After Flopping vs. Seahawks, Patrick Mahomes Knows Chiefs' Offense Must Bounce Back

No matter how you slice it or what you chalk it up to, there's absolutely no denying that the Kansas City Chiefs' offense did nothing short of flop against the Seattle Seahawks.

Add in that KC came into Week 7 with an undefeated record and had a chance to extend that streak on Sunday Night Football, and you get an even bigger disappointment in terms of performance.

From opening kickoff until the final whistle, head coach Mike MacDonald and his Seahawks defense completely bottled up a Chiefs offense that rolled into the evening as one of football's best per-play, per-drive and per-game units. There's tons of blame to go around, although it's no surprise that the team's best player spent the first moments after the 20-3 loss reflecting.

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes didn't sugarcoat Sunday's shortcoming, but he knows it's time to get right back to work and right some wrongs.

"You got your tail kicked," Mahomes said. "Didn't execute offensively, especially around that midfield area. Kept us away from a lot of points, or at least enough points to be competitive. But it's stuff you've got to learn from. That's obviously a really good defense, and we didn't execute at a high enough level to have success."

By Mahomes' normal standards, he delivered a terrible showing at Lumen Field. On 38 plays, per RBSDM, he averaged -0.13 EPA and had a -9.8% completion rate over expected. Over his last three contests, No. 15 has completed just 61.3% of his passes with an 81.0 passer rating, two touchdowns, two interceptions and an average of 220.7 passing yards each week.

It didn't really matter what the situation was, either. On early-down passes, Mahomes led Kansas City to -0.08 EPA/play (25th percentile) compared to -0.21 (37th percentile) on late-down passing plays. Ahead of Monday's Week 7 finale between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, the two-time MVP is 14th among all quarterbacks in adjusted EPA/play (0.139) but is just 25th out of 35 players with 50-plus plays in the same metric (0.023) in Weeks 4-7.

The Chiefs are the only NFL team in the Super Bowl era to have a game with:

no 10+ yard rushes
no 20+ yard passes
no red-zone drives
no touchdowns
multiple missed field goals
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) October 26, 2026

Has pressure factored into Mahomes' lackluster play? Outsiders would argue yes; he thinks on Sunday it was more so him not setting the right tone from the start.

"Obviously a little bit, but I thought especially early in the game, I thought my feet were kind of getting me into trouble where I could have maybe sat in the pocket and made some of the throws down the field," Mahomes said. "I got better a little bit later in the game. But at the same time, when you play a team like that, you can't let them get ahead and get into a game they want to play. Obviously they've had a lot of success doing that, and so [we've] got to be better starting faster — especially with me — and then try to do better throughout the entire game."

According to TruMedia, Kansas City has allowed the sixth-lowest pressure rate on the year at 31.4%. In Weeks 4-7, though, that's 19th at 37.6%. The club is actually being blitzed at a lower per-dropback share (22.8% versus 24.2%) in that sample, so it's a reflection of poor tackle play through and through. Jaylon Moore missing Week 7 and Josh Simmons missing all season hasn't helped.

As currently constructed, the Chiefs' passing attack simply isn't dynamic enough. It owns football's third-lowest average in yards to the sticks on throws (-2.6), and that's down to -4.5 yards in the last two weeks. Injuries can again be at least partially credited here, as Tyquan Thornton (ankle) is on injured reserve and Rashee Rice (hamstring) hasn't played in weeks.

At the end of the day, not everything falls on Mahomes. He can only put his Superman cape on so frequently, and it's impossible to do others' jobs for them. With that said, he undoubtedly could be playing better, which might just in turn raise the floor of a suddenly struggling offense.

Whether he can do so, fair or unfair, will determine whether Sunday was a blip on the radar or a reason to slam the panic button.

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