Man. Watching the game clips again. Kareem with his hands on his knees a lot. He had the most carries among RB’s (24 avg) since he started games for us.

He’s tired and I think that’s why they didn’t use him much yesterday.

Thank God Pacheco is coming back with fresh legs

They tried to give him a break during the Denver game and they found out they couldn't win like that.

Bro yes. Dude is worn out already

He’s 29 which is ancient in RB years and he didn’t have training camp or the offseason to prepare for the grind of a full NFL season. He was bound to wear down eventually. Getting Pacheco back should be big for this offense.

Its better he DID NOT have training camp.

Worthy is getting open and Mahomes is throwing the ball to him so it's just a matter of time before they come together.

Buffalo was willing to let the Chiefs take that 1 on 1 deep shot to worthy over and over if you look at how they played coverage.

Getting the #1 seed is critical this year… to get that first round bye.

Yes. Watching the tight, it's obvious that initially right after the snap, Pat felt pressure right up the middle which made him move off his spot. Then he sees that it was picked up, and resets for the throw. But that makes him a hair late throwing the ball. Maybe half a second, but he's late. And it looks like Pat tried to make that lost half second by rifling the pass.

The route Worthy ran is obviously a sail route, so it was always headed towards the sideline. Pat throwing late made it end up closer to the sideline than it would've been had he been on time, but it's still a very catchable ball by NFL standards. And we know that because Worthy prematurely drags his foot a full 2 yards before he actually steps out of bounds.

I guess on a positive note, at least Worthy was aware that the sideline was close, so that's an improvement, I guess.

But when you just go back and watch the highlights for the weekend, there's probably a half-dozen no-name WRs that make a catch successfully under very similar conditions, simply because they had better awareness of where the sideline was. I mean, McConkey made a similar catch last night at the end of the game on an over route, and made it look utterly routine because he knew exactly where the sideline was.

And considering the LT situation Pat has to work with currently, it's really on Worthy to work on his sideline awareness as much/more than Pat needs to get the ball out on time, because the fact of the matter is that Mahomes just isn't going to have clean pockets to throw from every time he's targeting Worthy.

There's no question about it. Even with a clean pocket he's missing throws he normally makes. The why is just speculation.

Worthy should have toe tapped, but a better throw and it's a TD. The first pick was another weird one. Still playing above average for the league, but have to hope he gets back to close to his GOAT level in the playoffs. The defense has carried the team going back to last season.

Doesn't have much to do with what I posted. Worthy is coming along as a rookie in an Andy Reid offense. He's got plenty to work on as we go but he's not on a bad trajectory.

MVS is on a bit of a heater the last couple games. Took him a game to get in the flow, but the last 2 games he's caught 5 balls on 7 targets for 196 yds and 3 TDs.

I don't know who's doing it, but whoever it is needs to knock the bullshit off when Worthy makes an oopsie and he disappears for the rest of the game.

Worthy was drafted to be a better MVS.

Yes, it’s unbelievable. We just stopped throwing to worthy. As usual, he was having no problems getting open and he had made 4 good plays. Shared blame on the deep ball not getting caught in bounds, but that was no reason to stop throwing to him

The Chiefs final offensive drive of the game… game was a long shot, but not over yet, Mahomes targeted Perine three times, Watson once and then Kelce on the INT.

Zero targets to Worthy.

Zero targets to DHop.

Zero targets to JuJu.

Yeah it's ****ed up and isn't gonna do any good other than getting into his head. The WRs ****ed up over and over last year and didn't go directly into the doghouse like they're doing with a rookie WR that's been decent when they go to him.

Zero snaps without Wanya Morris and Juwan Taylor.

Unpossible. Pat is playing fantastic this year, he would never do that.

He also held onto the ball WAYYYY too long again which has become a bad habit and it ain't got shit to do with people not being open.

It's just insane how efficient the offense was when they forced it to Worthy, then he makes a mistake and isn't heard from the rest of the game and they only score one more TD in basically 3 quarters.

Shit man, the first throw of the game is another candidate on his 'worst interception of the season' list.

Has Gray WIDE the hell open for an easy 1d, holds the ball, pumps twice and tries to hero ball a dumb shit throw into the middle of the field.

It was just completely foolish. And not nearly rare enough for my tastes these years.

Gray wide open. Hopkins about to come open.

https://imgur.com/a/X2CcaBX

And Kelce looks so over it. Didn't even take a step after the pick

Was wondering about this play. The A-22 wasn't up yet as of a couple hours ago so I hadn't seen this POV until just now. Yeah, obvious now that the play was always for Gray. Travis is tripled, and DHop is basically doubled, though he does pop loose at the end, but he's not ever a real option.

Pat just doesn't trust his protection on this one. He's got happy feet pretty much from the get-go, climbs the pocket when he doesn't have to, and ends up throwing while getting tackled, causing the ball to sail right over Gray's head.

It's actually a pretty well-designed play from what I can tell.

Toney is directly responsible for losing like 2-3 games last year. "Keep targeting him! Don't let his confidence waver!"

Worthy doesn't turn the ball over but doesn't get his feet down in bounds. "**** him! BENCH!"

I'm not sure it's the coaching staff. Worthy got just under 60 snaps in the Bucs game and took the most WR snaps against the Bills yesterday.

Oh my God lol

That is terrible. Clean pocket, two wide open receivers.

****ing terrible rep from Mahomes.

Man was trying to win the game on the second play for scrimmage �� ****ing disgusting.

I’ll expect him to hit those sorts of on-schedule throws in the postseason.. don’t know why we have to wait until January to do so, though. JUST PLAY WITHIN THE OFFENSE NOW.

And he obviously will be. But that has absolutely nothing to do with my post. I simply pointed out that MVS has been on a bit of a heater the last two games.

Still butthurt about making yourself look foolish by saying how much better than Worthy Adonai Mitchell was going to be? Were you trying for a gotcha moment there?

Be better.

Brutal.

Multiple people open and Pat shits the bed.

This is so confusing, because Mahomes was trending in the right direction.

Absolute crap the last two games. Mediocre at best.

Anyone saying he hasn't regressed this point is just in denial. It's right there.

It's been going on for the whole season with Worthy.

IT's just Pat. He's ****ing us. This season Pat is the weak link. Yes we need better play at tackle but here it's a clean pocket and he's got guys wide open and SHITS THE ****ING BED.

IT's Pat.

That's where I'll stop you. It's a very poor two-game stretch but no reason he can't get back on the track he was on.

No one is saying he can't. But we're 10 games in bro. Pat is what, leading the league in picks????

Sharpe made a great point today about him - that in the past it was normal for Pat to go 5-6 games without a pick, or a mistake - NOW....it's down to a drive here or there in a game where he doesn't make a really shitty mistake.

YES, he's regressed. There's no denying that it's a weekly thing as this point.

Do you EXPECT Pat to actually hit a long ball throw when he attempts it now???

It RARELY happens. When I see average QB's do it weekly on other teams.

Overreaction Planet.

It was always going to be tough sledding this year after we lost Brown and Rice.

If Mahomes gets back on the track he was on with good-to-great games against New Orleans, Las Vegas and Tampa Bay (ELITE on third down), we will be fine.

No reason he can't do that. He did it last year, though it took an entire season.

I'd say Patrick is going through a tough patch and will come out better on the other side.

I just refuse to throw a hissy-fit over Patrick when we all know what he can do when he's on his A-Game. There's nothing we can do about it except wait for him to figure it out himself.

Juju boggle at goal line
Incredible one handed pick
DL deflection vs SF
DL deflection vs LV
Worthy falls down

Lot of bad luck with picks this year. What’s interesting is he’s undoubtedly played better since Hopkins got here.

9 TD/3 INT ratio in 4 games with him. Mahomes QB rating was below 90
in all 6 games after the opener. Since Hopkins got here it’s been above 90 every game.

Bro he didn't even toss for 200 yards this week......

Oh geez, the decision was fine. His movement in the pocket was excellent. He was running forward on the pass and air mailed it. Bad pass. But everything else was fine.

I remember those seasons, not too long ago, where each game we expected an average of high 200s or low 300 yards per game, at least 2 or 3 TD's on average, and no picks. That would be your typical Mahomes game, game in and game out. He has regressed, and it's over a long enough stretch where I could see this no longer being an extended slump of sorts and just his relative norm moving forward. A bit sad to think about. Perhaps he did peak early in his career? Every player's career arc is different.

Irregardless of whether the team continues to be able to win Super Bowl(s) or not.

I don't know if he peaked and has regressed fully but he's 100% regressed this season.

The Chiefs were ****ing leading the NFL in third down conversions a couple weeks ago. ROFL

Lose one game and overreaction planet is bleeding all over the place.

Mahomes/Worthy will be fine. Better than fine, they will be elite when it matters.

How many of those did Kareem convert???

Please stop it.

Worthy and Rice will be deadly next season when the suspension runs out. I think Worthy is doing a fine job despite a few rookie mistakes. But that’s why he’s called a rookie

It's been the theme of the offense this season.

Folks want to kill Nagy for some reason - it's Mahomes that is wrecking the offense.

Which brings me here…

If you wanna denigrate Nagy, I think it can only be for not tapping into Mahomes’ max focus every week. Which may not even be possible for a coach to do at this stage of Pat’s career. But I think focus and attention to detail by players is what causes problems in these games, and if it’s like last year, it just isn’t near the same issue in the playoffs. Not for Patrick at least.

Except he had no reason to.

Kelce is open right at the sticks. Mahomes pump fakes and you see three defenders bite on him, leaving Gray running wide open.

He didn’t even need to move in the pocket. Either fire that into Kelce’s chest for a 1st down or rip it to Gray for a quick 20 yards.

Instead he threw a pick trying to be Superman and win the game on the second play of the game.

He really just needs to start making those plays within the offense. That’s what makes him elite - hitting those plays consistently throughout the game, season, etc. What makes him special is the Mahomes bullshit he pulls out of his ass a few times per game on top of that.

These days he’s not doing the little things enough and trying to use up his special superpower on every other play. Do the little things right first and that’ll open up opportunity for the other stuff.

What? He takes off running out of a somewhat muddled pocket.

Stand in there and hit the TE that has no one around him in the middle of the field.

I don't think he's reading defenses this year. Something is off, because he's a one read and take off try to back yard something.

That’s my fear. I don’t know if it’s confidence or if he’s worried he simply doesn’t have time to read through progressions. But it’s like he’s afraid to unload downfield because he doubts his ability to have read the coverage correctly. It feels like it’s mental right now, similar to what he went through in 2021.

Hell, in 2023, he pretty much won the Super Bowl by deciding to play it safe Alex style. I don’t know if our defense (currently Watson and the ability to generate pressure with four lineman) has the juice to go all the way with that strategy this year.

Came to the X thread and a Mahomes discussion broke out... Anyways, two things can be true at the same time... X could have caught the pass and M could have thrown it better. I for one am so spoiled by this team that when something isn't perfect, I am surprised and disappointed. Well, that's cray cray. Last year it was drops and this year it's interceptions and bad protection. M is human and having large men constantly crunch you into the ground because your blind side is a traffic cone is going to have an effect. He's got an ankle sprain and as someone who had a high ankle sprain, it's one of those things that never heals quite right.

Teams also have another year of tape and seeing what opposing teams are doing to slow the Chiefs down. It's great to be king of the mountain yet everyone is gunning for you and finding ways to take you down.

I'm working on enjoying it because one day, it will be over.

I would guess...it's the OL issues that just have him spooked. Maybe the injuries from the past few years have accumulated enough and it's in his head? I dunno.

The part that nobody talks about is it is extraordinarily difficult to maintain focus from July to February. Hell the difference between being done in week 18 vs playing out the playoffs is substantial. That's one of a myriad of reasons it's hard to win consistently.

And it's not to say that we maintained focus through our run. We had bonehead plays and lack of execution sprinkled all throughout our run. And we'd get pissed off about it. The difference between then and now is we could **** off for a few drives and then make some extraordinarily explosive plays and we won a lot of those games.

It's probably worth looking at our run.

2018 we had runs of 5 games, 4 games and 4 games

2019 we had runs of 4 games and 9 to close out the year. But we also lost 3 out of 4 and four out of 6 at one point. That's with healthy Fisher and Schwartz and prime Reek and Kelce.

2020 we ran the first 4 making the total run 13 games. Then we had a run of 10 games. Probably the most consistent football of the run.

2021 we had a run of 9 games to finish before the Bengals game (which mind you is the worst game Pat has ever played), but at one point we lost 2 out of 3 and 4 out of 6 at the beginning of the season. That's right. 7 weeks in we had a losing record.

2022 we had runs of 2 games, 2 games, and 6 games before 8 to win out.

2023 remember we had that dumbass Lions loss to keep the streak at 8. Then we had a run of 6 games, 1 game, and finished with 6 games.

2024 we started with 9 wins to make 15 total, the longest win streak of Pat's career and it had been 4 years since he'd been close. All while fighting some of the worst injury luck in the league, the pressure of a 3 peat, getting everybody's best shot because everybody hates us, and all the ****ing miles of the last 6 years.

Given the history of best player of all time, it's pretty obtuse to sit here and say "ZOMGWTFBBQ THEY LOST FOCUS!!!!1123!!!!one" when they just ran through the best run of Pat's career while facing incomprehensible adversity. Further, the reality is that NO team maintains focus EVERY week. Belicheat was basically a movie bad guy and New England would shit the bed regularly (remember when they got their ass kicked in Arrowhead in September and Benched Brady?). If anyone could do it would be the dude that ran the franchise like a Nazi concentration camp.

Look, it would have been nice to win this one. It really would have set up the last half of the season.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it. It's hard to win. It's doubly hard to win consistently. It is infinitely harder to do what we're trying to do. That's why no one has done it.

But this is kinda why it was worthwhile to talk about this stuff even when they won.

Because it's not about winning or losing some random game in the regular season. It's about not really loving what you're seeing for the purposes of the post-season.

The team has been AMAZING at keeping their head down and winning games when the only goal they have isn't really something they can do about until January. The loss has nothing to do with it.

It's that we've been seeing the same thing since, IMO, week 2. He looked really sharp in Week 1 and really hasn't looked the same since. He was pretty sharp against the Raiders and pretty good against the Bucs and 49ers. But the Ravens game is still the only time this season where I felt like he was locked in from start to finish.

It's just...a little disconcerting.

No doubt. But he's still playing better than when he had that stretch when we were 3-4 7 weeks into 2021.

I'm not up here pumping unicorns and rainbows, and I agree Mahomes hasn't been playing well. Which is inexplicable given how much of a Terminator he is. But it's not new and it's not the worst it's been. I don't have an explanation other than they're not robots and this shit is HARD.

It was the staff letting Suamataia get ****ed up against Hendrickson and the Bengals. Ain't that complicated. Get beat up that many times that quickly and have it happen over multiple games due to poor OT play and your QB is going to be skittish in the pocket with piss poor mechanics even when he doesn't need to be. Just have to hope he can un**** himself mentally before January.

What a coincidence. That's when he had that loaf Erving protecting his blindside.

That was 2019

You're wildly oversimplifying the OL play.

The entire OL is struggling. To continue to lay it at the feet of Morris (or Kingsley) is pretty odd.

This high-dollar blue chip OL is the brick wall in the middle it should be.

Nonsense.

Mahomes was elite against Baltimore. Great against Saints, Raiders and Bucs.

He was passable against the Chargers and Falcons.

Meh against the 49ers until it mattered.

Bad against the Broncos, Bills and Bengals.

It's been a mixed bag due to the injuries and uncertainty at LT. They're figuring it out.

Yeah the LT is a glaring weakness but Smith has NOT played well this year and even Creed has had a few games where he's not as dominant as he usually is.

Of all people Taylor has probably been the most consistent with Thuney.

And Thuney's not holding up as well at the point of contact either. Looks like he's lacking a little bit of the strength he's had in the past.

Technically he's as good as ever, but either time away from the weight room while rehabbing OR maybe he's just at 95% instead of 100% has him playing with less power than we've seen previously.

Boy.

It's almost like you deleting all but the line you wanted to blab about impacted the statement I actually made...

Do better.

The LT play has been absolutely abysmal in at least 3 games.

Bengals
Raiders
Broncos

Like, game wreckingly bad. The other guys need to fix their shit, especially Trey Smith, but none of them were constantly ****ed on like those two have been.

It was a false statement and deserved to be called out.

There was nothing "disconcerting" about Mahomes play for a large chunk of this season.

His problem is consistency, not OH **** WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MAHOMES!??!

He's at an all time worst in every category........

So yes there is.

I said he was very good against Baltimore and good in several other games. But starting in week 2 we've seen this tentative play where he just looks slow to process.

He's left probably 6-8 scores on the field this year through 10 games. That's...a problem. To say nothing of the 1st downs he's left out there.

He's just been REALLY ordinary. And you continue to point to the handful of good plays he makes and you have me convinced you're just not watching a lot of football outside of KC.

A BUNCH of QBs make those plays now. Half the league can probably put together a 10-15 play reel that is as good as what Mahomes has this year. He fundamentally changed the way the position is played - and suddenly he's not playing it that way.

Oversimplification. Yes, he's had some ordinary games.

He's had several games that flied in stark contrast to that narrative.

He's 7th in QBR, not 17th.

People want to point the finger at Nagy and the playcalling but the fact is the personnel has been changing, the OL has struggled recently and the weapons aren’t there.

One of the biggest problems I’m seeing on offense is RB. We never replaced McKinnon. He was such a dynamic receiving weapon for us. 9 receiving TD’s in 2022 was a big reason we were successful. 4 last year in only 12 games.

Guess how many receiving TD’s we have from a RB this year? 1. That’s literally it. It’s non-existent. Perine is the closest thing we have to McKinnon.

They need to start having Mecole line up in the backfield and get some designed passes to the flat to stretch the LB’s and utilize speed there.

Toney was awful but he did provide that piece of the offense to us at times last year. We just don’t have it right now and it’s a major major problem.

Perine had 50 receptions for 455 yards last year with the broncos. This season he has 174 so far on pace for 296.

That makes zero sense. We could kill 2 birds with one stone using him more. We would get a lot more production from our passing game and most importantly, if you run a few RB screens behind the pass rush, it forces the pass rushers to be less aggressive which helps out the line and in turn allows you to run longer developing downfield plays.

It's the kind of stuff that makes me want to accept the "they're saving things for the playoffs" cope. But...who the **** saves RB screens lol.

Not to mention Hunt isn't exactly chopped liver out of the backfield either. Well, when he's not getting mashed into the LOS 20+ times a game.

He also had 238 yards rushing on 4.5ypc. Meanwhile this year he has 33 less rushing attempts than Carson Steele LMAO Someone make it make sense.

Can't.

We've wildly underutilized Perine. Watching Steele blow a blitz pickup every single game is just driving me completely insane.

I am not going to argue with you guys. Idk why the hell they put Steele out there bc he provides nothing.

Perine is the best all around back we have right now. Excellent blocker, capable runner and really solid receiving threat.

It makes me sick seeing Steele out there instead of him

Yeah, I don't get the Steele thing at this point. Just put Perine out there.

Yeah, I'm really not understanding why they completely shift away from Worthy the rest of the game after he makes a mistake but that dude keeps getting chances. Neat story, it's cute that he has a pet crocodile and all that jazz, but he's just a massive liability on the field. My hope is Thornton was brought in to replace Steele as a returner once Pacheco gets back and he's no longer needed.

Andy used Toney in that RB role and it worked out fairly well. He’s used Hardman there in the past.

Need to do that again. Hell Sean Payton is doing that in Denver with Marvin Mims and it’s working.

They need speed at the RB spot for those passes in the flat. They aren’t making the first guy miss very often anymore.