Chiefs Are Far From Complacent After Christmas Eve Win
The Kansas City Chiefs' wins in Weeks 14 and 15 were far from pretty, as a near collapse led to the Denver Broncos making things close and an unfocused afternoon allowed the Houston Texans to push Andy Reid's group into overtime. Week 16's Christmas Eve win over the Seattle Seahawks was nothing like that, however, as the outcome of the game was never truly in question and the home team still won by 14 points despite a garbage-time touchdown from the visitors.
With the triumph, Kansas City has secured its fifth straight 12-win season with quarterback Patrick Mahomes at the helm. The previous four regular-season stretches have resulted in trips to the AFC Championship game at the minimum, as well as one MVP award for Mahomes back in the 2018 campaign. Another one could soon be in the cards and after Saturday's game, Reid spoke about the consistency and insanely high floor that Mahomes has afforded his team.
"Yeah, well how great is that though?" Reid said. "The accolades that he receives, he deserves all of them. And then the guys around him also working in with that and making it happen. It's a tribute to Pat and the energy that he's brought to the group, and then the guys rallying around him, obviously."
Sustained excellence in the regular season is very difficult for teams to achieve. Last week's win over the Texans allowed Kansas City to clinch the AFC West division title for the seventh year in a row, tying the Los Angeles Rams of 1973-1979 for the second-longest such feat in NFL history. The Reid-Mahomes era took what the Reid-Alex Smith era did well, then tweaked and amplified it in order to form a modern-day powerhouse that has been the gold standard of the league since Mahomes took over back in 2018. It shows in the win totals.
With that said, the Chiefs no longer hope to win a bunch of regular-season contests. They expect to, and doing so serves as just another stepping stone en route to their more important goals down the road. Defensive end Frank Clark was acquired in 2019 and played a massive role in the club winning a Super Bowl for the first time in 50 years, and the veteran reiterates that the team is just as hungry now as it was back then. In his postgame availability, Clark said the team is anything but complacent with where it's at.
"Here in Kansas City, we're not complacent," Clark said. "We always strive for more, we want more. We get a little handshake or pat on the shoulders for doing our job and winning the division as far as that, but our goal is to win the conference. We want to win the conference first, secure home-field advantage and then we have fun throughout the playoffs. Then when we get to the big dance, we just crush it. That's the goal here in Kansas City, baby."
Last week, Mahomes made it a point to admit that while winning the division is nice, that's not the only thing Kansas City wants to pride itself on this year. Clark echoed that sentiment on Saturday, setting the bar sky-high for the remainder of the 2022-23 season. There's a common desire amongst contending teams of wanting to peak at the right time and following a Week 16 outing that saw one of the best defensive performances of the season, perhaps that's the case for the Chiefs. Mahomes, with his eyes set on bigger things in the weeks to come, sides with Clark and believes there's more room to improve.
"You want to be playing your best football going into the playoffs, and I feel like that's where we have to continue to get better and better," Mahomes said. "Let's put that full game together — offense, defense and special teams. I thought we did a pretty good job of it today, but we can be even better going into these last two weeks."
