The Kansas City Chiefs suffered yet another brutal loss, falling to the Las Vegas Raiders 20-14 at Arrowhead Stadium on Christmas Day.
In spite of the listless offensive effort, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes remains hopeful.
“If we clean it up, we’ll be able to score points,” Mahomes said, via Adam Teicher of ESPN. “It’s just [that] we’ve got to clean it up. We’re two games left. You have to do it and if we don’t, we’ll be going home. If we clean it up, we can beat anybody. I truly believe that, but we got to prove that we can do it.”
Mahomes went 27-for-44 with 235 yards, a touchdown and an interception in what was just his latest in a run of mediocre performances this season.
In spite of Kansas City’s consistent offensive struggles, Mahomes thinks the team can turn things around.
“You see glimpses of us moving the football, you see glimpses of us scoring in the red zone,” he said. “It’s just we haven’t consistently done it enough game in and game out at this end of the season. We kind of had one good game, one bad game, one good game, one bad game, but we have to be more consistent because when you get to the playoffs you have to string some together.”
The Chiefs amassed just 308 yards of total offense on the afternoon and went just 5-for-16 on third downs. It also marked the seventh time this season that Mahomes and Co. finished with less than 20 points. Kansas City entered the game averaging just 22.8 points per game, which was well below its 2022 average of 29.2 points per contest—which led the NFL.
On the season overall, Mahomes has thrown for 3,938 yards, 26 touchdowns and a career-worst 14 interceptions while completing 66.9 percent of his passes.
The Chiefs fell to 9-6 with their loss to the Raiders. Not only did they miss out on a chance to clinch the AFC West division title, but they now also have no chance of finishing with the No. 1 seed in the conference, meaning they will not have home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
Kansas City will host the Cincinnati Bengals next weekend before heading on the road to battle the Los Angeles Chargers to wrap up the regular season.
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