Is it time to have a tough conversation about the Kansas City Chiefs?
After losing three of their last four games, the 2023 Kansas City Chiefs are in truly uncharted territory, and I think it's time to have a serious conversation about this team. The Chiefs are cooked. They're done. It's over for 2023. This isn't a great team, and I'm not sure this is more than an average NFL team at this point.
We're approaching Week 17 of the 2023 NFL Season, and the "Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes will figure it out" schtick is done. It's not working this year, and it isn't going to get better this year. The team has lost three of their last four games. They sit at 9-6 on the season and have not even clinched a playoff spot and obviously have not clinched the AFC West title.
I think their struggles this year should be even more magnified after losing to the interim head coach and rookie QB-led Las Vegas Raiders. The Raiders truly dominated the Chiefs for most of the game, and Mahomes continued to struggle with his wide receivers. On the year, Mahomes has tossed 26 touchdowns on a whopping 14 interceptions.
He has the worst passer rating of his starting career at 91.7, and the scoring offense is the lowest in the Mahomes era, too. There's just not a lot working for this team right now, and we're extremely late into the season. I think for years now, whenever the Chiefs got in a bit of a rut, we all kind of just assumed that they would turn it around, and in most instances, they did just that.
However, 2023 is different. At 9-6, the team is losing more and more and seem to be losing the same way, so that sort of tells you how deep of an issue they have. I mean my goodness, the 7-8 Raiders ad 7-8 Denver Broncos can both still clinch the AFC West division title. The Chiefs finish out the season hosting the Cincinnati Bengals and playing an away game versus the Los Angeles Chargers, and with them losing to the Raiders and Green Bay Packers recently, their last two games should not be seen as easy wins.
In fact, nothing on offense is easy for the Chiefs, and some of the blame does need to go to Patrick Mahomes, too. He should take some blame for his pedestrian year through the air, and I think we shouldn't just always assume that the WR struggles are the entire reason. This is a deep-rooted issue with the team that will take acing an offseason to fix.
The Chiefs likely also miss Eric Bieniemy, who is a very tough coach and I'm sure that tough coaching style is sorely missed right now in KC. Folks, the Kansas City Chiefs are in deep trouble in 2023.