Patrick Mahomes wants to see the Chiefs’ offense be more ‘consistent’

Kansas City’s quarterback and head coach discussed Week 9’s offensive performance against the Dolphins.

On Sunday morning, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Miami Dolphins 21-14 in Frankfurt, Germany. It was a nice bounceback victory for the Chiefs as they head into their Week 10 bye with an AFC-leading record of 7-2.

Kansas City’s offense found the end zone twice during its Week 9 game — twice more than it did during Week 8’s 24-9 loss to the Denver Broncos. The first score was from an impressive seven-play, 75-yard drive that ended with a touchdown pass to rookie wide receiver Rashee Rice. The other score occurred just before the two-minute warning of the first half, as quarterback Patrick Mahomes found running back Jerick McKinnon for a 17-yard touchdown catch.

“Offensively, we did some great things — and then we sputtered at times,” head coach Andy Reid acknowledged to reporters after the game. “I would tell you that first drive was a thing of beauty — and then the next touchdown was also a good job of getting ourselves upfield and scoring on that.”

But Sunday’s game was far from the Chiefs’ best offensive performance. Aside from the two scoring drives, they were stagnant throughout the afternoon. Kansas City punted the ball six times after going 3-of-10 on third down. Mahomes — who finished the day with 185 yards, two touchdowns and a lost fumble — wants to see more consistency.

“I think you can see it in spurts,” he observed after the game, “[If] you look at the first drive — [or] you look at the 90-yard drive that we had — you can see that we can do it. It’s just about being consistent in every single drive. Obviously, penalties — and then me not connecting on guys deep down the field — hurt us. But luckily for us, our defense is playing their tail off — and we got the win.”

While the most consistent part of the Chiefs’ offense tends to be tight end Travis Kelce, that was not the case against Miami. The superstar tight end finished with just three catches for 14 yards on merely four targets — but the head coach had planned for him to be more involved.

“It wasn’t planned that way,” Reid said of Kelce’s stat line. “We always try to get him involved — and we try to do it quickly. They did a nice job of pulling a combination coverage look where there wasn’t a lot of space [in] there for him breaking in or out.”

Reid loves his tight end’s attitude — even when Kelce isn’t getting much action in the passing game.

“I said, ‘Doggone it Travis, I need to get the ball to you a little bit more.’” recalled Reid. “And he goes, ‘Hey, the offensive line played great. You know we were running the ball well.’ So I appreciate that attitude.”

The biggest issue that continues to plague the team, however, is penalties. Kansas City was penalized a total of nine times on Sunday, accounting for 69 yards.

“We’ve got to take care of the penalties,” noted the head coach. “I mean, that’s the obvious [answer] — and we’ll get that worked out as we go here — but that’s something we have to take care of.”

With the upcoming bye, the Chiefs will have some extra time to work on their offensive issues. Mahomes still believes they can solved.

“I think all you can do is keep working,” he insisted. “That’s everything. It’s me with timing. It’s [the receivers] just continuing to get catches as much as possible.

“[It’s] lucky for us [that] our defense is playing so well, so we’re sitting here [at] 7-2 going into the bye. But we can get a lot better as an offense. I think if the offense gets to where I think it can be, we’ll be a hard team to beat.”