loss to explain.
