Back-shoulder throws are the stuff of backyard legends, the kind of play a QB and his best receiver (in this situation, TE) perfect in a high school parking lot, the ball arcing just so as a friend peels off a route. Yet, here we were, on the NFL’s biggest stage, watching Patrick Mahomes launch a pass down the sideline, a ball that sailed past Travis Kelce’s right ear and hit the turf with a thud.

On the broadcast, a bewildered Cris Collinsworth broke it down: a “playground” play, a throw you’d expect from a kid in middle school, not two of the greatest to ever do it. Kelce had kept running straight, like a man sleepwalking through a field of dreams. On this particular Sunday night, the Chiefs, a team that hasn’t started a season 0-3 since 2011, before the current dynasty was even a twinkle in Andy Reid’s eye (injury report), are 16-6 with a hapless Giants team in the second half.

Something felt… off. And it wasn’t just the scoreboard. The entire operation felt like a well-oiled machine sputtering on old gasoline. NFL insider Josina Anderson hit the nail on the head, tweeting: “What happened here? Pat Mahomes & Travis Kelce still trying to find their connection. #Chiefs.” During that play, Mahomes was visibly in confusion about whether to throw a pass to Kelce or not. Kelce was targeted twice by then, but both passes fell incomplete. So, it was a polite way of saying the engine is stalling, and the two most crucial cylinders are misfiring.

Cracks in the foundation of the fortress that is the Kansas City offense. For a team that has averaged just 19 points per game through its first 2 weeks, this wasn’t an anomaly. It was a pattern. The proof, as it turns out, was right there on the stat sheet, in black and white and shades of unease. Mahomes currently is a meager 19/31 for 160 yards, and Kelce?

Just 4 receptions for a paltry 26 yards. Even more glaring, Mahomes had 2 fumbles to his name, one that NBC’s Collinsworth, in a moment of broadcast-booth Stockholm Syndrome, called a “great play,” post Mahomes somehow saving it.

The kingdom speaks after Patrick Mahomes & Travis Kelce’s 

While the Chiefs and G-men were trading punts like baseball cards, the digital world was lighting up. The thing is, fans don’t get paid to be polite. “This game is putting me to sleep,” one fan tweeted, capturing the collective yawn of a nation watching two “inept offenses trading punts.”

Another, after watching Kelce’s straight-line run, put it simply: “Kelce should have made a play for the ball. That would have been PI if he’d have tried.” It was a simple observation, but it was cutting in its truth.

It’s a bizarre, almost Kafkaesque experience to watch a once-invincible offense struggle to score against a team whose kicker, Graham Gano, had a groin injury and whose offense looked like it was powered by a car with four flat tires. The collective frustration had one fan tweeting, “Pat acting like Travis & Taylor didn’t invite him to the wedding 🤦🏾‍♂️🤣.”

The humor is the only way to process a player of Kelce’s stature getting called out for “not knowing how to read a defense.” The Chiefs Kingdom doesn’t mince words, Kareem Hunt with his milestone, because when you’ve had the best, you know when something is wrong.