Chiefs learn adjustments needed
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — “We’ll see them again.”
The familiar refrain came from the lips of numerous Chiefs players after Sunday night’s 43-40 loss to the Patriots. They had measured themselves against the team long regarded as the gold standard of the AFC and league as a whole, but they came up short by a narrow margin. Tom Brady drove his team nearly the length of the field in the final three minutes to set up a winning field goal as time expired.
But the Chiefs believed they could have won. And because the loss did nothing to shake their expectations of a deep postseason run, they predicted a January rematch with New England.
But that’s when seasoned veteran cornerback Orlando Scandrick made an amendment to the statement.
“No,” he said, surrounded by reporters while sitting in front of his locker. “If we handle our business the way we’re supposed to handle our business, then it’s a good chance that we’ll see them
again. Not looking past anybody else. We need to go in tomorrow, watch it, go in Tuesday, watch it as a team, take our medicine, and then learn off the things we did mistake-wise.”
Scandrick also offered, “We’ve just got to look ourselves in the mirror. This team has great character. One of the best groups I’ve been around in my whole 11-year career. We’ll be fine. I’m not worried about it at all.”
Even in defeat, the Chiefs confirmed their status as one of the NFL’s best teams. Though their 5-0 start was spoiled, the players were provided lessons that, if heeded, will give them a chance to compete for a title this year.
“Any win, any loss is always going to teach you, but especially this one,” cornerback Kendall Fuller told USA TODAY. “We need to learn from this, put it behind us, but still remember to do better the next time we’re out on the field.”
But Scandrick also is right in noting any talk of reaching the Super Bowl or a rematch with New England can’t dominate the locker room conversation.
Rebounding this week against the visiting Bengals, one of the other formidable AFC teams, will be key. A victory will help demonstrate this season won’t unfold like last year, when the Chiefs opened with a 5-0 record but lost six of their next seven games and collapsed late in a wild-card loss to the Titans.
Players insist this year’s team has better fortitude and the offense is more explosive than the previous version.
The Chiefs could be right. But if the coaches and players don’t address several key shortcomings, this team will not reach its full potential.
Perhaps the greatest concern centers on the struggles to stop the run and cover receivers out of the backfield. The Chiefs rank last in the league in total yards given up (468.2 per game) and second worst in rushing yards allowed per carry (5.4).
Through the first five games of the season, Kansas City managed to overcome these deficiencies thanks largely to the ease with which the Patrick Mahomes-led offense scores. But once matched against another elite attack, the Chiefs had their warts exposed in full. The Patriots racked up 31 first downs, converted on 7 of 13 third downs and averaged 4.6 yards per rushing attempt. New England also held a twelveminute advantage in time of possession and never punted.
The absences of injured linebacker Justin Houston and safety Eric Berry has hurt. But Scandrick and his teammates decline to use that as an excuse.
“Injuries is part of the game,” Scandrick said. “We get paid to do a job, and we’ve got to do it.”
The Chiefs’ defensive problem is one of execution rather than scheme. Players agree that effort, focus and intensity too often have been lacking. Left unaddressed, these issues will wind up negating many of Mahomes’ heroics.
After tying the score at 40 with 3:03 left with a 75-yard strike to Tyreek Hill, Mahomes and the offense needed a stop from the defense. But Brady and the Patriots instead moved downfield with little resistance, and the Chiefs didn’t get another chance to score.
Six games into Mahomes’ first season as the starting quarterback, he has helped make Kansas City’s offense the league’s second-highest scoring outfit at 35.8 points per game. However, Sunday night showed that Mahomes still must do better under pressure.
At times, Mahomes “got a little too greedy,” as he put it, while trying to force passes into tight coverages. On a few occasions, he lost sight of defenders who went on to make crucial plays, including on an interception by Patriots linebacker Dont’a Hightower. Such mistakes can be expected given Mahomes’ inexperience, and even veteran passers commit these transgressions.
But improvement in these areas will make an already dynamic offense become even harder to stop. During the first half, Mahomes’ missteps kept his team in a hole, but adjustments made by the quarterback and his coaches sparked a comeback that nearly resulted in a victory. With no do-over, though, the focus for Mahomes and Co. now centers on growth.
“As a competitor, you want to win every single week, but you learn from everything in this league,” Mahomes said at the podium Sunday night. “You’re not going to win every single game. And so, for us, we’re going to take the things that we did in that second half to kind of get us back into it and kind of keep that stuff going as the season goes on.”
That’s the perfect response.