<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes knows they\u2019ve got to run the table in the final five games to have a chance at the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Kansas City Chiefs<\/a>\u00a0fell to a 6-6 record after losing to the\u00a0Dallas Cowboys<\/a>\u00a031-28 in Week 13 on Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n The Chiefs were the AFC\u2019s No. 10 seed entering the week<\/a>, 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\u2019t exactly the end of the world, but with five games left on the schedule against AFC opponents, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes knows there\u2019s no longer any room for error.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you\u2019ve just got to win every game now and hope that\u2019s enough,\u201d Mahomes told reporters. \u201cSo, I mean, we\u2019re gonna play a lot of good football teams coming up. If we\u2019re going to make the playoffs, we\u2019re going to have to win them all. And that\u2019s got to be the mindset we step into the building when we get back.\u201d<\/p>\n The Chiefs need to run the table with their five remaining opponents, and it all starts with the\u00a0Houston Texans<\/a>\u00a0in Week 14. That\u2019ll be a tough one\u00a0with the injuries they sustained in Week 13<\/a>. They have three more AFC West matchups with games against the\u00a0Los Angeles Chargers<\/a>,\u00a0Denver Broncos<\/a>, and\u00a0Las Vegas Raiders<\/a>. They\u2019ve also got a game against a struggling\u00a0Tennessee Titans<\/a>\u00a0team on the road. It\u2019s hardly an impossible schedule, but the reality is that it doesn\u2019t need to be impossible for K.C. to lose.<\/p>\n 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\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n \u201cOur ceiling is playing in the Super Bowl,\u201d Mahomes said. \u201cWe got all the same guys, we\u2019ve added players, but at the end of the day, you\u2019ve got to go out and do it on every single week on a week-in, week-out basis. We can beat anybody, but we\u2019ve shown that we can lose to anybody, and so we\u2019ve got to be more consistent. It starts with me being consistent throughout the entire game, not in just big moments. And that\u2019s something that we have to do throughout an entire game. And week to week, it\u2019s 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\u2019t, you don\u2019t come to play. And so the ceiling can be what it is, but until you put it on the football field, you won\u2019t be able to go out there and win football games.\u201d<\/p>\n The most frustrating thing about it all is that even if the Chiefs win their five remaining games to advance to 11-6, they\u2019ve lost so many games against the AFC playoff field that they don\u2019t hold tiebreakers. That\u2019s 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\u00a0Indianapolis Colts<\/a>\u00a0fall out of the AFC South lead.<\/p>\n However, in the end, the reality might be that they can\u2019t find the consistency they seak down the stretch and that 2025 is not their year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes knows they\u2019ve got to run the table in the final five games to have a chance at the playoffs. The\u00a0Kansas City Chiefs\u00a0fell … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44312,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44310\/revisions\/44312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Chiefs\u2019 playoff hopes are hanging on by a thread after Week 13 loss to Cowboys<\/h2>\n