KC Chiefs vs. Chargers recap: Important lessons learned in Week 15

Mahomes is magic and mortal

Against a solid team like the Chargers, it was both thrilling and disheartening to see Patrick Mahomes look so good at times and bad at others.

There were some throws on Thursday night that featured more of the heroics we’ve come to expect week after week from Mahomes. There were deep throws with such excellent touch to Tyreek Hill. There were beautiful passes that hit multiple targets in stride. And no one would ever doubt Mahomes’ ability to put together a scoring drive on the very next opportunity given to him,

That said, there were also some real frustrations throughout the night. One of the worst throws we’ve seen from Mahomes in his time under center came at the goal line with a wide open Mecole Hardman streaking into the end zone only to have Mahomes not get a good grip on it and throw it into the ground. Shortly after that, Mahomes continued to plainly telegraph his short passes into the flats and Uchenna Nwosu finally grabbed one for an interception even after batting down a similar pass a couple drives earlier.

It’s been a scene Chiefs fans have become more familiar with this year as the highs remain high but the lows have become lower as opponents play tough, defenses adjust, and the Chiefs work through personnel changes and/or injuries. (Of course, the heroics won out in the end, so no one is unhappy here!)

Defensive starters were missed

It probably doesn’t need to be said, but let’s be real: the Chiefs dearly missed their playmakers at each level of the defense on Thursday night.

Chris Jones is the best player along the defensive front and he was out. Willie Gay is the best overall athlete at linebacker and he was out as well. L’Jarius Sneed is the team’s best cornerback and a versatile chess piece used in blitzing and he was out as well. When you add in other minor issues such as Charvarius Ward being sick and/or Chris Lammons being on IR and so forth and you have a unit that was playing with fire throughout the game.

The Chiefs defense deserves a serious hat tip for playing as well as they did against such a tough offensive team. In fact, some of those role players came up huge, whether it was Ben Niemann forcing a fumble or Mike Danna recovering it or Dan Sorensen tipping a key pass. However, it also meant the team was that much thinner, too, which showed when the unit overall was so gassed in the fourth quarter.

It was just tough timing for the Chiefs to miss those guys after coming together as such a dominant unit for the last several weeks before this pivotal matchup.