Patrick Mahomes offered no excuses for his poor performance in Kansas City’s 24-9 loss to the Broncos on Sunday.
The Chiefs’ star quarterback didn’t blame the flu-like illness that socked him in the gut Saturday night, nor the frigid weather at Empower Field at Mile High.
Nope, he pointed his finger at the Chiefs’ lack of execution and credited a Broncos defense that limited him to a 59.2 passer rating, the second-worst in his 87 NFL starts. He had a 57.3 rating in 2021, also against the Broncos.
“The Broncos did a great job of making us be patient and they had a great game plan, and we didn’t execute well enough to score any (touchdowns),” said Mahomes, who not only lost to the Broncos for the first time in his career but also suffered his first road loss against an AFC West team.
Mahomes completed 24 of 38 passes for 241 yards with two interceptions and was sacked three times. For the first time since a 27-3 loss at Tennessee on Oct. 24, 2021, Kansas City failed to score a touchdown.
In two games against Denver this season, the Chiefs are a combined 1-for-8 in the red zone.
(Denver) did well, but we didn’t execute,” coach Andy Reid said, adding that the Broncos’ defense didn’t throw anything new or unusual at the Chiefs. “They gave us the same stuff that they have shown (before). They did a nice job. They did a better job than we did.”
Reid said there was never any consideration of benching Mahomes because of illness.
“He was OK, but he was sick,” Reid said. “But he’s not going to use that as an excuse.”
Mahomes said he was battling a “stomach thing.”
“I started feeling bad last night and I bounced back pretty well in the morning, so I went out there to try to do whatever I could to help us win,” said the two-time NFL MVP and two-time Super Bowl champion who received IVs Saturday night and before Sunday’s game.
The Chiefs committed five turnovers, fumbling the ball away three times and giving up two interceptions, one by Denver’s Ja’Quan McMillian and the other by Justin Simmons.
“We weren’t good enough,” Mahomes said. “We had five turnovers, and just the execution in general wasn’t good enough. They did a good job against us with their defense, but we have to execute better and we clearly haven’t done it against them.”
The Broncos, who broke a 16-game losing streak to Kansas City, just might have set a template for other teams to follow if they want to upset the defending Super Bowl champions.
“We’ll go back and watch this tape, knowing that teams are going to replicate (what the Broncos did) and try different versions of that, and we’re going to try and find answers for that,” Mahomes said. “That’s the biggest thing. Obviously, in two of the last three weeks, (teams) have seen the Broncos kind of stifle our offense, if that’s the right word.
“Really, they just got after us, as far as making us execute all the way down the field. I’m sure other teams around the league are going to watch that and we have to prove that we have answers for that.”
