Kansas City Chiefs

Why Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs are the NFL's biggest mystery

Published Nov. 8, 2021 8:24 p.m. ET

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Allow me to begin this story with a disclaimer: If you’re here looking for a cast-iron solution to what’s going on with the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes, a fearless prediction on how it will all shake out or all the answers to whether the unexpected weirdness percolating at Arrowhead should be seen as glass half-full or glass half-empty — sorry, we can’t help you.

The odd slump that has befallen the team that was the best, then the second-best in the National Football League the past two seasons is a development no one anticipated and a truly confounding one, with plenty of compelling evidence and opinion that things could either get markedly better or significantly worse.

The half-empty train of thought centers on concerns about Mahomes, who around this time last year was looking like an All-Eternity quarterback for whom there was no effective defensive antidote.

This season has been an unquestionably different story, with the 26-year-old posting numbers right around NFL average or even below, leaving the Chiefs wondering what it will take for them to get into the postseason, let alone do any damage once there.

"Their greatest asset has become their greatest weakness, and that’s Patrick Mahomes," Super Bowl champion and two-time Pro Bowler Greg Jennings said on FS1’s "First Things First." "The miscues, not only in the throwing but the reads, his inability to just throw to the open receiver. We saw [tight end] Travis Kelce and the frustration. ‘Dude, what is going on?’"

The Chiefs are 5-4, and it could have been far, far worse. Two weeks ago, a face mask call on the final drive handed the Chiefs 15 key yards against the New York Giants. Also critically, Giants lineman Oshane Ximines jumped offside on a play on which Mahomes was picked off, which momentarily looked to have sealed a road win for the Big Blue.

Then, this past weekend, a 13-7 victory over the Green Bay Packers was far from convincing, with the result salvaged by a clutch, late, third-and-10 throw to Tyreek Hill that looked very much like the old Mahomes. But even so …

Patrick Mahomes connects with Tyreek Hill to secure the Chiefs' victory over Packers

Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes connected with Tyreek Hill on third-and-long to secure the victory over the Green Bay Packers.

"Chances are you found the win unfulfilling and otherwise unsavory," Vahe Gregorian wrote in the Kansas City Star. "It’s hard to believe the Chiefs would have won if Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers hadn’t been out after testing positive with COVID and … Mahomes continues to befuddle and even exasperate."

Amid the falloff, the Chiefs have plunged down the odds list — to ninth-favorites at +1200 with FOX Bet. Some fantasy owners are dropping Mahomes, previously a slam dunk for any virtual squad. A rather spurious online petition has sprung up floating the demand that Mahomes be benched in favor of backup Chad Henne — yes, really. It got a few hundred votes, though one suspects some of them might have come from mischief-making supporters of rival teams.

FiveThirtyEight believes there is a 44% chance that this Chiefs team fails to make the playoffs. They have a 22% shot at winning the AFC West and a 3% likelihood of lifting the Vince Lombardi trophy.

Yes, the Chiefs are playing poorly, and it is difficult to think of a team in recent memory performing at a level so far below their provable peak. But — and here is where the glass half-full bit comes in — isn’t a team that has weathered the storm of what should be its lowest point as dangerous as any?

Kansas City got lucky the past couple of weeks. If Ximines doesn’t jump and if Rodgers’ COVID-19 saga plays out, say, a week later, the Chiefs' campaign might have had the stamp of doom etched upon it at 3-6.

Instead, Mahomes & Co. are firmly in the mix in the extraordinarily egalitarian AFC, in which they are among 10 teams within two games of the Derrick Henry-less Tennessee Titans.

'We have to get better and keep grinding' — Patrick Mahomes speaks with Tom Rinaldi on the Chiefs' win over Packers

Patrick Mahomes speaks with Tom Rinaldi on the Kansas City Chiefs' win over the Green Bay Packers in Week 9. "We have to get better and keep grinding."

Doubling Hill and making Mahomes grind his way up the field with short passes has been the most efficient method of putting the brakes on the Chiefs’ offense to this point, but remember who this is — and what he has done since coming into the league.

"Obviously, we are not playing offensively the way we want to and expect to, but we are finding ways to get wins," Mahomes told reporters. "Until we find that same mojo we’ve had for so long, we are still battling through, and guys are finding ways to win games. I’d rather be walking away with a win than a lot of yards."

Next up is a visit to the Las Vegas Raiders, who have played the Chiefs as tough as anyone the past couple of seasons. The contest should theoretically be a solid barometer of where Kansas City stands, but such has been the level of inconsistency that it’s tough to know what’s up from one week to the next.

FOX Sports’ Nick Wright believes Sunday might have been a turning point. "Guess what?" he said. "That [third-and-10] was Mahomes getting back to being Mahomes. If he can get back to who he was four weeks ago, this division is the Chiefs’ for the taking."

Nick Wright: What makes Chiefs great is Mahomes, but he was truly awful most of this game I FIRST THINGS FIRST

Nick Wright lays out his thoughts on the Chiefs' win over Packers.

As things stand, the Chiefs are only a half-game out of the division lead, though the Los Angeles Chargers have a remaining schedule that looks to be one of the softest in the league. Even so, we’ve seen too much of the Chiefs before this season to write them off — and too much of them this season to avoid the pressing questions.

When it comes to the Chiefs, firm answers about what's next simply don’t exist, leaving only the NFL’s biggest current mystery, one that might shape the rest of the campaign more than any other.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.