Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes were disappointed by Thursday’s loss to Lions

Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid talked about the season-opening loss to Detroit.

Following the Kansas City Chiefs’ narrow 21-20 loss to the Detroit Lions in Thursday’s season opener, quarterback Patrick Mahomes had one simple message for his team:

“Got to be better.”

It was not the outcome that the Chiefs were expecting on the night they raised the banner for last season’s Super Bowl victory. But dropped passes, failures in converting short-yardage situations and a general lack of execution spoiled what should have been a joyous celebration to start the new season.

“[It’s a] disappointing loss,” said head coach Andy Reid after the game. “That was a good football team that we lost to — but we’ve got to play better. We’ve got to coach better. So that’s what we’ll do.”

Mahomes — being the competitor that he is — was embarrassed.

“It’s embarrassing for me to lose anytime,” the quarterback told reporters. “I said it after the ring ceremony: I moved on to the next season. Obviously, it’s cool for the fans to be able to see the banner and drop it at Arrowhead Stadium, but this is a whole new year. I think I know that. We’re trying to win another Super Bowl. This is obviously not the way we wanted to start, so anytime I lose, I’m embarrassed. So I’m trying to get better so I don’t lose more as the season goes on.”

The story of the game centered around dropped passes by Kansas City’s receiving corps. In total, the wideouts were responsible for eight of — one of which was intercepted and returned for a touchdown after the ball bounced off wideout Kadarius Toney’s hands.

“It’s unusual for us to drop that many passes anywhere, anytime,” said Reid. “So we’ll go back and work on that. But you’ve got to take care of business. These guys know that — and so we’ve got to fix that.”

Toney, specifically, had his worst game in a Chiefs uniform. After missing most of training camp while recovering from a knee injury, Toney was cleared to play in Thursday’s game. But the rust showed — and he had no luck holding on to the football. He finished his night with just one catch (for one yard) on five targets.

But Mahomes believes the third-year receiver will bounce back.

“I have trust in him,” he said. “He missed a lot of training camp. Obviously, he wanted to play and then fought rehab hard so he could play. Stuff is not always going to go your way; obviously, he would’ve wanted to catch a few of those in the game. But I have trust that he’s going to be that guy that I go to in those crucial moments — and that he’ll make the catch and win us some games like he did last year. So we’re going to continue to work him in [and] get him more and more reps. I’m sure that that those drops will disappear.”

With 10 days before the team’s next game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Chiefs will have plenty of time to learn from the mistakes that plagued them on Thursday night. Mahomes thinks that for the younger players, the loss will serve as a reality check.

“It’ll be good for the young guys to know that we’re not going to just walk in and win the game,” he noted. ”You’ve got to play good football. We’re going to get every team’s best shot. I’ve preached it to them all preseason, but they know now. We’re going to go to Jacksonville next week — and that’s a good football team. So hopefully. guys learn from it, get better — and this one loss doesn’t turn into two.”