Patrick Mahomes didn’t look like Patrick Mahomes. Above all: He didn’t play like Patrick Mahomes.
The Kansas City Chiefs quarterback has never thrown the ball through the air as miserably as he did in the duel with the Buffalo Bills and their MVP Josh Allen since he came to the National Football League (NFL) in 2018. 34 throws, only 15 of them arrived, a pass rate of 44.1 percent – was that Patrick Mahomes?
“I missed a few open people,” Mahomes stated after the 21:28 at the Bills, the first defeat after three wins and the fourth defeat in nine games. He had high praise for Buffalo’s aggressive defense: “Compliments. They really had a good plan.” Mahomes was sacked three times and failed to score a touchdown for the first time since October 2024.
The road to the Super Bowl is getting longer and longer
As unusually poor as Mahomes’ performance was, he and the Chiefs are now in a bad position in the fight to reach the Super Bowl again. With a record of 5:4, Kansas City is only third in the AFC West behind the Denver Broncos (7:2) and the Los Angeles Chargers (6:3).
“There are a lot of good teams in our division that are playing really good football right now,” Mahomes said.
The path to the playoffs will therefore not be any easier. After a weekend without games, we first go to Denver, then the Indianapolis Colts (7:2) and the Chargers in mid-December. In between, there is, among other things, the duel with the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving.
“There is no easy game ahead of us,” Mahomes said, “the question is: How do we deal with this type of setback?” The “close” games, he noted, “aren’t working for us at the moment.”
There is still praise from the opponent
The Chiefs have been in the Super Bowl five times in the past six years and won three times (2020, 2023, 2024).
“They are the measure of all things when it comes to how you want to build a franchise,” said Buffalo quarterback Allen. But now the crisis of the Chiefs, who have long been plagued by injuries, could be an opportunity for the Bills to finally get into the Super Bowl themselves.
The Bills would probably like nothing more than not to face Kansas City in the playoffs this time: In the “regular season” they won against the Chiefs for the fifth time in a row – but on the way to the Super Bowl they failed against them four times in the last five years, most recently in the semifinals last season. Then Mahomes was still Mahomes.
