This guy put up all the NFL team's records if close game results were reversed. It is exactly what I thought, knowing the Chiefs pretty much blew out teams they beat, but it was super close in almost every loss.
Close enough that one or two stupid calls or non-calls by the officials made the difference.
This graphic just proves how many times this happened to the Chiefs over the course of the season. Any observant Chiefs fan could name just about every one of them, specifically.
Just this morning I glanced at the Cowboys-Giants game a family member had on the television, and in one play you could see how it was that the Chiefs were so terribly disfavored this year.
The Giants ran a play with both of their tackles lining up well off the line of scrimmage, pretty much where Jawaan Taylor lined up at a crucial point in the first Denver game when Kareem Hunt completed a terrific pass play to get the Chiefs right at the goal line. Nope, penalty on Taylor for not quiiiite being on the line of scrimmage to start -- play erased, we get bupkis.
Again, this is a procedure penalty officials really liked calling frequently against the Chiefs and Jawaan Taylor in particular, when otherwise I see other team's tackles in other games line up in the same place all the time.
Right then the Giants QB threw about a 20-yard pass at the sideline that was pretty much out-of-bounds, the receiver really wouldn't have been able to catch it. The commentator remarked, however, that there was some handsy activity by the defender but not enough to call a penalty. Again there really was no issue because even if he caught the ball he'd have been out-of-bounds, but still...
What's with the commentator remarking about how much or how little the jostling by a downfield player was anything that affected the pass play?
In other words, it is definitely on people's minds whether or not something is pass interference based on an official's interpretation. And oh did the officials do lots of interpreting against the Chiefs this year in that area.
I happened to catch an actually very fine take from a fan at the Arrowhead Pride site this morning. He made the case that the Chiefs entire offensive approach needs an overhaul, with the main issue defenses having figured out Patrick Mahomes, and that either the coaches need to do much better at changing things up or Patrick needs to get to a point where he is actually being his own offensive coordinator and making things happen more on his own out there on the field, or both.
Great point, I too have for the past couple of years been exasperated far too much watching Patrick just get too frustrated in the pocket and always have to bail too soon and just... phfthxxthpffssssss...
I thought, huh, this guy at Arrowhead Pride got it, huh, why didn't I see that...
But, well, I did. He said it much better, I admit, but I too feel we just need to do something about Andy Reid. The guy at Arrowhead Pride mentioned he should "reapply" for the job, and I do agree something dramatic like that needs to happen. Either he fixes things on his own, or the team has a firm word with him about it, or we just move on with someone else. Just tinkering with a few coaching changes or doing a bit of finger-wagging won't do it.
The problem is I'm still seeing very little from enough people about the real problem, the NFLers simply working against us. That graphic says a ton, I think. The Arrowhead Pride guy and too many others feel that we were "found out" this year and last year "we got lucky." No, the veritable truth is this is indeed a very good team that deserved everything they got last year (another trip to the Super Bowl) and should have at least made the playoffs this year but got extraordinarily hosed by the Scorecasting-proven debilitating officiating.
Do we need improvement in certain areas? Of course! Could we do much more from our game-planning and play-making and just plain coaching excellence? No question! But again, for the umpteenth time, every team racks their minds about these things, and it is always good to have the conversation -- spring season quarterbacking is always a robustly invigorating endeavor.
How about having the conversation about what is really going on in the NFL?
In the meantime, I'm just going to add my take about this last game against the Raiders here in this post a bit later. If we lose we could get as high as an 8th pick in the 2026 draft, I'm told. If we win we may drop to 12th or so. I'm not hoping we lose just to get four picks higher, really. It just doesn't matter. The draft can be such a crapshoot, if Brett just gets the best available player at 12 or 13 we'll be good.
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Nkay. Game take. Just notes is all, really, tough to do in yet another horrific loss as pointless as any of it is anyway.
1. All kudos to Chris Oladokun for his efforts, but his two fumbles in the first half led to two Raiders scores. He also just couldn't get untracked -- constantly looking downfield, making short completions that didn't amount to enough, wandering around back there too often... much of that is on the coaching, again, but to their credit you just can't get it done in the NFL without the guns you need on the field.
2. People need to stop the constant dissing of our special teams. Our punter Matt Araiza is terrific, and he played great today. Harrison Butker hit all four of his field goals and is still rails. Coverage was fine, though again we got flagged for something, yet again, on a return.
3. We played Brashard Smith a lot and he ran well enough, but the offensive scheme is just not there (see fuller analysis above). When it is he'll be pretty good.
4. Our passing game was trash today, but then again we played our 4th string quarterback Shane Beuchele in the 2nd half and he did not do well. He got sacked in the end zone for a very unfortunate safety, which in the score was really the difference in the game. He just looked lost out there, even though he had that one terrific throw late to Hollywood which got us into ersatz game-winning field goal range. Again, if you don't have the guns you won't win. Anyone realize how valuable Patrick is yet? I know that is very much a rhetorical question, but it is still extraordinarily meaningful.
5. Our defense played great, people like Nohl Williams come to mind -- it'll be nice to see what he does for us in the coming years. But then, Williams had an interception dropped, and that was typical of this team this year -- a dropped pick here, and missed fumble recovery there, and each of those individual refusals to take advantage of opponents' gifts make a difference in a close game.
6. The defense bent just a little too much when the Raiders had only a minute left with no time-outs, and had to go at least half the length of the field to get a game-winning field goal. They did. Their tight end made a great play to get big yardage, enough to get them in position for their excellent kicker to bang through a, yes, 60-yarder to win it. Yet another wicked picture of this Chiefs season in one single ugly play.
7. And the only saving grace in this putridity, our first-round draft spot in April. It is... wait for it...
Ninth.
So there you go. Thuh end, 2025. If I do another post, great, if not, I may see you in April, or even as far out as August for something of a preview or September for our first game of the 2026. The main question, will Patrick be ready to go by then? We'll see!
Otherwise, the main underlying question we can only answer as the season progresses, will we have a good enough team to overcome any more NFLer adversity, and if that adversity is still plainly there on the field will there be anyone who'll finally pay attention? We'll see about that too! In the meantime...
Go Brett and the Chiefs!
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