The Kansas City Chiefs came out flat after their Week 10 bye, and it showed in their 22–19 loss to the Denver Broncos in Week 11. After the game, Patrick Mahomes sat quietly in the locker room, replaying the night in his head: What went wrong, what could’ve gone right, and how the Chiefs managed to let their shot at the division slip away.

Mahomes was tucked into his corner locker, the one closest to the exit, almost motionless as the room emptied out. And according to Chiefs sideline reporter Josh Klingler, the quarterback’s body language said everything about just how out of it he was after the loss.

“Patrick was off,” Klinger explained on 96.5 The Fan. “I know, he wore it quite a bit afterwards, and I know his comments said that he was really…I haven’t seen him kind of just sit at his locker in the locker room for that long. It was from the moment I got in there till the moment the media left, he was just kind of sitting and staring and kind of gathering his thoughts, and I guess, I can’t say I blame him.”

There were plenty of reasons the Chiefs fell to Denver. But the one that hit Mahomes the hardest and made him sit in the locker room so long and stare at nothing happened on their final possession. He brought it up multiple times after the game, while also taking all the blame himself.

The game was tied 19-19 in the fourth with about 4 minutes remaining, and the Chiefs got the ball. The history tells us that this is where Mahomes always shines. Game-winning drives are always his thing. On the very first play of that drive, though, the 30-year-old quarterback made a mistake.

He noticed a Broncos safety shifting positions before the snap, knowing this meant Hollywood Brown could get open deep. What he did instead cost the Chiefs Sunday’s game. Mahomes didn’t trust the offensive line to hold long enough. He trusted himself, skipped his reads, and forced a quick pass to Travis Kelce. The pass, however, was knocked away.

“There’s things here and there (to regret), but I think that’s the biggest one,” Mahomes said after the game.

And the reasoning was simple. After all, the entire tone of the play changed after the pass was knocked off. The Broncos pressured Mahomes and forced him to throw the ball away on the second down. And on third down, Denver’s defense blitzed and sacked the quarterback. From there, the Chiefs were forced to punt.

And Patrick Mahomes never touched the ball again, as the Broncos nailed a game-winning field goal to seal the game. In short, while the Chiefs made plenty of mistakes that cost them a crucial game, sure. The biggest one happened on the Chiefs’ final possession, per Mahomes. The result? It had KC’s QB feeling off for the team’s inconsistencies and thinking about what lies ahead.

Meanwhile, Kelce has also expressed his frustrations with repeated mistakes from his team.

Travis Kelce called out his team for procedural penalties

Travis Kelce once again sat down with his brother and the Philadelphia Eagles‘ legend, Jason Kelce, on the latest episode of the New Heights podcast. And the conversation came at an interesting time. Fresh off setting the franchise record for most touchdowns, Kelce made it clear that the Chiefs still believe they have enough in the tank to make another push toward the Super Bowl.

But he didn’t dance around the real issue either. According to Kelce, the thing holding Kansas City back isn’t talent or effort. It’s the penalties and the undisciplined stretches of football that keep derailing drives and shifting momentum.

“Bunch of flags all over the place,” Kelce said. “Whether it was procedural penalties, which is the f—ing most frustrating thing ever, or holding penalties, which some, I’m here for, others, I’m like, ‘what are we even doing?’ It’s frustrating because we’ve gotten to the point where we are 5-5.

“It’s even more frustrating knowing the kind of guys that we have, the talent that we have, knowing the type of coaches that we have. Everybody’s gotta just kind of look at themselves in the mirror.”

The frustration is real, and one can tell why. The Chiefs are 5-5 following their 22-19 loss to the Broncos on Sunday. On top of that, the team has committed 69 flags over 10 games so far, which cost them 577 yards. That’s roughly 7 penalties per game, per NFLPenalties.

Even against the Broncos, the Chiefs couldn’t get out of their own way, racking up 10 penalties for 69 yards. At this point, their chances of winning the division have taken a major hit. And with the Indianapolis Colts up next, Patrick Mahomes and the rest of the team know they have to clean up one of their biggest problems if they want to stabilize the season.