The good news for the Kansas City Chiefs is that they're above the .500 mark for the first time since mid-September. The bad news is that Patrick Mahomes still looks like a shell of himself in a broken, dysfunctional offense.
In the team's uninspiring 13-7 win over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, Mahomes completed 20 of 37 passes for a career-low 166 yards with one touchdown, and averaged a scant 4.5 yards per attempt. The 54.1 completion percentage was also his third-lowest mark in a regular season game, and according to ESPN Stats & Info, his 3.2 average air yards on completions ranked second-lowest in a game he started and finished.
"It's a combination of, the offensive line not playing particularly well -- it's a bunch of new guys who haven't gelled or don't know Mahomes' tendencies quite yet -- and Mahomes being wildly impatient," CBS Sports senior writer Will Brinson told the Reiter Than You show on Monday. "He tried to force a throw down the field to Hardman, who's in double coverage, for a touchdown, instead of just taking the underneath hit to Kelce and letting him do work...
"He's just not been willing to take what the defenses are giving him... I always liken it to golf, where, if you know you've got certain problems with your swing or game in general, you start pressing. That's just what Mahomes is doing -- he's pressing, and it's compounding the problems. And his tendencies from Texas Tech, coming into the [2017 draft], are sort of showing a little bit more, as a result of the pressing and the pressure."
The MVP-caliber version of Mahomes is missing. Through nine games, he's completed a career-low 65.2-percent of his passes for 2,534 yards with 20 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Kansas City probably found solace in the fact that he snapped his seven-game turnover streak against the Packers.
Following the game, Mahomes expressed optimism, telling reporters that he's still "extremely confident" in the offense's ability to revert to its championship-level, high-octane form during the second half of the season. The Chiefs' unit currently ranks 15th in the NFL in average points (24.6), the lowest total in the Mahomes era.
Kansas City (5-4) will visit the Las Vegas Raiders (5-3) in a marquee Week 10 matchup on Sunday night. According to FiveThirtyEight, the Chiefs now have a 56-percent chance to reach the playoffs and just a 3-percent chance to win Super Bowl 56.
The entire NFL conversation between Brinson and Reiter can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow the Reiter Than You show on Twitter @sportsreiter and @CBSSportsRadio, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.