The playoffs basically showed up early for Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. Of course, the postseason hope is still hanging by a tiny thread right now. But from this point forward, the Chiefs don’t just need wins. They need five straight wins. Not three. Not four. All five. At least, that looks the case for now. Anything less, and Mahomes walks into uncharted territory.

We’re talking about the very real possibility of missing the AFC Championship Game for the first time in years. Since becoming the starter, the 30-year-old quarterback has dragged KC to seven straight AFC Championship appearances. Every year. Without fail. So naturally, you’re left asking: How did a team that’s been this dominant suddenly end up staring at a playoff exit before the playoffs even begin?

There are a bunch of reasons: Poor rushing attack, inconsistencies, you name it. But the 31-28 loss to the Dallas Cowboys felt like the official stamp. And right in the middle of it was the defensive struggles. On Thanksgiving Day, Mahomes was back in AT&T Stadium, which is just a couple of hours from where he grew up in Tyler, Texas. The quarterback played really well.

He went 23-of-34 passes for 261 yards, racked up four touchdowns, and also rushed for 30 yards on three carries. The only wrinkle, though, was that his defense didn’t help him at all. They allowed the Cowboys’ quarterback, Dak Prescott, to complete 27-of-39 passes for 320 yards and two touchdowns. And thanks to the Chiefs’ poor pass rush, Prescott wasn’t even sacked once.

On the other side, CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens both ripped apart the secondary. Lamb tormented the Chiefs’ coverage, as the receiver caught 7 out of 9 passes from Prescott for 112 yards and one touchdown. Pickens, on the other hand, was efficient as well, as the WR2 caught 6 receptions for 88 yards.

Meanwhile, Dallas won the third-down battle and outgained KC. The Cowboys converted 9 of 16 third-down tries (56%), while the Chiefs converted far less. Dallas outgained Kansas City 457 to 362 and controlled the ball slightly more in time of possession. The signs are clear: this chaos has pushed the Chiefs to the edge of a losing season, as they are now into a must-win stretch of five games. Now, Andy Reid finally stepped in to address what’s gone wrong and what they need to fix to climb out of this hole.

Andy Reid asked coaches and players to take accountability

If there’s one team that can crawl out of a 6–6 mess and still snag a playoff spot, it’s the Chiefs. But even with Patrick Mahomes balling out against Dallas and his receivers giving him a hand, a few glaring problems are still dragging this team down. And Andy Reid knows it better than anyone how to get out of this mess.

“The guys understand we’ve got to clean up a few things,” the head coach said after the game. “We’ve got to do better as coaches — and we’ve got to do better as players. So you go back to the drawing board and you keep working; that’s what you do. We were close here, but we had too many opportunities that we gave away. You can’t be two good teams playing each other and have those things happen.”

We’ve already covered most of the issues Kansas City ran into against Dallas, but one problem stood out the most for Reid: the penalties. The Chiefs got flagged 10 times for 119 yards, and those mistakes kept turning easy offensive downs into brutal third-and-longs. And on the defensive side? Those same penalties kept gifting the Cowboys extra chances to keep drives alive.

“Bottom line is we’re having too many penalties,” Reid added. “We’ve got to make sure we take care of that on both sides of the ball — to get off the field on third downs — and then to stay on the field offensively and not back yourself up. No excuses with it. We’ll work on cleaning it up.”

It’s the same thing Travis Kelce has been frustrated about, too. And that’s why Reid didn’t sugarcoat it: the coaches and players simply need to tighten things up and do their jobs. Now the Chiefs head back home to face the Houston Texans. Will they clean up these issues, or are we about to watch the same problems show up again? Well… that we shall see.