Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes knows they’ve got to run the table in the final five games to have a chance at the playoffs.
The Kansas City Chiefs fell to a 6-6 record after losing to the Dallas Cowboys 31-28 in Week 13 on Thanksgiving.
The Chiefs were the AFC’s No. 10 seed entering the week, with little room for error down the stretch to make gains in the 2025 playoff field. The Cowboys being an NFC team means this one isn’t exactly the end of the world, but with five games left on the schedule against AFC opponents, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes knows there’s no longer any room for error.
“Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you’ve just got to win every game now and hope that’s enough,” Mahomes told reporters. “So, I mean, we’re gonna play a lot of good football teams coming up. If we’re going to make the playoffs, we’re going to have to win them all. And that’s got to be the mindset we step into the building when we get back.”
The Chiefs need to run the table with their five remaining opponents, and it all starts with the Houston Texans in Week 14. That’ll be a tough one with the injuries they sustained in Week 13. They have three more AFC West matchups with games against the Los Angeles Chargers, Denver Broncos, and Las Vegas Raiders. They’ve also got a game against a struggling Tennessee Titans team on the road. It’s hardly an impossible schedule, but the reality is that it doesn’t need to be impossible for K.C. to lose.
Chiefs’ playoff hopes are hanging on by a thread after Week 13 loss to Cowboys
Had the Chiefs beaten the Cowboys in Week 13, they would have surged to a 73% chance of making the 2025 NFL playoffs. With the loss, they’ve plummeted to just a 47% chance at making the playoffs. The harsh reality is that Patrick Mahomes knows exactly the ceiling of this current team, but he also knows the floor.
“Our ceiling is playing in the Super Bowl,” Mahomes said. “We got all the same guys, we’ve added players, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to go out and do it on every single week on a week-in, week-out basis. We can beat anybody, but we’ve shown that we can lose to anybody, and so we’ve got to be more consistent. It starts with me being consistent throughout the entire game, not in just big moments. And that’s something that we have to do throughout an entire game. And week to week, it’s not just one time. And we obviously see the last week we have a big win, and then you come here and playing our good football team, and you don’t, you don’t come to play. And so the ceiling can be what it is, but until you put it on the football field, you won’t be able to go out there and win football games.”
The most frustrating thing about it all is that even if the Chiefs win their five remaining games to advance to 11-6, they’ve lost so many games against the AFC playoff field that they don’t hold tiebreakers. That’s the aspect of this that hurts the most; things are very much out of their control, even if they win the final five games. Their best hope right now is to run the table and have the Indianapolis Colts fall out of the AFC South lead.
However, in the end, the reality might be that they can’t find the consistency they seak down the stretch and that 2025 is not their year.
