Rich: What to Make of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Falling from the Ranks of the Unbeaten

The Kansas City Chiefs are no longer unbeaten, and Rich is not reaching for the panic button. "Nope," he said. "Why would I?"

That does not mean he liked what he saw on Sunday night. "That didn't look good," Rich said. "It looked like a team that needs help at receiver at the trade deadline."

Rich's case for calm starts with Andy Reid, who "has been around the block" and has been around the block in that Seattle stadium specifically. It is a tough place to win, especially at night "when everybody's all whipped up into a frenzy." Rich also doubts the Seahawks' blueprint travels well. Kenneth Walker is "not going to run all over everybody," he said, but not everybody has that Seattle defense, which he called arguably the best in the league.

Denver, he added, is arguably close, and Denver is next. That makes the trip to the Broncos a real swing game. If Denver wins, the Broncos go to 6-2 and the Chiefs fall to 5-2, which would put Denver in first place despite losing to Kansas City in the season-opening Monday nighter seven weeks earlier. Rich sees the AFC West as a two-horse race. The Chargers are now the league's last winless team, a status they inherited when, as Rich put it while catching his own slip, "the Jets took care of that. Pardon me, the Dolphins took care of that." The Raiders, once 3-0, have spent a month losing, and Rich is ready to remove them as a division-winning possibility.

So the prescription is simple: lick the wounds, go to the film room, and treat this as an outlier, while still making sure everyone looks in the mirror. That is essentially what Patrick Mahomes said at the podium. "If you don't come ready to play, you get your tail kicked in this league, no matter if you're 5-0 or whatever it is," Mahomes said. "Every week is a new week and every team can do this." He pointed to a young team and the big game coming up. "It'll be about how we respond from this," he said.

The part that has Rich curious is what Reid and general manager Brett Veach are saying in their heart-to-hearts, because this is the first time in Mahomes' career he has gone back-to-back games without a passing or rushing touchdown. "They're lucky to be one and one in those games," Rich said.

Receiver is the obvious pressure point. How healthy can Rashee Rice get? Rich said it is "time to turn into Matthew Golden" for Xavier Worthy, and pointed to a moment when Mahomes hit Worthy right in the hands on a beautiful throw leading him toward the sideline. Worthy could have turned upfield. He dropped it. The deep threat Kansas City had in Tyquan Thornton is "not walking through that door or hobbling through it, unfortunately." That leaves the front office asking who is available and how deep into the draft pocket it wants to go.

Then there is Harrison Butker, who Rich hopes "can somehow start making kicks cuz he's not making them now." One was short and another went wide left, which Rich noted was ironic.

None of it changes his bottom line. The Chiefs are still in the mix for the No. 1 seed in the AFC, "as rightfully they can be." Rich's advice: don't bury the tape, just move on from it, go to Denver and wipe the bad taste out. What he really wants to know is how Kansas City views its roster with the trade deadline lurking.