Chiefs: Patrick Mahomes takes accountability for near disaster vs. Broncos

Patrick Mahomes was quick to credit his Kansas City Chiefs teammates after a Week 14 scare vs. the AFC West rival Denver Broncos.

The Kansas City Chiefs nearly let one slip away to the Denver Broncos, thanks in large part to Patrick Mahomes’ questionable decision-making.

While a win is a win is a win, the Chiefs have to get this cleaned up. Mahomes may have thrown for 352 yards and three touchdowns in Kansas City’s 34-28 road victory over the Broncos, but he also threw three picks to let Denver back in this thing. Kansas City may have improved to 10-3 on the season, but the Broncos became the antithesis of that at a disastrous 3-10 on the campaign.

The good thing is Mahomes knows he must be better and is grateful his teammates have his back.

Patrick Mahomes lifted up by Kansas City Chiefs teammates vs. Denver Broncos

Look. These sort of games happen all the time in the NFL. Rivalry games are always played at a faster speed because of the inherent familiarity between both teams. The home dog might have a little more fight in them than one would expect. However, the better teams in the league figure out how to win ones like this, even if they played with their food for the better part of the game.

For Andy Reid and his staff, this is exactly what you want: A win coupled with plenty of things to clean up after film study. We all know that the Chiefs are a serious Super Bowl contender out of the AFC, possibly the favorite to get to the Valley of the Sun. However, Mahomes knows he cannot play like this if the Chiefs were to meet the Buffalo Bills or the Cincinnati Bengals in late January.

Overall, for a team that rarely deals with in-season adversity, this was a pretty good rep for that for the Chiefs here. There will be things they can take away from this game and apply them to the postseason. Unfortunately, there may not be a next time if Mahomes plays this carelessly with the football, as teams like the Bengals, Bills or whoever they may face in the playoffs could capitalize.

Kansas City is totally inside of the Super Bowl bubble, but Mahomes’ reckless play cannot burst it.