ClutchPoints
The Kansas City Chiefs are used to living on the edge and surviving it. This season, that aura is gone, which is why Andy Reid’s message after the crushing 22-19 loss to the Broncos was so blunt: reset and narrow the focus.
He told the locker room the only thing they can control now is showing up ready for the Colts, handling each day of preparation, and trying to claw their way back into the AFC race one week at a time.
The bigger problem is that the traits that once made Kansas City terrifying in tight games have completely flipped. As The Athletic detailed, the Chiefs were 12-0 in one-score games last season, including the playoffs, and routinely turned late deficits into wins with Patrick Mahomes at the controls.
This year, they are 0-5 in those same situations, and the numbers in “close-and-late” moments are brutal. Over 11 offensive snaps in the final five minutes of one-score games, Mahomes is just 2-of-10 for 29 yards with a sack, and a delay-of-game mixed in for good measure.
That production, a net 13 yards, sits at the bottom of the league over the last decade for that type of scenario, according to TruMedia.
The defense has its own late-game nightmare. On third and fourth downs in those same final-five-minute, one-score situations, opponents have moved the chains on six of seven attempts, converting long-yardage spots like third-and-15 and third-and-14. By defensive success rate, that’s tied for the worst “clutch” performance any unit has posted in more than two decades of tracking.
All of this is happening while long-term questions hover. In one recent ESPN mock draft, Kansas City was projected to target tight end Sadiq in the first round as Travis Kelce’s eventual successor, rather than gambling on another first-round running back.
A 6-foot-3, 245-pound matchup problem with six touchdowns on just 30 catches this season, he’s seen as the type of yards-after-catch threat who could eventually inherit much of Kelce’s route tree and red-zone workload.
For now, though, the Chiefs’ problems are less about the next tight end and more about rediscovering the poise that used to define them. Until they stop melting in the game’s biggest moments, every week will feel like a referendum on whether this dynasty is bending or finally starting to break.
The post The Chiefs were insanely clutch last season. Now they’re historically unclutch appeared first on ClutchPoints.
