The Kansas City Chiefs’ biggest strength has become one of their biggest weaknesses
Over two seasons, the Chiefs won 17 straight one-score games, often leaning on dramatic, final-minute heroics to secure victories. So far this season, they are 0-3 in such contests.
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From the start of the 2023 season through last January’s AFC championship game, the Kansas City Chiefs were especially elite in one particular area: winning one-score games.
In that period, the Chiefs won 17 straight games that were decided by one score. During last year’s regular season alone, Kansas City was 11-0 in games decided by eight points or less — often not pulling out a win until the final minute of the fourth quarter.
It was the Chiefs’ usual brilliance in tight moments that made Monday’s 31-28 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars extra painful. Kansas City fell to 2-3 with the defeat, and in a complete reversal from its previous dominance, fell to 0-3 this season in one-score games.
“We have the guys and we’ve executed at certain points in games and looked really good, but we crush ourselves with penalties and mistakes,” quarterback Patrick Mahomes said postgame. “We’ve done that to ourselves all season long.”
He added: “We’ve got to be better. We’ve lost too many games already.”
Mahomes has often been the reason the Chiefs have been so difficult to beat in clutch moments, engineering seven game-winning drives last season alone. On Monday, while Mahomes did lead game-tying and go-ahead drives in the fourth quarter, he also made one of the night’s most critical errors: A pick-six from inside the five-yard line that gave the Jaguars a 21-14 lead late in the third quarter.
“It was a great call by them defensively, and obviously a great play by him getting the pick,” Mahomes said. “I’ve got to find a way to tackle him or slow him down after the interception.”
The errors did not belong to the quarterback alone.
As a team, Kansas City committed a whopping 13 penalties for 109 yards compared to only four flags for Jacksonville.
The defense also had some high-profile foibles.
In the second quarter, three Chiefs players let an errant Trevor Lawrence pass go through their hands on the same play, a throw that should have been an interception.
And on the game’s decisive play in the final minute of the fourth, Lawrence fell down twice in the backfield, but somehow was able to regain his footing and scramble for a touchdown despite several Kansas City defenders in the area. (A score that was set up by a pass interference penalty on 3rd-and-13 one snap before.)
“We’ve got to finish that play,” Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones said of the Lawrence run. “It was a fluke play for him to be able to break that many tackles. I put it on us as a defense. We’ve got to finish. We’ve got to bring him down right there.”
Kansas City’s current winless streak in one-score games provides some evidence for those who felt the team’s 15-2 record last season did not accurately reflect how beatable the Chiefs really were. In 2024, Kansas City had a plus-59 point differential, 11th-best in the NFL despite being tied with the Detroit Lions for most wins.
This year, the Chiefs are getting a taste of their own medicine. Kansas City is 12th with a plus-18 point differential, which is better than four teams who each have only one loss so far this season. (The Chiefs’ three losses have come by a combined total of only 12 points.)
n they haven't found a go-to receiver as consistent as, lets face it,Tyreek Hill, to stay healthy or out of trouble under Andy Reid 
that juice been gone and front office should been realized that since last year
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