The Chiefs were finally knocked off the mountaintop last season. But was it a small slip-up or a full-on tumble down the slope?
That’s the question facing Kansas City in 2025. The Chiefs have reached three straight Super Bowls — the first franchise to return there after winning back-to-back championships — but how they lost to Philadelphia has led many league observers to believe their dynasty may be fading.
On top of that, Rashee Rice faces a six-game suspension to start the season for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. Off the field, there was the revelation of a gunshot fired into Andy Reid’s office last year while he was in it, as first reported by The Kansas City Star. Also this offseason, Travis Kelce and global music icon Taylor Swift recently announced their engagement. Those are all potential distractions of wildly different kinds at a critical juncture for the Chiefs.
But Patrick Mahomes has reason to believe that Kansas City can reclaim the Super Bowl title. He has confidence in how the team has gone about its business heading into the regular season, which begins for the Chiefs on Friday against the division-rival Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil.
“You can just see from the OTAs and to the training camp, we have a good mix of veteran guys — kind of these young veteran guys that have been in a lot of big games — and then some young guys that are athletic and want to make their imprint,” Mahomes said last week. “And so, when you have that good mix of players like that, you have the experience, you have the athleticism, and now you have to go out there and just prove that you can win.
“And we got a lot of guys on our football team that have won a lot of games.”
Patrick Mahomes believes the Chiefs can quiet all the noise and get back to the top of the league in 2025. (Photo by David Eulitt/Getty Images)
The Chiefs’ receivers will have plenty of proving to do without Rice, who won’t be eligible to return until Week 7. The former second-round pick has been a No. 1-caliber option when he’s on the field. Since 2023, Rice’s rookie season, 67.1% of Mahomes’ passing yards have come after the catch when Rice is on the field compared to just 59.3% without him on the field, according to NFL Pro.
Rice’s absence won’t be uncharted territory for Kansas City, though. The team played its final 16 games last season, including the playoffs, without him after he suffered a season-ending injury in Week 4. Xavier Worthy, who had eight catches for 157 yards and two touchdowns in the Super Bowl loss to the Eagles, is expected to step into a larger role in his second season. Hollywood Brown, who missed the first 14 weeks of 2024 due to a shoulder injury, has had a full summer of work. Veteran JuJu Smith-Schuster is in the fold. Kansas City also has fourth-round rookie Jalen Royals (though he won’t play Week 1 due to injury). This is a deeper wide receiver room than the Chiefs have had the past couple of years.
It could help Mahomes lead a more explosive offense.
His 6.3 air yards per attempt in 2024 was third-worst in the league and lowest of his career, per NFL Pro. He had 851 passing yards on passes behind the line of scrimmage, second-most in the league. He has just five deep passing touchdowns (20-plus air yards) in his past three seasons, compared to 44 across his first four seasons as a starter.
Mahomes wants to give his receivers more chances to make contested catches this year. He believes the Chiefs have the personnel out wide and upfront to do it.
On Kansas City’s offensive line, which came under fire last season for its pass-protection woes, gone is Pro Bowl guard Joe Thuney, traded to the Chicago Bears in April. The Chiefs have 2024 second-round pick Kingsley Suamataia replacing him at left guard, while first-round rookie Josh Simmons steps in at left tackle.
“These last few years, I’d say it was abnormal not pushing the ball down the field, not being an attacking mindset,” Mahomes said. “And so, we’re trying to get back to that.”
The two-time MVP admits that the humiliating Super Bowl loss was on his mind in the offseason. He used it as extra motivation to get through the workouts he didn’t want to do. During the spring, Mahomes and his teammates talked about what happened in February. But the Chiefs, Mahomes says, are now in the moment. They’ve started over for 2025.
After using the Super Bowl loss as motivation this offseason, Mahomes says he and the Chiefs are now focused on the 2025 season. (Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images)
Mahomes is thinking about how he can be better for his teammates, how he can attack his process to help his team in that last game — and win it this time.
“I think you always have to get better. I think that’s something that people lose track of when you have success,” he said during training camp. “Obviously, we didn’t win that last game, but we had a lot of success last year. And I think sometimes people want to be stagnant and they want to go out there and just do it over again. But you see with the rest of the AFC West, the rest of the AFC and the NFL, everybody is getting better. So, we have to get better.
“We want to try and take it to a new level.”
According to Mahomes, that’s what the Chiefs must do to get back to the mountaintop.
Ben Arthur is an NFL reporter for FOX Sports. He previously worked for The Tennessean/USA TODAY Network, where he was the Titans beat writer for a year and a half. He covered the Seattle Seahawks for SeattlePI.com for three seasons (2018-20) prior to moving to Tennessee. You can follow Ben on Twitter at @benyarthur.
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