How Lack of Explosive Plays Imploded Chiefs in 2025

Deep dive

“You just got to dive deep into that scheme evaluation and see what teams are seeing against us,” Mahomes said Jan. 15. “I think the one part about having so much success is teams watch a lot of film on you, and so they try to do game plans of how to combat what you do and what you've done well.

“And you saw that this year, where teams were very conscious of them, the plays that we've hit for a long time. And so, we have to find ways to counteract that, and kind of go at teams and be able to utilize that and make more explosive plays.”

Those plays the Chiefs have hit for a long time have evaporated, and that wasn’t simply a symptom of 2025. Kansas City’s offense actually began to slip significantly in 2024, despite a 15-2 record and Super Bowl berth.

Per Elias Sports Bureau (table below), the Chiefs had only 105 offensive plays of 15-or-more yards in 2024. They actually had more, 115, in 2025. The last two seasons have even fallen short of what the Chiefs did prior to Mahomes’ arrival.

Kansas City's explosive plays under Andy Reid

The power outage has come at a bad time, too. According to analyst Warren Sharp, NFL teams in 2025 combined to score touchdowns on 61 percent of drives with at least one play of 15-plus yards. That was the highest league mark this century, signaling that explosives are more important than ever.

“And if we can get back to some of that stuff,” Mahomes said last month, “as well as being consistent on a down-to-down basis, that'll be stuff that we got to continue to get better at. And I think there's minor tweaks, but at the same time, you gotta look at the entire picture and see if we can be better in every single area.

“So, we'll see where we get to after watching the film, but I'm willing to do whatever it takes in order to go out there and have success.”

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