Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl hopes are fading fast with poor offense
The Kansas City Chiefs are 2-4 over their last six games and are spiraling down the drain. For 2023, at least, this team is not among the elites of the NFL. When the Chiefs trade stud wide receiver Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins, many people thought that the team would suffer in his absence. Well, they responded by winning the Super Bowl in 2022.
In 2023, the team is clearly missing Hill, and it's clear that the team isn't anywhere close to what they were last year. The Chiefs went 14-3 last year and had the 1st-ranked scoring offense and 16th-ranked scoring defense. In 2023, the team is 8-5 with the 11th-ranked scoring offense and the 3rd-ranked scoring defense.
In fact, the defense has played so well this year that it's now become the best and strongest part of their roster. You'd think that if the Chiefs had a top-three defense like this, they'd be unstoppable, right? Well, what we are seeing in 2023 is the worst offense of the Patrick Mahomes era and a unit that is struggling overall.
In fact, it's not outrageous to say that the Chiefs offense is just, average. What do they do well? Their second-leading rusher is Patrick Mahomes. Their top receiver this year is a 34-year-old Travis Kelce, who is averaging just 11.2 yards per reception. That'd stand to be the lowest YPC of his career. Rookie WR Rashee Rice is their best wide receiver, but that's kind of a problem.
None of their more veteran wide receivers are proving to be reliable, and it's turning into a limited offense because of that. If teams can negate the impact of Kelce or Rice in a given week, the passing offense becomes one-dimensional. Here's another brutal statistic for the Chiefs; they are scoring just 7.2 in the second half of games this year.
That ranks as the 4th-worst in the NFL. They only trail the Cardinals, Patriots, and Raiders in that department. The Chiefs rank dead last in the NFL in fourth-quarter points per game, averaging just three points in the last frame of the game. These are huge issues. And there's really no reason to believe that it can be fixed this year.
I don't think the Chiefs have an offensive scheme issue-- Andy Reid is a mastermind and has proven to be one of the very best offensive coaches in the history of football. Their big issue is the lack of skill that they have outside of Travis Kelce. And I'd even say that Kelce himself is declining physically. Right now, the Chiefs are not a great football team.
They're extremely beatable and are currently on pace to end the season on a sour note.