The Kansas City Chiefs are somewhere they haven’t been in the Patrick Mahomes era — staring down the possibility of missing the playoffs.

Defeat to the Houston Texans at Arrowhead on Sunday didn’t just drop the Chiefs to 6–7, but also underscored every issue that has dragged them from perennial Super Bowl contender to postseason long-shot in 2025.

The Sunday Night Football matchup followed a familiar 2025 pattern, with the defense keeping Kansas City alive while the offense failed to capitalise. Even after losing starting tackle Wanya Morris on the very first play weakened the O-line further, the Chiefs hung in defensively, with Andy Reid praising a unit led by Chris Jones and Nick Bolton that ‘played a very sound football game… especially that second half’.

Unfortunately for the Arrowhead faithful, the offense couldn’t match the performance. Twice in the fourth quarter, Mahomes had chances to mount a tying drive, only for fourth-down attempts to come up empty.

“You got to be able to make that stuff happen and we haven’t done that enough this year,” Mahomes lamented, while Reid accepted responsibility for aggressive calls that didn’t work out. “I thought we could get it… I was wrong, no?” he sighed. “I mean, in hindsight, it was wrong.”

With time running out on the season, the emotional weight is unmistakable. Mahomes acknowledged the sting of another missed opportunity amid a campaign where the Chiefs’ form has ebbed and flowed but appeared to be coming together just enough to sneak into the postseason reckoning, even in an AFC West division that has Denver and Los Angeles at its head.

“It’s just getting late in the season and we’re not getting these opportunities back,” Mahomes conceded. “We had chances and we didn’t execute at the right time to win it.”

Still, the Chiefs insist belief hasn’t wavered, with Jones, in particular, claiming that the team’s playoff hopes, while slim, remain alive.

“[If] we can finish strong and, God willing, find a way to get into the playoffs, the door is still open,” the all-world DE insisted. “It might be a 10 percent chance, it might be a five percent chance but, as long as we have an opportunity and a chance, we can control that.”

With Reid offering a similar message — “It’s never over, [and] you keep battling” — Mahomes vowed the final stretch would reflect the team’s character, rather than its record.

“You can never question the fight of this team,” the quarterback maintained, “and I think you’ll see that for these last four weeks. We’re not going to have many more opportunities, so we have to go out and maximise those opportunities we do have.”

The Chiefs regular season concludes with home games against their two closest divisional rivals and road trips to two of the league’s weaker teams in Tennessee and Las Vegas. The future is still somewhat in their own hands, but the next month promises to be a pivotal moment in the Mahomes era.