Are the Super Bowl Champions Any Good? Is the best quarterback in the NFL still the best? Is one of the only two undefeated teams in the league a contender? Strange questions and strange times for the Kansas City Chiefs. More of these will follow.

Andy Reid’s back-to-back defending champions start the season a perfect 4-0 and are looking to achieve the impossible by becoming the first team ever to win three Super Bowls in a row. And yet something is wrong.

They defeated a Baltimore Ravens team that torched $60 million player Dak Prescott’s Dallas Cowboys and MVP contender Josh Allen’s Buffalo Bills, they fended off Joe Burrow’s ever-dangerous Cincinnati Bengals, they did the Atlanta Falcons and their Kirk Cousins-fueled championship ambitions, and just overcame a 10-point deficit and an injury to their star weapon to frustrate Justin Herbert’s Los Angeles Chargers.

This gives them a 10-game winning streak dating back to last season (including the playoffs) and a +61 point margin – which is the smallest 10-game winning streak in NFL history . The Chiefs have now also won seven straight games by seven points or fewer, tying the longest such streak in history with the 2020 Chiefs and the 1996 Jacksonville Jaguars.

For all the Patriots-like inevitability they’ve displayed as close-quarters assassins, there’s a storm on the horizon. If they manage to score a game-changing third successive goal, it will go down as their most impressive result yet. (Yes, we said that last year too!).

At the heart of the success of the Chiefs dynasty was continuous development. Mahomes and Reid were forced to dominate the deep-ball explosion while the defensive coordinators retreated into drop-two coverages and challenged them to build patient attacks with short throws under and through the running game. Check. The script then had to be flipped as Steve Spagnuolo’s defense, draped in layers of disguise, became the focal point of a Chiefs team previously propelled by its Red Arrow offense en route to another Super Bowl title . Check.

In the 2024 season, the latter will be seen again to an even greater extent as Spagnuolo’s unit continues to cloud the field with rotating coverages and personnel changes in their defensive front, which sets the pace and determines the heartbeat of the champions. But how long can they continue to compensate for a sputtering Chiefs offense?

Reid’s offense had its worst start in EPA/Play (rbsdm’s advanced metric for down-to-down efficiency) and dropback EPA in the last four weeks since Patrick Mahomes took over as the full-time starter in 2018, while also posting its second- worst success rate behind only last season. The Chiefs rank 14th in total yards, 11th in passing, 15th in rushing and 14th in scoring, while boasting the third-worst turnover differential in the league and turning the ball over in just 53, Passing on 6 percent of plays (the lowest in the Mahomes era). ).

Mahomes himself is off to his worst start in terms of efficiency in four weeks, posting career lows in EPA+CPOE combined (expected points added combined with completion percentage above expected), EPA/game, yards per game, touchdown-interception ratio and passer rating. He also ranks last in the league with an average depth of target of 5.4 yards, a reflection of what the Chiefs have become.

Admittedly, they’re not the only offense to stumble in the first month, as passing yards averaged a significant drop across the league.

It feels unnatural to worry about a team that is 0-4. Perhaps “worried” is premature; They still have the NFL’s best balance player in Mahomes, two magicians in Reid and Spagnuolo, and one of the best clutch trench grenades in Chris Jones. But the Chiefs face a barrage of adversity as they attempt to derail the league’s desired parity with another Lombardi promotion.

They took another sledgehammer to their knees on Sunday when Rashee Rice suffered a likely season-ending knee injury. Ironically, this was the result of Mahomes accidentally falling on his star receiver after throwing an interception – his fifth of the year. Turnover is a problem.

Rice owned the second-largest target share among receivers in the NFL after asserting himself as Mahomes’ most trusted pass-catcher following a 2023 season in which the Chiefs’ undermanned armory was marred by overthrows and misses. He leads the team with 24 receptions on 29 targets for 288 yards and two touchdowns while ranking third in the league in yards-after-catch and fourth in first downs, which is Reid’s best chain mover.

Among them was their almost automatic soft-spot celebration, acting as Reid’s primary mover and primary beneficiary of space-creating route concepts, the idea being that his short yardage gains and defense-stretching crosses would serve as the perfect lead-in to an entertaining year of downfield dunking up to 40-yard dash record holder Xavier Worthy, who gave the Chiefs a rare deep shot success with a 54-yard touchdown catch on Sunday. Suddenly, Worth’s route tree is under scrutiny sooner than expected, as the Chiefs also lost postseason newcomer Hollywood Brown this year.

“On the offensive side, we’ve got to get rolling, man,” Travis Kelce said on the latest episode of his podcast New heights. “And it won’t be any easier watching Rashee (Rice) go down during the game. I just love the way this guy played the game of football, the way he attacked every day in practice.”

“Sometimes you just root so hard for the guys who are doing it right, and that’s what Rashee did, man. It was a big blow for me when I saw him go down.”

While others pondered Kelce’s quiet start to the campaign, the Chiefs were reassured knowing it was due not only to more dedicated coverage of their tight end, but also to Rice’s leadership performance. Suddenly, their 34-year-old (soon to be 35) Hall of Fame tight end is back in the spotlight, awaiting the prospect of an outstanding body of work that few players his age at his position have made a defining impact on over the years. Still, he’s neither your normal tight end nor your normal competitor.

Kelce responded with a season-high seven catches for 89 yards against the Chargers on Sunday. But can he put together another 1,000-yard campaign? This is a big challenge in such a stressful situation.

The Chiefs’ development has included an improved running game behind one of the league’s most efficient interior blocking systems, with Isiah Pacheco playing a crucial role in 2023 with 205 carries for 935 yards and seven touchdowns, followed by 313 yards and three scores in the postseason. He continues to be out on injured reserve after suffering a broken fibula in Week 2, which led the Chiefs to re-sign Kareem Hunt while turning to veteran Samaje Perine and undrafted rookie Carson Steele, who is on the roster Averaged just 3.8 yards per carry.

If you remove Mahomes from the equation, few would have high Super Bowl hopes on an offense that featured unproven rookie Worthy, Justin Watson, JuJu Smith-Schuster, an unfavorable Skyy Moore, Mecole Hardman and a Perine-built backfield. Steele Hunt Committee exists.

“We have guys here that have experience in the game,” Reid said. “It’s not like he (Rice) is the only one. He doesn’t have to be the only one. We have a good group of people there that we can take advantage of. Normally we distribute the ball and that’s what we do. “I will continue to strive to do that.

Inevitably, the Chiefs have emerged as potential suitors who could make some noise before the league’s Nov. 5 trade deadline, especially given the apparent availability of Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams, whose contract admittedly could lead to that Brett Veach doesn’t switch. Elsewhere, Amari Cooper appears to be a possible option as the Cleveland Browns fall behind Deshaun Watson, as does 32-year-old DeAndre Hopkins given Tennessee’s struggles on offense and uncertainty at quarterback. But this is a Chiefs offense that thrives on familiarity and the receivers building a relationship with Mahomes.

Their perfect start was anything but perfect, and formidable obstacles await them over the next six weeks with the New Orleans Saints, San Francisco 49ers and Bills.

And yet, behind all of this is an ominous idea that your back is against the wall. Reid, Mahomes, Kelce, Spags and Jones are at the backbone of an improbable attempt to do the unthinkable. They hobbled around on offense for much of last season, piggybacking off the Spags’ machine, before emerging as modern masters of playoff football. They shouldn’t have won everything, and they did.

They embody the “find a way to win” cliché inherent in eternal champions. Nothing is ever “against the odds” for them. But is that a step too far?

Watch the Chiefs take on the New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football, live on Sky Sports NFL from 1.15am in the early hours of Tuesday morning; Also stream with NOW.

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