Mahomes-Kelce magic has vanished and the Chiefs are paying the price

It's fitting that Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans ended the way it did for the Kansas City Chiefs. In a season that has been defined by miscues, missed opportunities, and underperformance, the Chiefs still had a chance to write their own destiny. But something has been off.

What could have been a season-saving drive late in the fourth quarter instead ended with a crippling interception, a turnover that could well signify the end of one of the greatest runs in the modern history of the NFL.

With the Chiefs trailing by seven and under four minutes to go in the fourth quarter, a pass from Patrick Mahomes to Travis Kelce was bobbled and picked, sealing the game and all but extinguishing Kansas City’s playoff hopes.

It's an appropriate ending because it highlighted the single thing I think the Chiefs have missed most this season—something that just hasn’t been there, that Kansas City hasn’t been able to get by without.

The connection between Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes fueled a Kansas City Chiefs dynasty but the magic isn't there in 2025.

The Mahomes to Kelce connection. It simply hasn’t been there. And to me, that has been the biggest missing piece for the Chiefs this season. Not the lack of an under-center or explosive run game, not the absence of a four-man rush, not the few and far between deep balls, and not the unreliable special teams unit—but the inability of Mahomes and Kelce to connect when it has mattered most.

Mahomes-to-Kelce has been the ultimate trump card in the NFL for a decade. It has been the defining feature of Kansas City’s offense, and it’s been practically unstoppable. Their success led to the Chiefs trading away the best wide receiver they’ve ever had and made them better at the same time. It’s a link that was the backbone of Kansas City’s three Super Bowl championships and its run to seven consecutive AFC title games.

Kelce has been Mahomes’ main target, his safety blanket, his biggest mismatch for opposing defenses, and his best creator as well.

Nobody in the NFL has been able to improvise like these two. They seemingly have a telepathic ability to know what the other is thinking when a play unfolds, and an incredible knack for connecting and making plays as a result.

And whenever the Chiefs have needed a play when it matters most, Mahomes-to-Kelce has almost always paid off. But this year, it hasn’t.

Sunday’s interception was the third time this season a pass from Mahomes to Kelce has been bobbled and picked, and the second that you could legitimately say played a large role in Kansas City losing the game.

The first back-breaking interception came in the red zone late in the game against Philadelphia in Week 2, while the other mishandled catch-turned-pick happened against Washington in Week 8.

All three plays were just a little bit off, with disastrous consequences. The ball is slightly off target, Kelce can’t make a play he should, the ball is tipped up, and it falls perfectly into the arms of a nearby defender.

It’s a mix of poor execution and bad luck, a combination we’ve almost never seen Kelce and Mahomes hindered by. Dropped passes have been a theme for Kelce, even when they haven’t ended in interceptions. He has five drops this season, according to Pro Football Reference, which is the most of any Chief. His dropped-pass rate is 6.0 percent, which is the second-highest on the team behind Tyquan Thornton (three drops, 8.8 percent) and the second-highest mark of Kelce’s career.

The production has been there, too. Kelce is leading the team in receiving with 727 yards, 200 more than KC’s next-best receiver, and he’s tied for the most touchdown catches as well, with five. But crucially, it is the magic that has been missing, and the mistakes that have been all too common.

Could age have something to do with it? Quite possibly. Kelce is 36, and he has looked to be slowing down, both physically and in terms of his production. Kelce got outmuscled by Houston’s defense on Sunday. Safety Jalen Pitre and cornerback Kamari Lassiter worked him over, as was evident by Kelce’s pleas for multiple holding and pass interference flags. The physicality worked. Kelce had just one catch for eight yards on five targets, with his 1.6 yards per target the third-lowest rate of his entire 213-game, 13-year career.

Maybe it isn't age. Maybe it’s just a lack of focus, a lack of hunger, or just plain old bad luck. Whatever the reason, it all came to a head on what was KC’s final drive to save the game.

It was the interception late in the fourth quarter that killed Kansas City’s final chance of a comeback, but the play immediately before the pick provided another example of how that magical connection just hasn’t been there.

With Mahomes under pressure on the opening play, he tried to find Kelce, who was sitting open in a soft spot five yards deep over the middle of the field. The throw was a touch low and a touch wide, and it slipped through Kelce’s arms, incomplete. “They (Kelce and Mahomes) don’t miss this throw,” Cris Collinsworth said on the broadcast after the incompletion. “Between the two of them, you could probably find one in a thousand [that they have missed].”

In the past, that may well have been the case. But this year, it has felt like the Mahomes-to-Kelce connection has been far less reliable than that, and the spark on offense that always seemed to be there just … isn’t.

The Mahomes-to-Kelce connection has saved the Chiefs countless times before. But this season it has faltered, and so too have the Chiefs as a result. The magic just hasn’t been there.