KC Chiefs fans reminded to be patient with new-look roster

The K.C. Chiefs laid an absolute egg on Sunday when they lost on the road to the Indianapolis Colts 20-17 in an ugly, low-scoring affair. Almost no one picked the Colts to win as they got clobbered by the Jacksonville Jaguars the week prior and were 0-1-1 coming into the game. The Chiefs were 2-0 with impressive wins over the Arizona Cardinals and division rival Los Angeles Chargers.

There wasn’t even much to like about the Colts in this game. Quarterback Matt Ryan looked like a shell of his former self so far this season, star linebacker Shaquille Leonard was out due to injury, and Patrick Mahomes had a history of absolutely dicing up Indianapolis defensive coordinator Gus Bradley’s units.

So, with all that being said, how on earth did the Chiefs lose this game? What went wrong? Is this game a reason to panic?

The K.C. Chiefs reminded fans to be patient by laying an absolute egg on Sunday when they lost on the road to the Indianapolis Colts, 20-17.

First of all, the Chiefs have had this early season stinker quite a few times in recent history. In fact, they had a similar one the same year they won the Super Bowl in 2019, also to the Indianapolis Colts, where they just couldn’t get anything going. It’s not the end of the world that they lost this game. It’s a bad loss that shouldn’t happen, but there will be better days.

Let’s also remember that this time last year, the Chiefs had one of the worst defenses in NFL history through five weeks to go with a losing record and still went on to make the AFC Championship game. If they can come back from that, they almost certainly can come back from whatever the heck happened on Sunday.

If anything, Sunday’s game was a reminder that we probably need to be a little bit more patient with a new-look Chiefs team that is still figuring things out. The Chiefs roster went through a lot of turnover this offseason and got younger at several positions. They cycled out old faces and invested heavily through the draft. There are going to be lumps taken as rookies will make rookie mistakes and new faces are still getting acclimated. The youth movement always meant that there was going to have to be some sort of margin for error. Otherwise, fans were being unrealistic.

For example, Skyy Moore fumbling the opening kickoff was a classic rookie moment and a mistake he knows he can’t make. However, Moore didn’t return kicks in college and is learning on the fly. The hope is he can learn from it and move on. Much like the entire team after that loss.

Additionally, Mahomes and the offense looked out of sync and some of the blame can be put on the receivers, who seemed to have trouble getting open enough for Mahomes to get rid of the ball in a timely manner. This is a mostly new receiver group that has only played three games together and Mahomes still has to get comfortable with them.

In the end, it was disappointing, yet the Chiefs will be fine. There are things to be optimistic about such as the defensive performance through three weeks which doesn’t appear to be a fluke. We’ve seen this offense operate at a high level already this season and half the special teams problems from Sunday can be solved by Harrison Butker getting healthy. Kansas City will regroup and bounce back at some point and there isn’t any indication that anything from Sunday’s loss will be a long-term issue.