Chiefs' Costly Drops Underscore Offensive Struggles in Loss to Texans
It took just over a minute into Sunday’s game to see the writing on the wall for the Kansas City Chiefs. On third down of the opening drive, Patrick Mahomes found tight end Noah Gray wide open beyond the sticks - a clean read, a clean throw, and what should’ve been a clean catch.
Instead, the ball clanked off Gray’s hands and hit the turf. Drive over.
And that was just the beginning.
In the wake of a 20-10 loss to the Texans, there’s no shortage of questions surrounding Kansas City’s offense - from play design to execution to decision-making. But before diving into the deeper layers of scheme and strategy, there’s one glaring issue that continues to haunt this team: dropped passes.
Catch the ball. It’s the most basic tenet of offensive football, and yet it’s become one of the most persistent problems for a Chiefs team that now finds itself clinging to postseason hopes.
Let’s be clear - this isn’t about letting the coaching staff off the hook or ignoring other offensive misfires. But when you watch the tape and tally the missed opportunities, it becomes impossible to overlook how much damage came from simply not securing the football.
By a conservative count, the Chiefs dropped six passes against Houston. That’s not including borderline plays like Tyquan Thornton’s near-touchdown that was broken up by Kamari Lassiter, or Rashee Rice’s short drop before absorbing a big hit from Jalen Pitre. We’re talking about clear, uncontested drops - balls that hit receivers in both hands and hit the ground anyway.
Six of them.
Andy Reid didn’t sugarcoat it: “The obvious is we’ve had too many drops,” he said postgame. “You’ve got to take care of that. I’m not sure where these came from - we’d been catching the ball pretty good until the last couple of games.”
The volume is bad. The timing? Even worse.
Let’s run through the damage:
- Travis Kelce turned one drop into a turnover - his third drop-induced interception of the season. He also dropped the ball on the play just before that.
- Rashee Rice dropped a fourth-down ball in the fourth quarter that would’ve extended a drive with the Chiefs down by a touchdown.
Among 56 NFL receivers with at least 50 targets this year, Rice ranks 13th in drop rate at 9.8%, per PFF.
- Kareem Hunt was wide open in the red zone on a third-down play - a well-designed look in the flat - and dropped it.
- Noah Gray, as mentioned, dropped the first third-down target of the game, then dropped another ball on first down later. Both times, he was uncovered.
Four of those six drops directly ended possessions. In a game that stayed within one score for most of the fourth quarter, that’s a brutal margin for error. You can’t give away four drives and expect to beat a top-tier defense - especially one like Houston’s, which entered the game ranked No. 1 in the league.
According to the NFLfastR model, those six drops cost the Chiefs a combined minus-10.3 expected points added (EPA). The final margin of the game? Ten points.
It’s not just about stats, though. It’s about execution - and the fact that these plays worked.
The scheme did its job. The quarterback did his job.
The receivers got open. But when the ball hit their hands, the play fell apart.
That doesn’t absolve Mahomes, who finished with 19 incompletions on just 33 attempts. But six of those misses were catchable balls that hit receivers in the hands. That’s a huge chunk of production left on the field.
Had those six passes been caught, the Chiefs would’ve gained at least 65 more yards - and that’s using a conservative estimate that ignores potential yards after catch or broken tackles. Just the basics.
Those 65 yards would’ve ranked as the second-most total yards any team has put up against Houston’s defense all season. Same goes for yards per play.
In other words, the Chiefs had the plays. They had the looks. They just didn’t finish.
And that’s been the story of this season in a nutshell.
For months, it’s been easy to say the Chiefs are “dropping the ball” in key moments. Now, it’s not just figurative.
It’s literal. And unless something changes fast, those missed opportunities might be the difference between a playoff run and an early offseason.