Monday’s 20-14 loss to the Raiders saw the Chiefs offense experience the same kind of struggles that have been the dominant theme of their season and the biggest reason to doubt that they can make it to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in the last five years.
The Raiders’ two touchdowns came on turnovers by the Chiefs offense and the Kansas City offense couldn’t generate any second half points until late in the fourth quarter, so there wouldn’t seem to be much about the outing to spark belief that everything is about to come together for the defending champs. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes is not throwing in the towel, though.
Mahomes said “I still believe that we can go do what we want to do” after the game and he explained why he feels that way.
“You see glimpses of it,” Mahomes said, via Adam Teicher of ESPN.com. “You see glimpses of us moving the football, you see glimpses of us scoring in the red zone. It’s just we haven’t consistently done it enough game in and game out at this end of the season. We kind of had one good game, one bad game, one good game, one bad game, but we have to be more consistent because when you get to the playoffs you have to string some together.”
Glimpses won’t get the job done and it’s been a long time since the Chiefs have shown the kind of sustained success necessary to win in the postseason. Their track record means they can’t be totally written off, but confidence is going to remain in short supply until that changes.
