Why Chiefs Maintaining Focus Amid Endless Playoff Scenarios

When they step on the field Sunday, amid endless playoff permutations, will their head coach care about any scoreboard other than the one in his own stadium.

“Nah,” Andy Reid responded Wednesday. “I know you need to win games. That’s what you have to do, so focus right ahead, on that (pointing gesture). I've been here before, and you bear down and you go. Try to keep all that, all that stuff -- Brett Veach, he can deal with that. He likes all that.”

The Chiefs’ general manager may not like what he sees as the team fights to keep the league’s longest active string of postseson berths. Kansas City’s playoff hopes absorbed two significant blows over the weekend, the Chiefs’ 20-10 loss to Houston on Sunday night and the Chargers’ 22-19 overtime win over Philadelphia Monday night.

A rare scenario in Kansas City

Those combined results have created the first Chiefs elimination scenario in a decade.

In order to avoid elimination, something unthinkable in Kansas City since 2015, when the team began the second-longest stretch of division titles in NFL history, they can lean on their defense.

Kansas City stormed out of the locker room at halftime on Sunday and held the Texans to minus-2 total net yards in the third quarter, and held C.J. Stroud to 0-for-8 passing.

“Yeah, we're gonna need it at noon on Sunday,” linebacker Drue Tranquill said. “And we're gonna have to keep bringing it and in all three phases. And so, we have to, at this point, or it'll be over for us.”

Mahomes said he’ll fight to the bitter end, and believes his teammates will fight with him – especially after a rash of uncharacteristic drops the last two games.

“I think just knowing the guys,” he said Wednesday, “the mindset that they have is they're going to try to get better and try to go out there and win football games. And that, at the end of the day, that's what we got to do.

“It's everybody. It's throwing the ball in the right spot, just catching the ball, it's blocking, it’s defense playing like they did this last game, and then just trying to find ways to win. That's what this is all about. So, it don't always have to be pretty, but you got to find ways to win football games, and that's something we have to be better at.”

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