he Kansas City Chiefs have struggled since the beginning of this season, and now face a dire path just to claw their way back into playoff contention.
But Patrick Mahomes sees through the struggles, saying he believes Kansas City is still a Super Bowl squad at their core. The Chiefs came into this season with a chance to make NFL history with a fourth straight Super Bowl appearance, and Mahomes still believes it can happen.
Patrick Mahomes Shares Lofty Prediction
After a Thanksgiving loss to the Dallas Cowboys, the Chiefs have fallen back to .500 — and down to ninth place in the AFC. Despite the struggles, Mahomes still sees a team that can reach the Super Bowl.
“I mean, our ceiling is playing in the Super Bowl,” Mahomes said after the game, via SI.com. “We’ve got all the same guys, and we added players. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to go out and do it every single week, on a week-in, week-out basis.”
The Chiefs quarterback also diagnosed one of the more obvious problems with the team, its lack of consistency week to week.
“We can beat anybody, but we’ve shown that we can lose to anybody,” he said. “So, we’ve got to be more consistent. It starts with me being consistent throughout the entire game, not in just big moments. That’s something that we have to do throughout an entire game and week-to-week. It’s not just one time.”
Chiefs Have Tough Road to the Playoffs
The Chiefs now have an almost impossible path to winning the AFC West, needing to win out and have the Broncos lose out. The team’s chances of earning a wild-card berth are more realistic, but Mahomes acknowledged that it would likely take a five-game winning streak to end the season.
“You’ve got to win every game now, and hope that’s enough,” Mahomes said. “We’re going to play a lot of good football teams coming up. If we’re going to make the playoffs, we’re going to have to win them all. That’s got to be the mindset when we step into the building when we get back.”
The Chiefs may need to start by cleaning up the unforced errors. The team had 10 penalties in Thursday’s loss to the Cowboys, the third time this season they have double-digit penalties.
Head coach Andy Reid said he disagreed with some of the calls, but knows his team needs to clean up their play.
“The guys understand we’ve got to clean up a few things,” head coach Andy Reid told reporters after the game. “We’ve got to do better as coaches — and we’ve got to do better as players. So you go back to the drawing board and you keep working; that’s what you do. We were close here, but we had too many opportunities that we gave away. You can’t be two good teams playing each other and have those things happen.”
The Chiefs now get a 10-day rest before taking the field again, playing the Houston Texans on Dec. 7.
