What matters (and doesn’t) from the Chiefs’ 0-2 start: Sando’s Pick Six

The New York Jets, Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins, Tennessee Titans, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, Chicago Bears and New York Giants are all 0-2 through Sunday. The usual suspects.

So are the Kansas City Chiefs, a first for them since 2014, when Patrick Mahomes was backing up Davis Webb at Texas Tech.

These are strange times for the team with three Lombardi Trophies in five Super Bowl appearances during the Mahomes era.

The Pick Six column for Week 2 dives into what is most and least concerning for Kansas City at this early juncture. The full menu this week:

• Sky falling in Kansas City
• Juiced football revolution?
• New lows for new Bears
• Perilous time for Dolphins
• 49ers surely kicking selves
• Two-minute drill: Lions relief

1. Spare us the references to how many 0-2 teams miss the playoffs. But let’s not pretend everything is OK in Kansas City, either.

Life could be much, much worse in Kansas City. Ask the Bengals, who just lost Joe Burrow for at least three months to a nasty turf-toe injury that requires surgery. The Bengals are finished. Kansas City is only getting started.

The Chiefs are 0-2 in one-score games this season after winning 17 of them in a row previously. The 17-game streak was a ridiculous testament to their ability to pull out close games. It was also wholly unsustainable.

Mahomes is scrambling more than twice as much this season as in the past, adding more than double his usual value from an EPA standpoint (6.6 per game so far this season). As Mahomes told the Fox broadcast crew led by Kevin Burkhardt, he usually saves the scrambling for key moments in big games, but this season, he has felt as though the offense needed it more frequently. Still, it hasn’t been enough.

When the Chiefs lost in the Super Bowl after the 2021 season, they started the next season 1-1 on their way to 3-4. They finished 12-5 and lost to Cincinnati in the AFC Championship Game. This season is feeling similar to that one, especially with Buffalo owning the NFL’s easiest remaining schedule (.321) and a fast track to the top seed.

“Which means nothing to Mahomes,” an exec from a rival AFC team said. “Ask Baltimore.”

Beyond the potential hangover factor, even the best quarterbacks need a baseline level of weaponry to flourish.

Some of Tom Brady’s worst games with New England came when Rob Gronkowski and/or Julian Edelman did not play. Mahomes has no such targets on his best day now that Travis Kelce is in decline, but if Kelce makes two simple plays near the goal line, one in each of the first two games, Kansas City might very well be 2-0 regardless.

Not having the injured Xavier Worthy (who was hurt in a collision with Kelce) and the suspended Rashee Rice clearly hurts. Then again, has anyone ever been more wide open for a sure touchdown than Tyquan Thornton was when Mahomes missed him by 6 yards with 3:56 remaining in regulation on Sunday?

“I don’t think there is a crisis being 0-2 when you play two good teams to start,” a coach from another team said, “but it does not look like they had the rigorous four-week training camp at the away college that hardly anyone else goes to anymore, when I look at the timing of their offense.”

Speaking of timing, before this season, Mahomes was 41-2 in the 43 games when he got rid of the football the quickest (2.6 seconds or less), per TruMedia. He was usually in rhythm and on point in those games, not running for his survival and trying to make heroic plays.

Mahomes is 0-2 this season when unloading the ball that fast, falling to the Chargers (Mahomes’ eighth quickest time-to-throw start, 2.31 seconds) and on Sunday to the Eagles (his 25th-quickest throwing game, 2.47).

The Athletic’s playoff projection model gives the Chiefs a 56 percent shot at reaching the playoffs. That seems low. Baltimore and the Rams both made it to the playoffs last season after 0-2 starts.

Thirty-eight of 43 teams starting 0-2 have missed the postseason since the NFL expanded its playoff field to 14 teams in 2020. But 29 of those 38 had missed the playoffs in the previous season as well. Zero of those 38 teams had Mahomes at quarterback and Andy Reid as coach.

Sunday’s 20-17 defeat to the Eagles was strange because Kansas City trailed by 10 points in the fourth quarter for only the ninth time in the regular season since Mahomes became the Chiefs’ full-time starter.

Every other team has played in at least 20 and as many as 64 of these games. The Chiefs didn’t seem sure what to do. They punted on fourth-and-7 from their own 29 with 7:09 left, waited until 4:42 to start calling timeouts and possessed the ball just one more time. Their onside kick was so poorly executed that the ball would have died before traveling 10 yards if Philly hadn’t covered it.

It’s easy to make a case for the Chiefs as a team in decline. Those lines in the chart above tell us that. Winning became more difficult for them last season, but they pulled out games anyway.

They badly needed a left tackle and drafted a promising one in Josh Simmons, who showed off his speed making a touchdown-saving tackle against the Eagles during an interception return but is not yet what he will one day become. Rice and Worthy will return. Reid’s coaching will make a difference over the course of the season. But, more than ever during the Mahomes era, it’s easy to picture another team repping the AFC in the Super Bowl.

2. Juiced footballs are going to change game strategy at this rate

Were you really shocked when Dallas’ Brandon Aubrey drilled that 64-yard field goal to force overtime for the Cowboys against the Giants?

Teams have made five kicks longer than 55 yards in each of the first two weeks of this season. That figure ranks tied for second out of 431 weeks since 2000, per TruMedia. Only Week 4 of 2024 had more (six). That figure is in danger with two games on Monday night yet to play.

Kickers were already becoming more effective in recent seasons, but there were only two weeks last season in which kickers made five tries from longer than 55. We’ve already matched that before the end of Week 2.

The footballs are juiced, figuratively speaking.

Before this season, teams used special kicking footballs that players did not have access to until game days. Each team would realistically have 30 minutes to brush, massage and otherwise break in three footballs. In 2020, that time increased to one hour.

Under rules adopted this season, teams received 60 footballs for the season before the start of training camp. Kickers can work those footballs into the shape they want, learning exactly how they will respond. And those footballs are definitely responding.

“The fact you get to kick with the ball in practice is a huge difference,” one coach said. “You are not supposed to use pressure or stand on the ball or put it in a clothes dryer, but how can they tell what you are doing when you get to have the balls at your own facility?”

Teams have made 15 kicks longer than 50 yards through 14 games of Week 2, the third-highest figure in any week since 2000. There were two weeks with 16 such kicks made last season.

Bears fans might recall the time in 2022 when their kicker, Cairo Santos, was short on a 56-yard try against the Falcons, snapping a streak of 21 consecutive makes. Santos’ preferred ball that day was suddenly not available for his kick after the Falcons’ Cordarrelle Patterson ran a kickoff back for a touchdown and kept the ball. Santos felt that using a substitute ball affected the miss. That won’t be a viable reason for kickers this year.

The increased proficiency from long range will change how teams handle end-of-half situations. The Cowboys, whether by design or not, ran the ball for a 3-yard gain before calling a timeout and trying the tying kick from 64 yards. That came after the Giants played a soft zone and allowed an 18-yard completion up the seam near midfield.

“You have to have new lines to defend,” the coach said. “If you are the Giants, you can’t play that soft and let the passes get that far. It used to be defending the 37-yard line, which was a 55-yarder. What are you defending now? The 42. That is a 60-yarder. There is a little shift there.”

3. New Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson missed the Detroit Lions more than the other way around. Here’s what stood out to me.

• New Bears lows: The Bears never allowed more than 42 points on defense during Matt Eberflus’ three seasons with the team. They allowed 52 in Johnson’s second game, with Dennis Allen as defensive coordinator. The 31-point final margin in Detroit matched the worst in Eberflus’ 51 games. Last week, the Bears blew an 11-point lead and lost, the team’s worst blown lead in defeat since a loss to Denver in Week 4 of 2023. These are concerning early milestones.

• Way more than the QB: With so much focus on Johnson and quarterback Caleb Williams entering the season, inflamed by a report suggesting, among other things, that some in Chicago would rather have backup Tyson Bagent as the starter, the defense and special teams are what have fallen off the most for the Bears through two games.

The table below compares 2024 and 2025 production through two games for Williams and the Bears. Williams’ numbers are more efficient this season. The defense and special teams have regressed.

The trend holds when comparing the final two games of 2024, when the Bears were reeling and had already fired Eberflus, to the first two games of this season. Williams hasn’t been great, but he’s not necessarily the big story through this 0-2 start.

• No conspiracy here: How early should a coach remove his starting quarterback from a blowout defeat without signaling a lack of confidence? That question came to mind as the Bears navigated the fourth quarter in Detroit, especially given all the recent chatter surrounding what the Bears think about Williams.

Johnson pulled Williams with 7:53 remaining, earlier than coaches typically pull their starters when trailing by 30-plus points, unless they are considering a change. Johnson’s actions from that point forward — only three pass attempts for Bagent — showed he was protecting his starter, not featuring Bagent, whom Johnson has called “phenomenal” and a kindred spirit.

“Get him out of the game before he gets hurt,” a former head coach said.

This was the 15th time since 2022 that a team took possession with 6-8 minutes remaining while trailing by 30-plus points, excluding a meaningless Week 18 game in 2024 for Kansas City and a 2023 Jets game when Zach Wilson left injured. Eight of the other 14 finished the game. Two came out with under 4:00 to play. Mac Jones (twice), Aaron Rodgers, Trevor Lawrence and Williams were the only ones to come out with at least 7:00 to play. Jones and Lawrence were pulled by coaches who were noncommittal about their status. Rodgers asked out of a game with the Jets.

This was an outlier situation in Chicago and, hopefully for the Bears, not one the team will need to navigate frequently.

4. The 0-2 Dolphins play Buffalo on Thursday and then do not play until 11 days later, at home against the Jets on Monday night. We might find out how much faith ownership still has in coach Mike McDaniel.

The Dolphins ranked second in cash-over-cap spending across McDaniel’s first three seasons as coach (2022-24). They rank ninth this season, per Over the Cap. The gap between that spending and the Dolphins’ on-field results, coupled with a downward recent trajectory, seemed to put McDaniel on shaky ground entering this season, with sportsbooks pointing to him as the most vulnerable coach in the league.

Losing 33-8 at Indianapolis in the opener while allowing the Colts to score on every drive shortened those odds. Falling behind rebuilding New England 12-0 and losing 33-27 after blowing a late lead Sunday did not help. Now, with the Dolphins facing a trip to 2-0 Buffalo as a 10.5-point underdog Thursday night, followed by a long layoff before a home game on Monday night in Week 4, a pivot point could be approaching.

McDaniel still ranks third behind Kevin O’Connell and Todd Bowles in win rate among the 10 coaches hired in the 2022 cycle. He’s one of four still in the role. The wheels have not yet fallen off, but the lugnuts appear loose, and McDaniel must prove he can tighten them.

It’s a tough challenge for a coach who was hired partly because the team sought a friendlier face in the role after the harder-edged Brian Flores’ departure. It’s usually easier for a coach to lighten his grip on players after taking control early than it is to tighten his grip after taking a lighter approach early. It’s not like McDaniel was taking over in Pittsburgh or another place where a solid culture already existed.

The Dolphins rank 10th in defensive EPA per play since the start of last season, but they are 32nd this season after facing Daniel Jones and Drake Maye. Miami is the only team since at least 2000 to allow points on the first 10 opponent possessions to enter a season (all seven against the Colts, plus the first three against the Patriots). Will that realistically change at Buffalo?

5. The chances were very high that the 49ers would be kicking themselves. Here they are.

The 49ers held off a New Orleans team that entered the season with an NFL-low Vegas win total (4.5). Their 26-21 victory was notable because backup quarterback Mac Jones, making his first start for San Francisco, produced a stat line that blended in with so many others since Kyle Shanahan became the 49ers’ coach.

Jones became the fifth starter under Shanahan in San Francisco to finish a game with three or more touchdown passes and no interceptions. Brock Purdy (eight times), Jimmy Garoppolo (three), C.J. Beathard (one) and Nick Mullens (one) also did it.

That part was fairly predictable. Shanahan is known for scheming up production from a variety of quarterbacks. Also predictable: Shanahan would regret using a 2023 third-round pick for kicker Jake Moody.

Kicker Eddy Piñeiro made his 49ers debut after the team cut Moody during the week. Pineiro missed an extra point early in the game against New Orleans. He made both field goal tries, from 44 and 46 yards.

When the 49ers used that 2023 third-round pick for Moody, Shanahan explained that the team had not selected an offensive lineman in that round because none of the available ones projected as immediate starters.

But as we noted in our 2023 draft review, five other teams drafted offensive linemen in the 10 selections after San Francisco made the third of its three selections in the third round that year. Now is a good time to check in on those offensive linemen San Francisco decided weren’t better options.

Three of those five linemen — Anthony Bradford of Seattle, Dawand Jones of Cleveland and Blake Freeland of Indianapolis — started more than half the games for their teams as rookies. A fourth, Jake Andrews, is now the starting center for Houston after New England waived him. Bradford is Seattle’s starting right guard this season. Jones is Cleveland’s starting left tackle.

Drafting a kicker early makes little sense for a number of reasons. One of the biggest problems is that teams typically carry only one kicker on their rosters, so when a kicker inevitably hits a rough patch, teams cannot send them to the bench for a few series or games. Teams also have not shown an ability to coach kickers out of slumps. The decision on how to handle a struggling kicker quickly becomes one of whether to release the player in favor of another option.

Moody, chosen 99th in 2023, is one of nine third-round picks from that draft no longer with their original teams. Tight end Cameron Latu, selected 101st by the 49ers that year, is also among the nine.

6. Two-minute drill: Lions fans can exhale

We might have led this column with a look at the Lions had they fallen to 0-2. But on this day, Ben Johnson missed the Lions more than the Lions missed Ben Johnson.

Detroit’s 27-13 defeat at Green Bay in Week 1 featured the Lions’ 12th-worst EPA game on offense and 15th-worst on defense in 57 total games since 2022. This was concerning because Detroit was breaking in new, unproven play callers on both sides of the ball, having lost Johnson and Aaron Glenn to head-coaching jobs.

A similar performance against the Bears would have triggered alarms.

Against Chicago, the Lions produced their third-best offensive EPA game (+24.5) in that 57-game stretch dating to Johnson’s hiring as their offensive coordinator entering 2022. They also turned in their 13th-best defensive EPA game (+10.2) during that span.

The large blue dots in the chart below show the Lions’ performances in their first two games this season among all games since 2022.

Detroit rolled up 511 yards on the Bears, the sixth time since 2022 that the Lions have reached 500 in a game.

• Deep trouble vs. Packers: The Packers have been the most impressive team in the NFL through their opening victories over Detroit and Washington. Both games were at home, which helped. These were methodical, stress-free performances. One way to measure that: Green Bay has entered 11 offensive drives while leading by at least 10 points, most for a Green Bay team through two games since 2003, which means it never happened during Aaron Rodgers’ tenure.

There are many ways to build an early lead. It’s been fascinating to see just how intent the Packers remain to throw the ball downfield. Against Washington, Jordan Love attempted five first-half passes traveling at least 30 yards past the line of scrimmage. (This did not include the 39-yard touchdown on a bomb to Jayden Reed that was wiped out by a holding penalty.) That was the most for any player in the NFL since Love became the Packers’ starter in 2023. It points to a pattern that an opposing coach raised before the season in comments appearing in 2025 Quarterback Tiers.

“When we played them, I was like, ‘Man, this ball is going downfield — he don’t give a s—,’” this coach said during the offseason. “You don’t see a lot of quarterbacks play like that these days. It’s almost like they build it into their offense and see the benefits of making you defend the whole field and hitting a couple in exchange for a pick or two. It was interesting playing him. I came away thinking there is something different about this kid.”

Love completed passes gaining 48 yards against Detroit and 37 yards against Washington on first-half throws traveling at least 30 yards downfield. Green Bay’s seven first-half passes traveling at least 30 yards downfield are the most for any team in its first two games since Philadelphia had seven in 2008.

• More on Colts: The Colts, with victories over Miami (33-8) and Denver (29-28), are the only team since at least 2000 to score on their first 10 drives of a season.

This is not necessarily predictive, as the 2024 New Orleans Saints, who started 2-0 before losing seven straight, rank second on that list with nine scoring drives to start a season. But it’s good. The teams next on the list, 2012 Atlanta (13-3) and 2019 Kansas City (12-4, won Super Bowl) were real.

The victory over Denver, which led the NFL in defensive EPA per play last season, represented a remarkable turnaround from the Week 15 meeting between the teams last season, before Daniel Jones replaced Anthony Richardson as the Colts’ starting quarterback.

Richardson completed 17 of 38 passes (45 percent) for 172 yards (4.5 yards per attempt) with two interceptions in that 31-13 defeat last season. The game was close much of the way, but Denver scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to win easily — despite gaining only 3.9 yards per pass attempt on offense while allowing 107 yards on the ground to the Colts’ Jonathan Taylor (who voluntarily fumbled before crossing the goal line on a long run).

This time, Jones passed for 316 yards (9.3 per attempt) with a touchdown and no picks for a balanced offense that got 165 yards from Taylor. The Colts averaged 0.16 EPA per play on offense, fifth best against the Broncos since the start of last season. The top four EPA-per-play games against Denver during that span featured teams with Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Josh Allen or Joe Burrow behind center.

Jones is not one of those guys, but he’s definitely The Guy in Indy. …

• Seattle’s reversal: The Seahawks opened the season against San Francisco in Week 1 with their run-heaviest game script since the 2011 season, passing just four times in 15 chances on early downs in the first 28 minutes. The team was more balanced in its 31-17 victory at Pittsburgh (10 passes, 11 runs in those situations). There was a 21-yard touchdown pass to rookie Tory Horton and a 24-yard completion to another rookie, Elijah Arroyo, but also a brutal interception on an errant pass from Sam Darnold to Cooper Kupp.

With Seattle opening it up a little, we were able to see a glimpse of what the offense might become, and it wasn’t bad. The Seahawks were strongest on third down, most absurdly on Kenneth Walker III’s 19-yard run on third-and-goal, but also on Darnold’s passes to convert on third down with 10, 9 and 6 yards to go.

(Photo of Patrick Mahomes, 15, and Travis Kelce: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)