Self-inflicted, 2023 edition; The Chiefs offense can't get out of its own way

We've seen this story before. Hopefully, this year's Chiefs squad can get it ironed out.

Time is a flat circle. There is nothing new under the sun. And the only thing that can stop the Kansas City Chiefs offense is… the Kansas City Chiefs offense.

For the second week in a row, Patrick Mahomes and company struggled to put points on the board. And it was arguably worse than their anemic Week 1 dropfest, with the offense seeing its lowest “success rate” (think of it as percentage of plays that were positive towards helping them score) they’ve had in 96 starts by the star QB. And this time, on the surface there wasn’t an obvious single culprit (drops) to blame.

After going back and reviewing the tape, though, I have both good news and bad news. The good news is that the Jaguars, similar to the Lions, didn’t really STOP the Chiefs offense with any sort of consistency. The yards (and points) were there to be had… except Kansas City could not seem to get out of its own way.

And that’s where the bad news is. A familiar problem that has reared its head several times over the last few seasons (in spurts) appears to be back; The Chiefs offense is dying a death of self-inflicted wounds.

Back in 2021, this issue was actually quite prevalent. So much so that I wrote multiple articles about it throughout the season. It was also the issue that ended their season with a devastating self-inflicted loss in the AFC Championship. The issue creeped up a bit in 2022, but was much less frequently a problem.

And now, in 2023, here we are again. I don’t have to tell you that the absurd drop rate in Week 1 was a self-inflicted wound that crippled the offense’s efficiency. However, after looking at the film the vast majority of their problems in Week 2 were also less the result of “losing” the snap and more the result of “handing the snap over to the defense.”

Let’s talk about how the Chiefs sabotaged themselves out of multiple first downs (and directly killed some drives outright all on their own) on Sunday, and why (once again) there’s both good news and bad news when it comes to self-inflicted wounds.