The Kansas City Chiefs suffered a heartbreaking loss on Monday Night Football. Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence fell down, got back up, and scampered in for the game-winning touchdown with less than a minute to play. That improbable play gave the Chiefs their third loss on the season, moving them to 2-3.
The AFC is completely wide open after the first five weeks of the 2025 season. Kansas City has struggled, but they are very much alive in the playoff hunt.
That said, the Chiefs need to play with more urgency and eliminate mistakes if they want to turn the season around.
Monday's loss offered a few examples for why the Chiefs have been underperforming through Week 5.
So how did the Chiefs manage to lose this game? And how much doubt does it cast on the rest of their season?
Below we will explore who is most to blame for the Chiefs' last-second loss against the Jaguars on Monday Night Football.
Chiefs offense is not what it used to be
There was plenty of hype this offseason about Kansas City's offense.
The Chiefs talked a big game about unleashing the deep passing game with Hollywood Brown and Xavier Worthy. But weirdly, it has been Tyquan Thornton who has been doing his best Tyreek Hill impression.
On paper, the plan is actually working. Mahomes has already completed 14 passes when targeting 20+ yards downfield this season. That is a massive improvement from 2024, when Mahomes only had 41 such completions during the entire regular season.
Unfortunately, it hasn't seemed to move the needle much in terms of wins and losses.
The Chiefs are still great at distributing the ball to multiple playmakers. But perhaps their biggest problem is that those playmakers simply aren't as effective as they used to be.
Travis Kelce is still good, but not an elite tight end at this stage of his career. Worthy, Brown, and Thornton are solid wide receivers, but none can threaten opposing defenses like a true WR1 would.
And the running game is perhaps the most worrying situation of all.
Mahomes led the Chiefs in rushing with six carries for 60 yards and a touchdown in Week 5.
Kareem Hunt and Isiah Pacheco combined for 14 carries for 85 yards and two touchdowns. Hunt did the lion's share of the work, with Pacheco still looking stuck in the mud.
Ultimately, Kansas City's offense feels like it is missing one more elite playmaker who could open up the entire offense.
Chiefs fans have to be hopeful that the return of Rashee Rice will do just that.
Chiefs committed too many penalties against the Jaguars
Kansas City repeatedly shot themselves in the foot with penalties.
The Chiefs finished the game with 13 penalties for 109 yards, compared to just four penalties for 25 yards against the Jaguars. This unquestionably had a huge impact on the game, especially during a few key drives.
Look no further than Jacksonville's final drive of the game. Chiefs cornerback Chamarri Conner was called for pass interference in the end zone, which set up Lawrence's memorable game-winning touchdown.
Pete Sweeney of The Kansas City Star also pointed out that Jaylen Watson was flagged during each of Jacksonville's first two touchdown drives on offense. Chiefs guard Kingsley Suamataia also committed a crucial holding penalty during the third quarter that shut down an otherwise promising drive.
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid wasted little time at the postgame press conference before address the mountain of penalties.
“Whether I agree with them or don’t agree with them, it doesn’t matter,” Reid said. “(The officials) called them. And so you have that many penalties, you give up field position, you can out-stat them to death, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the score that matters, and we’ve got to take care of business there.”
Through five games, the Chiefs are in the bottom five among NFL teams when it comes to penalties committed (42) and penalty yardage (350).
Reid deserves some of the blame, as his team is surprisingly undisciplined early in the 2025 season.
This is something to watch moving forward, as it appears to be more trend than noise.
Devin Lloyd interception was too much for Chiefs to overcome
And above all else, there was one play that shifted the balance of the entire game.
Patrick Mahomes threw a brutal interception to Devin Lloyd during the third quarter. Lloyd looked like he would blitz on the play, but instead dropped into coverage. He stepped right in front of a pass intended for JuJu Smith-Schuster, intercepting it and taking it 99 yards in the other direction for a touchdown.
This kind of high-leverage play is always incredibly important to the outcome of a game. Especially a one-score game like this one. It was effectively a 14-point swing in the favor of Jacksonville.
“We have the guys, and we've executed at certain points in games and looked really good, but we crush ourselves with penalties and mistakes,” Mahomes said after the game. “We've done that to ourselves all season long. It's been one guy here or there. In this league, it's so close that those [moments] change games. We’ve got to be better.”
The message here is not that Mahomes is the problem in Kansas City. In fact, this was only his second interception of the season.
But it is concerning that the Chiefs are unable to overcome mistakes like this one, something they used to be capable of.
Chiefs fans have to be nervous ahead of a Week 6 matchup against the Lions.
