Week 11 is just about done and the Kansas City Chiefs are in big trouble. Sunday's loss to the Denver Broncos dropped the Chiefs to just 5-5 on the year, leaving them in third place in the AFC West and outside of the AFC playoff field if the season were to end today.
Things are even dicier for Kansas City since they have already lost to four teams ahead of them in the standings: Denver, Buffalo, Los Angeles and Jacksonville, with the latter looming particularly large in a wild card scenario. All of those losses have come by one possession, which is a sign that 2025 has been a far different year for Patrick Mahomes and company than 2024 ever was.
Chiefs fans can't be surprises by regression in close games
The 2024 Chiefs were the living embodiment of the Breaking Bad meme where Jesse Pinkman laments about how he can't keep getting away with it, routinely winning one score games in ways that defied logic.
Whether it was Isaiah Likely's toe landing out of bounds in Week 1 or blocking a 35-yard field goal in the final seconds against Denver, Kansas City was blessed with good fortune in close games, going 12-0 (including the postseason) in one-score affairs during the 2024 campaign.
While it is true that good teams find ways to win close games, going a perfect 12-0 in those spots is a sign of good fortune. That kind of luck usually is not sustainable from year-to-year, as evidenced by both Minnesota (2-4 in one-score games this season after going 9-1 in 2024) and Washington (0-3 this season compared to 9-4 a year ago).
Kansas City's luck turning puts an uphill battle ahead of them
Kansas City is now 0-5 in one-score games this season, which is a bit confounding since they have been relatively healthy for most of the year. While there is still time for the Chiefs to right the ship, it's not surprising that their luck in one-score games regressed to the mean after a remarkable run of good fortune in 2024.
There are seven games left on Kansas City's schedule and one can reasonably assume they will win three of them: their road games in Dallas on Thanksgiving, at Tennessee and at Las Vegas in Week 18. The other four games against potential postseason contenders come at home, beginning this week with Indianapolis, before Houston, Los Angeles and Denver visit down the stretch.
Winning the three road games and at least splitting the other four contests would get the Chiefs to 10-7, which could be good enough to reach the playoffs depending on various tiebreaker scenarios. Having said that, it's also not a guarantee that it would be good enough to earn a postseason berth, which is why their turning luck puts them in a bind to finish the season.
The big issue is that the Chiefs will need to find a way to rediscover their mojo in close games, or they could find themselves sitting at home in mid-January, which would be an unacceptable result for a year with Patrick Mahomes in his prime.