The Kansas City Chiefs are off to an 0-2 start for the first time since Patrick Mahomes entered the NFL. It is uncharted territory for the three-time Super Bowl champion, who has never quite had this deep of a hole to dig out of. Two losses is hardly debilitating in the grand scheme of an NFL season, but it does require a team to play with a greater sense of urgency. Mahomes is embracing the challenge.
The road ahead does not get much easier with showdowns against the Baltimore Ravens and Detroit Lions on tap in the next four weeks. Getting right against a fellow 0-2 squad in the New York Giants on Sunday before entering that gauntlet is vitally important.
“Being 0-2, there’s more urgency than even last week, and I felt like we were very urgent last week,” Mahomes said. “Definitely new territory as far as being 0-2, but knowing that we’ve got the guys for it. We have the mindset of going out there and being even better. In my eyes, it’s like, what an opportunity. What an opportunity to prove who we are as the Kansas City Chiefs coming back from 0-2 and trying to build up to win a big football game on ‘Sunday Night Football’ and try to get our season going the right direction from there.”
It is hard to picture the Chiefs missing the playoffs. These are the three-time Super Bowl champion Chiefs, after all. The reigning nine-time AFC West-winning Chiefs.
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But to get back to the postseason for the 11th straight year, Kansas City has to overcome the odds. Since 1990, fewer than 13% of teams that opened the year at 0-2 reached the playoffs. A loss this week would be nearly insurmountable as 0-3 teams have just a 2.4% shot at getting into the bracket.
“Even though we’ve never been 0-2, we’ve had stretches where we’ve lost big games consecutively, and guys have responded,” Mahomes said. “It’s about the character of the guys in the locker room more than it is the play on the football field. I think that we have the guys that are going to continue to work. They’re not going to let this push them down. They’re gonna use it, if anything, as motivation to be even better.
“That gives me the most faith, and then the coaches that we have, they’ll continue to push to be even better.”
Mahomes contributed to the rough start with a couple of sub-standard passing efforts. His 58.8% completion rate through two games is eight points off his career average, and he is averaging fewer yards per attempt than in years past.