New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce (Presented by Wave Sports + Entertainment)
This season has been uncharacteristically challenging for the Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs offense. And on the latest episode of ‘New Heights’, Jason and Travis Kelce discuss how the Chiefs gifted that win to the Raiders and what’s going on with the team.
It doesn’t take 50 years of experience coaching in the NFL to see a direct parallel between the arrival of Matt Nagy in KC who ran an atrocious offense in Chicago for years to get a sense of what’s fueling the offensive woes at the Arrowhead. But Travis Kelce doesn’t call out Matt Nagy at any point in the segment so I felt the need to mention it. Instead, on the latest episode of New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce (Presented by Wave Sports + Entertainment), the two Kelce brothers dissect Kansas City’s lingering issues.
Travis Kelce Talks About Chiefs Loss To Raiders, Current State Of The Offense
Travis Kelce: “We handed that team a win on Christmas. We literally played Santa and gave them a present.”
Jason Kelce: “I mean I’d be hard-pressed to disagree with you.”
Travis Kelce: “All I’ve got for you is… That was embarrassing. Everybody in the building knows how embarrassing that was. And we got a short week so we’re going to forget about this s— real quick.”
Jason Kelce: “Offensively… struggled a little bit. (You) had negative 18 yards in the first (and) that’s when I started watching it because I was getting ready for the game and everything. Finally got to the TV in the back and I noticed there were 3 minutes left and it was still (negative) yards. (I thought) ‘man, this is a rought start.'”
“The fewest yards in a first quarter by a Patrick Mahomes led team was obviously this past game against the Raiders where you were negative 18 yards and then also actually week 12 versus the Raiders… 11 yards. Those are the only two games of his career in which the Chiefs gained fewer than 15 yards in the first quarter. What do you think it is about the Raiders with the slow starts?”
Travis Kelce: “I don’t f—— know. Just can’t… Just can’t… Just can’t catch a rhythm and it’s not just the Raiders it’s been a lot of teams that we’ve played, uh, just trying to catch a rhythm and catch stride knowing that we’ve got guys that we can win with.”
“And it’s just a frustrating f—— experience right now. Every single day we’re going in there fixing it, I promise you guys. And it’s not just one guy (on the team). It’s not just me playing like dog s—. It is not just us not being able to get the run game going. It’s not just us being on the same page passing-wise. Everybody’s in this f—— thing together. Everybody at some point isn’t being accountable and we all just got to bring it together, man.”
“I think we’ve taken a lot of learning shots and unfortunately we’ve lost a lot of those games. (And) in years past we’ve won those games. (We) found a way to win at the end. Special teams… same thing. It’s really just our defense that’s keeping us in games. We were really banking on the defense giving us one last drive but we played so trash as an offense that we put the defense in a really really tough spot there at the end of the game.”
It is important to take this doom and gloom from Kansas City with a grain of salt. After all, they can clinch their division with a win against the Bengals on Sunday giving them their 8th AFC West title in a row.
The Chiefs still boast a 9-6 record so far and they’re 5-2 on the road which bodes well for the Playoffs ahead as they’ve proven they can win away from home this season. But it appears to have not even taken a full season for Matt Nagy’s offense to neuter Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and others. So it remains to be seen if the team will get the magic together in the weeks ahead.