These Power Rankings Included A Sharp Comment About Chiefs Without Mahomes

We’re all still coming to terms with just how bad the Kansas City Chiefs were without quarterback Patrick Mahomes, and the subject is getting some serious attention.

One of the most extreme takes on this comes from the final power rankings of Pro Football Talk for the season, which had the Chiefs ranked 25th and also included the following statement:

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“Without Patrick Mahomes, they may not have won a single game.”

Is it worth taking seriously? Absolutely. Mike Florio and company might specialize in occasional snark, but when they do sohot from the hip they usually have a foundation for it.

Start with the New York Giants game. That was a defensive win, 22-9, as the Chiefs shut down quarterback Russell Wilson in what would be one of Wilson’s final starts for the Giants. The Chiefs probably would have won that game with a backup, but it would have been close—assuming the Chiefs had a backup, which raises one of the biggest hidden flaws of this season.

Kansas City didn’t have a competent backup ready, and that turned out to be a big deal in the last quarter of the season. Quarterback Gardner Minshew showed that when he took the field after Mahomes went down against the Houston Texans. He could barely get the team to the line of scrimmage without incurring a penalty before he threw the interception that effectively ended the Chiefs season.

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As for the Kansas City’s other wins, you can make a case that most or all of them are losses without Mahomes. That’s especially true of the two games against the Las Vegas Raiders—the first was a dominant, wire-to-wire31-0 shutout, but the second was the mess the Chiefs put on the field on Sunday, which was borderline unwatchable.

On the whole, though, the loss to the Tennessee Titans was perhaps the most disappointing loss of the Chiefs season. That was when the Chiefs unofficially folded their tents, even if they managed to keep their Christmas night game against the Denver Broncos competitive.

So what’s the lesson here? Simple—the Chiefs can’t be a one-man team any more. They got away with it last year because of two things: (1) Mahomes’ magical ability to pull wins out of thin air (2) football luck.

This year Kansas City’s football luck an out, thoroughly and completely, and now they’re facing a roster overhaul and a change of identity where the complementary talent matters as much as the main star.