KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Can the Kansas City Chiefs’ offense be fixed? That’s the question consuming the Kingdom after Monday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
By the time the Chiefs kickoff Sunday at Las Vegas, more than a month will have passed since Andy Reid’s squad last scored any second-half points.
It’s not good enough, which nobody knows better than those in the reigning Super Bowl champs’ locker room.
“We expect to win and we expect to be great offensively, defensively and (on) special teams,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “As much as everybody expects us to do it, we expect more of ourselves. I don’t think it’s anything of an expectation. We just have a standard that we want to go out and play to.”
Mahomes and company have been shut out after halftime in the last three games — a loss at Denver, against Miami in Germany and at home against Philly.
“There were some really good things,” Reid said of the offense against the Eagles, “but this second-half thing we’ve got to take care of and figure out and make sure that we fix that as coaches and players.”
During the last three games, Kansas City has committed a penalty on eight of 12 second-half drives and committed four turnovers after halftime, including punt returner Mecole Hardman Jr.’s muffed punt at the Broncos.
The Chiefs also had several drives end (or effectively end) with missed deep shots — including a throw to Skyy Moore in the end zone at Denver and a couple missed opportunities down the field to Marquez Valdes-Scantling.
“We can do better with the penalty part; we can do better attacking the ball,” Reid said. “Those are things we can work on and we’ll continue to work. That’s where we’ll start. There’s no reason you can’t do what you did in the first half in the second half."
Reid continued, “... Offensively, we’ve got to take care of the drops and the penalties. If you take care of that, which you can do, you’re going to put yourself in a good position. There are other things we’ve got to work on, but those are the primary things that have hurt us.”
On the season, the Chiefs have managed a second-half touchdown in only four of 10 games and scored in double figures only twice after halftime — wins at Jacksonville and Minnesota.
But it’s not as if opposing defenses reinvent themselves during intermission.
“Not really, no,” Reid said when asked if teams changed up their schemes in the second half. “All these things have kind of been self-inflicted. We’ve got to take care of that. If we just take care of our business there, we’ll be OK.”
Mahomes said it’s “a couple miscues here and there,” which includes not being on the same page as his receivers.
“All you can do is go back to your fundamentals,” Mahomes said. “Obviously, we had some opportunities in the second half of this last game but we didn’t execute. So, we have to go back to our fundamentals and just do those.”
Rookie Rashee Rice continues to take on a larger role with the offense, but he also has struggled at times to find soft spots in zone coverage, which leads to misfires when Mahomes expects him to sit or carry a route further to avoid a defender.
Other times, particularly on deep shots to Justin Watson and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Mahomes reads the defense or coverage one way and throws the ball anticipating a certain move from the receiver, who saw the play differently and ran a different route adjustment.
“There’s different angles on how you run these routes,” Chiefs Offensive Coordinator Matt Nagy said. “... It’s never going to be perfect, but I think when you’re getting these shots that we haven’t had over the years, when you do get an opportunity to take them and get them, you want to connect on them.”
It also might help unlock tight end Travis Kelce, who has largely been held in check during the last three games with 16 catches for only 116 yards and a touchdown during that span.
“If we hit some of these deep passes that we’re missing, it’s going to take defenses out of some of these double teams or triple teams (against Kelce),” Mahomes said. “... They’re putting themselves out there for big plays to happen. If we can connect on those, it will take teams out of putting two to three guys on them.”
It’s easy to point to the Tyreek Hill trade and its ripple effect — no longer having an elite receiver on the roster — but that ignores the fact that Kansas City won a title in its first year without him.
“I don’t think it’s too difficult,” Mahomes said. “We’ve done it in the past with a bunch of different guys. It just comes with reps. You continue to work at it; you learn from mistakes that you made throughout a game and throughout a season, and you try to be better at it the next time you step on the field. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
If there’s good news, it’s the the Chiefs are 7-3, own a two-game lead in the AFC West, sit second overall in the AFC and have a defense that’s among the best in the NFL, so there’s no panic at 1 Arrowhead Drive.
“When you lose a game, it gets magnified,” Nagy said. “When you win a game, sometimes it gets deodorized. I think we need to understand that, ‘Hey, we have good things ahead of us. Let’s just stay positive and work through this and we’ll be all right.’”
Injury report
Hardman (sprained thumb) is the only player Reid mentioned with respect to injuries.
Hardman hurt his thumb in the first half against Philadelphia on Monday night.
“We’re having it evaluated now, so we’ll see where it’s at,” Reid said.
He returned to the game at receiver, but did not return kicks after the injury.Dave Toub, Kansas City’s special teams coordinator and assistant head coach, said he never received word that Hardman was cleared to resume return duties.
Toub also praised the job Kadarius Toney did filling in for Hardman but said Toney “got banged up,” dinging his hand and foot at some point among his six returns for 58 yards.
Veteran receiver Richie James Jr. returned to the active roster from injured reserve (knee sprain), but he wasn’t active against the Eagles.
But if James suits up moving forward, expect him to handle punt-return duties.
“We would like him to be the punt returner if he’s active,” Toub said. “If he’s going to help us at all on special teams, that’s where he would have to help us.”
James also could figure into the receiver rotation if he’s active.
“Potentially, we’ll just see how things go this week,” Reid said. “We all have confidence in him that he can jump in there and play.”
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