An inauspicious start to the Kansas City Chiefs’ season has fans, players, and coaches alike reeling following two tough losses in the team’s first three games. Aspirations for a third consecutive Super Bowl appearance have taken a back seat to basic football tactics, and a need for vast improvement to even make the playoffs. While the Chiefs’ offense still packs a potent punch, they’ve taken a bit of a step back from previous seasons, and the defense has been a major liability to start the season.’
MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes is doing his best as the team’s primary leader to get Kansas City turned in the right direction, and spoke to reporters ahead of Wednesday’s practice about the process of getting back in the groove after losses to the Baltimore Ravens and Los Angeles Chargers. Asked about the sense of urgency in the Chiefs’ locker room, Mahomes left no doubt that the team is bought in as ever, and committed to figuring out how to get back to winning as quickly as possible.
“I think it’s kind of understood,” Mahomes said of the team’s need to get back on track. “Obviously, we talk about being great every single day. We talk about trying to have the best day at practice, but we’re not used to losing here. So, whenever we lose a couple of games, we don’t like that feeling. So, we have to do whatever we can to be better because we’re going to get great games out of every team we play on this schedule, and if we want to end the season where we want to end the season, we have to have that urgency every single day to make ourselves better.”
While it’s certainly less than ideal for the Chiefs to be where they are at this point in September, not January. Mahomes looks to maximize his opportunity to prove the doubters wrong, a situation he hasn’t found himself in at this juncture in any of his time as a professional.
“As I’ve kind of sat back and thought about it, it’s exciting,” Mahomes explained. “Now you know you have to go. There’s no kind of we’re going to try to get through and find a way to the playoffs. Now we’ve put our back against the wall, so how are we going to respond. I think this is where you’ll get the best out of everybody, you’ll get the best out of every person in this locker room because you know that it’s time to go now. Every game matters if we want to do what we want to do. I’m excited to see how these guys respond and myself included.”
Being in a tough spot early in the season, Mahomes is staying relentlessly positive. Speaking of the situation the team has found itself in heading into week four, he intimated that the Chiefs’ winning mentality has Kansas City primed for a comeback and that the locker room is ready to get back to where they want to be.
“We’ve kind of dug ourselves a hole,” Mahomes said. “We’ve lost these games we don’t usually lose until later in the season. It’s my first time coming out kind of getting out of September or right at the end of it and not having a winning record so it’s about how we respond. That comes with every single day and how we practice, it comes with how we study the film and at the end of the day it’s how we play on Sundays, so I’m for the challenge and I know the guys in the locker room are excited as well.
With the right perspective and 14 games left on their schedule, the Chiefs shouldn’t be counted out just yet in spite of the rough performances turned out against Baltimore and Los Angeles. It’s a long season, still in its infancy, and if Kansas City can find its rhythm, who knows what could happen. They’ll try again in Philadelphia this week, as 7.5-point favorites over a 1-2 Eagles team. The outlook for the team could change drastically should they improve to .500 before they reach the meat of their schedule.
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