Five changes the Chiefs need to make in the second half of the season
It’s been a bizarre first half of the season. Between injuries, suspensions, absences, bad luck, and untimely mistakes, the Chiefs are in an uphill battle to not just position themselves well in the playoffs but position themselves at all.
Thanksgiving is two weeks away, and if the season ended today, they wouldn’t be in the end-of-season tournament. They have a lot of work today to defend their nine-season streak as AFC West Champions and climb the seeding in the AFC side of the playoff bracket.
Some things that happened to the Chiefs were certainly fluky. Not having key pieces of the offense at different times also hurt them. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that need to be fixed in the back half of the season if they want to reach their goals.
Here are five things that need to improve if the Chiefs are to improve their stance in the AFC.
Protect the football in the red zone
How much different does this season look right now for the Chiefs if they simply avoid colossally bad turnovers in the red zone?
The Chiefs had two major goal-line blunders that swung games in the opponent’s favor in the first half of the season.
Against the Eagles, it was a missed connection between two Hall of Famers — Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce — that took a touchdown away from the Chiefs that would have given them a fourth-quarter lead. The Eagles took advantage of a short field to ice the game.
Against the Jaguars (which looks like a worse loss every week), Mahomes made an uncharacteristic mistake at the goal line — throwing the ball right to dropping linebacker Devin Lloyd for a game-swinging pick-six.
Those two plays are keeping the Chiefs from contention for the one seed. It will be an uphill battle to achieve that feat after these two plays.
If the Chiefs are going to right the ship offensively, they must avoid catastrophic plays like these.
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