To say things haven't been going the way Kansas City Chiefs fans expected when the 2025 NFL season began might actually be an understatement.

Coming off a disappointing defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl, KC was widely considered the favorite to return to the grandest stage in sports next February, but if the season ended after Week 11, they wouldn't even be eligible for the playoffs, with the Chiefs currently sitting in ninth place with a 5-5 record.

What happened? How did the Chiefs fall so far from grace with essentially the same roster returning from he season before? Well, in the opinion of ESPN's Peter Schrager, it's because the Chiefs have stopped focusing on the little things that help a team win, especially on the third phase of football.

“It's not a wildly different roster, right, compared to last season. Why so many struggles for Kansas City right now? I think the first month of the season, we were like, ‘Well, wait till Rashee Rice gets there. And wait till Hollywood Brown's fully healthy. And wait till Xavier.' They're all there. And they're all playing. There were 12-0 in one-score games last year. They're 0-5 in one-score games this year. And the edge that the Chiefs always had was that they were always better than you at the little things: special teams and penalties,” Schrager said.

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“Yesterday, their special teams was a disaster. And that's what scares you. Marvin Mims here has this incredible 70-yard punt return. This doesn't happen to a Dave Taleb special teams unit. They had a bunch of special teams flags. And the late extra point attempt by Harrison Butker, which would have put him over, was blocked. That is unlike Chiefs football. They had 10 penalties for 69 yards. That is not Chiefs football under Andy Reid, especially off a bye, where they were 22-4 under Andy Reid, both with the Eagles and the Chiefs. They have the same players. They're in these closed games. And they're not winning. Things like special teams and penalties, they're not sexy, but they matter.”

To say the 2025 NFL season hasn't gone the way the Chiefs would have hoped would be an understatement, but at 5-5, they still have a chance to get back on track, as the teams in seventh place, the Jacksonville Jaguars, only have a one-game lead on Patrick Mahomes and company at 7-4. If the Chiefs can clean up their special teams woes as Schrager suggests, who knows? Maybe this will be nothing more than a blip in a time-worn tradition of Kansas City playoff success.