The Kansas City Chiefs deserved to lose to the Indianapolis Colts

The Kansas City Chiefs lost to Indianapolis Colts 19-13 on Sunday. This game was no fluke. The Chiefs 100% deserved to lose.

The Kansas City Chiefs entered their first primetime game of the season widely viewed as one of the best teams in all of the NFL. They responded with what can only be described as a flaming dumpster fire of a performance.

The Chiefs limped out of Arrowhead on Sunday night with their tails firmly tucked between their legs and a 19-13 loss to the Indianapolis Colts on the scoreboard. Make no mistake, this game wasn’t as close as the score indicated. Despite having the reigning MVP at quarterback, the game seemed out of reach even when K.C. was only down three points. They just didn’t look like a winning football team. Period.

All credit to the Colts. They played well, especially on defense. They deserved to win. However, it felt like the Chiefs deserved to lose more than the Colts deserved to win.

Normally, my Monday morning game reaction pieces are a little more thought through, backed up with numbers and with a rational and analytical view of what happened. Well, it’s late and I’m in no mood for that tonight. Buckle up.

Before I really get going, let me preface with the fact that the Chiefs can absolutely get right and be a Super Bowl contender this season. If they get healthy and fix a few things, I absolutely believe they can be the best team in football. They are just a LONG way from being that team right now. That disparity between what many believe they can be and what we saw on the field against the Colts is what has so many fuming right now (myself included).

Let’s go through the laundry list of issues, shall we?

The run defense is softer than a newborn kitten rolling on a pile of feathers on a cloud of marshmallows. You can tell me all day how it’s a passing league, but week in and week out, K.C.’s opponents keep the ball out of Patrick Mahomes hands as they eat up clock plowing through our defensive front. You can dream of trading for Jalen Ramsey or Patrick Peterson, but half the time, those corners would just be watching halfbacks plow through the heart of the K.C. defense.

That having been said, Bashaud Breeland was a whole special kind of awful Sunday night. Woof! He had been the Chiefs best corner through the first four games, but he was Phillip Gaines-esque bad in this one. The penalties alone were brutal. Hopefully this was just an off night for him.

Now that we’ve mentioned penalties, for a team that is supposed to be well-coached, this team commits a ton of ridiculous, unnecessary, momentum-shifting, drive-killing, make-you-want-to-smash-your-head-through-a-plate-glass-window kind of penalties every week. It’s absurd. I don’t understand how a franchise plans to win a Super Bowl when they can’t even stop shooting yourself in the foot every week.

Speaking of shooting yourself in the foot, how was there another lost fumble? After putting the ball on the ground a combined SEVEN times in the previous two games, we lost another one in this game, and INSIDE THE RED ZONE? Again, just like the penalties, that’s a mental focus issue. The Chiefs coaches have to focus on this, and the players need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

As for focus, what was going on with Travis Kelce through the first three quarters of that game? I thought time had moved us past Immature Kelce, where the tight end would get himself too worked up and start dropping balls left and right. Suddenly he’s pushing his offensive coordinator? I don’t care if he did hug it out a few seconds later. He is a veteran leader on this team. Kelce simply has to be better than that..

Did someone say “better than that”? Because that certainly applies to the offensive line which is currently a train wreck. Cam Erving looks like he’s auditioning for a job as a turnstyle at the local bus station. It’s not just a problem; it’s a disaster. The interior line isn’t much better. Right now, it’s basically Mitchell Schwartz and a bunch of practice squad players out there. They are going to get Mahomes seriously hurt if they can’t do a better job in pass protection.

The Colts also entered this game with one of the worst run defenses in the NFL. They were giving up over 130 yards per game and 5.5 yards per carry. That’s not quite on par with the Chiefs’ own horrible run defense, but it isn’t that far from it. Despite that, in a game that was within one score most of the night, the Chiefs handed the ball off to a true running back nine times. NINE.

Now you can give me all the next-gen stats about how passing is more effective than running and blah, blah, blah. When your offensive line can’t keep the pass rush off your MVP quarterback and they are just pinning their ears back and attacking down after down, you can’t mix in a few runs to keep them off balance?

Andy Reid has to share a HUGE part of this loss. The play calling stunk. Period. They completely abandoned the run against a poor run defense only to finally call a running play on fourth and one with the game on the line. That’s when they decided to run? [Gasp] I know I just got done saying they needed to establish the run more, but not when you only have one play to try and salvage this miserable game! You don’t take the ball out of Patrick Mahomes hands at that point!

It’s so incredibly stupid, I can’t even come up with anything else to say about it other than it was the perfect summation of the impotent effort they displayed in this game.

One thing that was out of the Chiefs hands that can’t be overlooked is the mountain of injuries. They were without both of their starting wide receivers and their starting left tackle for the entire game on offense. Then they lost one of their guards in the second half and Mahomes was basically hobbling around on one leg for half the night.

The defense wasn’t much better. They lost their starting linebacker Anthony Hitchens (although I’m not convinced that Ben Niemann was much of a downgrade). Then they lost both Xavier Williams and Chris Jones on the defensive line as well during the game and Alex Okafor was already out for this one. Frank Clark was out for a while too although the Chiefs somehow managed to survive without his MASSIVE production on the field (that was as close to a sarcasm font that I could find).

Those injuries are obviously taking a big toll on the Chiefs. I have a hard time imagining that the Chiefs would have only scored 13 points if they had Tyreek Hill, Sammy Watkins, and Eric Fisher. That having been said, good teams find ways to overcome those kind of things but when you have a soft defense, stupid penalties, lose fumbles, make moronic play calls at vital moments, and have a human turnstyle at left tackle that becomes pretty hard to do.

I believe in the Chiefs’ potential. I believe the product we saw on the field Sunday night was WELL short of that potential. That’s why I’m frustrated. It’s a different frustrated than the 2-14 type seasons when I was frustrated that the Chiefs were awful. They’re not awful. They’re one of the best teams in the NFL. They also aren’t playing like it right now. Now that it finally ended up costing them a game let’s hope this roster wakes up and fixes some of these things before the New England Patriots open up a lead in the AFC that’s too big to overcome.

I’m done with my rant. It’s your turn. Feel free to even rant about my rant. Just get it off your chest. It was that kind of game. Let’s get it out so we can move on to the Houston Texans. Wait, didn’t the Texans put up like 53 points this week? [Sigh.] Where’s the Tylenol?