Thanks to a 6-8 record and their most recent loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, the Kansas City Chiefs will officially miss their first postseason in more than a decade. It’ll be the first playoff absence of Patrick Mahomes’ career and the Chiefs’ first since 2014, but given the former’s ACL and MCL injuries, they likely wouldn’t have made it very far anyways.
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The three-time Super Bowl champion tore his knee during the waning moments of the Week 15 loss to the Chargers, and as he was gingerly walking towards the locker room with the assistance of medical staff, he limped right past all of the championship banners that he had helped to raise with the team. For many, it was a painful visual that marked the end of the Chiefs’ dynasty, and according to Cam Newton, fans shouldn’t be surprised if the team’s star tight end, Travis Kelce, attempts to run it back one more time.
“I see Travis Kelce taking his retirement into consideration,” Newton suggested during the latest episode of his 4th and 1 podcast. “I would not rule out the possibility where Travis Kelce pulls a Rob Gronkowski and say ‘Hey, I’m not playing for no other quarterback unless my quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, is healthy.'”
After sitting out for several seasons, the former New England Patriot famously reunited with his former quarterback on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in order to make one last Super Bowl run. Unfortunately for Kansas City, the current state of their roster isn’t anywhere near as deep as the 2020 Buccaneers, and in the eyes of Newton, that means that it’s time for change rather than more of the same.
“That team now needs to look to pivoting to a different direction,” Newton exclaimed prior to suggesting that the Chiefs should look for a quarterback who can help them to remain competitive throughout the early parts of the 2026 season while Mahomes continues to recover. Of course, that’s always easier said than done in the NFL, and given Kelce’s most recent statement on retirement, there’s no guarantee that he’d be there once Mahomes finally returned either.
“All the conversations that I have with the team and everything moving forward will be with them,” Kelce stated during his most recent appearance at the podium. “It’s a unique time in my life, and unfortunately I got three games left, and I know when the season ends. Typically, we go into it and we don’t know when it’s gonna end.”
Regardless as to what Kelce’s final decision may be, the reality of the situation is that the Chiefs’ reign of terror is finally over, at least for now anyways. According to Newton, Mahomes’ seven-year streak of appearing in the AFC Championship is one of the clearest signs of “dominance” that we have ever seen in the NFL, and he isn’t so sure that “will ever be broken again.”
Suffice to say, it’s a bitter sweet feeling in Kansas City right now, as even though another good thing has finally come to an end, boy was it fun while it lasted.
