No one travels quickly in this city. Sao Paulo is a sprawling sea of concrete where the only guarantees on any given day are sunrise, sunset and terrible traffic.
The Chiefs were given a police escort as they left practice on Thursday. But 24 hours later, down on the field at Neo Quimica Arena, there was no one to clear a path. And – even by the standards of this place – Kansas City struggled to get moving.
For much of this loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, they failed to make it a few yards without stalling or their engine sputtering. If it wasn’t for the nerve and ingenuity of Patrick Mahomes, they might have broken down entirely.
Andy Reid’s team arrived here on what Isiah Pacheco called a ‘revenge tour’ – ready to right the wrongs of last season’s Super Bowl humiliation. Ready to scale the mountain once more. Four quarters later, the messages were rather more concerning.
‘It wasn’t good enough,’ Mahomes said. ‘When you don’t come out and play with the right mindset, you get beat. The Chargers came out with the right mindset. We didn’t, and they beat us… the leaders in the team have to step up.’
Head coach Reid echoed those concerns. ‘We were a little flat that first half, and that cost us,’ he said. ‘I expect more than that. I need to make sure we come out with better emotion.’
Patrick Mahomes criticized the Kansas City Chiefs after their loss to the Los Angeles Chargers
Travis Kelce and Kansas City failed to right the wrongs of last season’s Super Bowl heartache
‘It wasn’t good enough,’ quarterback Mahomes said, ‘we learned a valuable lesson today’
It’s a worrying way to start to the season. Particularly when next week, the Chiefs face the Eagles, the team that destroyed them at Super Bowl LIX. Another loss and their season could start to unravel in mid-September.
‘We’re going to have learn fast,’ Mahomes said. ‘We learned a valuable lesson today… they definitely came out with more energy than we did. And in this league, everybody’s too good for you to not match the energy of your opponent… we got to be better from the get-go.’
Against an impressive Chargers team, the Chiefs conceded 10 penalties and made costly errors on both sides of the ball. ‘Multiple times we shot ourselves in the foot,’ Chris Jones said. ‘There are some self-inflicted wounds that we can fix.’
The defensive tackle added: ‘We all made a lot of mistakes, we all contributed to the loss. And there are a lot of areas we can get better in – as a team, as individuals.’
On their run to five of the past six Super Bowls, the Chiefs have made a habit of digging themselves out of holes. And, again on Friday night, they ceded the initiative once more.
Their first three drives all ended in punts; by the time the Chargers had moved 10-0 in front, Kansas City’s offensive numbers made for grim reading: two passes completed, 28 yards in total.
It didn’t help, of course, that the Chiefs lost Xavier Worthy after just three snaps. The receiver was ruled out of the game with a shoulder injury after colliding with Travis Kelce. Beyond that, Kelce was anonymous for much of the first three quarters.
Just as he was in the Super Bowl. Kelce threatened to retire after that loss and this performance won’t do much to assuage fears that the 35-year-old is a fading force. The tight end did score a 37-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter but that was his second of two catches all night.
During the third quarter of Friday’s game, Kelce was struck in the face by LA’s Teair Tart
Mahomes dragged Kansas City back into the game but the Chargers held on for the win
Make no mistake, it was Mahomes who – once again – dragged the Chiefs back into this game. He rushed for more touchdowns (1) and more yards (57) than Pacheco and Kareem Hunt combined. At one point, he managed to fling the ball to a teammate while falling to the floor.
And it was the quarterback’s collision with Donte Jackson that sparked some life into the Chiefs. Early in the second half, during a gritty 80-yard drive, Mahomes scrambled for a first down and then dropped his shoulder on Jackson.
‘Sometimes you just got to do something to jump-start the team,’ he said afterwards. ‘And I was not in the mood to be running out of bounds. I wanted to try to do something to get us going.’
It worked – at least initially. A few plays later, Mahomes scrambled for a touchdown. ‘We kind of got going as an offense in the second half, but it takes everybody,’ he said.
Worthy will have an MRI on Saturday to determine the severity of his shoulder injury. The Chiefs are already without the suspended Rashee Rice for another five games. But one thing is certain: Mahomes is going to need more help from Kelce and the other senior players around him.
‘It’s not going to be any easier (against the Eagles),’ he said. ‘That’s a good football team that we’re playing against this next week.’ As they found out in February.
