Kenneth Walker and Khyiris Tonga arrived in Kansas City after a Super Bowl that put them on opposite sides of the biggest stage in the sport, and both now find themselves in a very different kind of spotlight. The Chiefs are trying to climb back from a 6-11 season, the worst of Andy Reid’s Kansas City run, and the new faces in the locker room have already seen enough to know the mood is different.
Kansas City opens the 2026 season against the Denver Broncos on “Monday Night Football” at Arrowhead Stadium, and the goal inside the building is straightforward: get back to the winning standard that defined the franchise for so long. For years, the Chiefs were the team others chased for talent and for championship know-how. Now they are the ones trying to restore that feeling after a steep fall.
Tonga said the message has been consistent from the top.
“Coach is always reminding us getting back to that standard of what Kansas City’s used to,” Tonga said.
Walker, who came through a long and demanding training camp, said the work around him made the disappointment of last season easy to feel.
“I saw the work they put in, and you know how competitive they are,” Walker said. “It starts with (quarterback Patrick Mahomes) and the leaders on the team.”
That 2025 collapse hit harder because of what came before it. The Chiefs had reached three straight Super Bowls and five of the last six before falling to the Philadelphia Eagles in a bid to become the first team to win three in a row. They went into the playoffs with a 15-2 record the year before, then watched the bottom drop out.
Last season started unevenly, but Kansas City still stood 6-5 before a Thanksgiving Day trip to the Dallas Cowboys. The Chiefs had just erased the Indianapolis Colts in a fourth-quarter comeback and then won in overtime to move to 6-5. That turned out to be their last win of the season.
A season-ending knee injury to Mahomes with three games left finished off the year and all but ended the team’s decade-long playoff streak.
The slide was only compounded by the preseason, when the Chiefs went 0-2-1. Since that Colts game on Nov. 23, Kansas City has not left a field with a win, a nine-game stretch that includes preseason and playoff games and hasn’t happened since 2010-11.
That’s a jarring place for a franchise that has spent the last 10 years leading the NFL in victories, playoff wins, Super Bowl wins and division titles.
Still, the talk around the team has been about turning the page and getting back to work, with Mahomes’ return from injury serving as the obvious starting point.
“It’s a new year, a new opportunity,” defensive tackle Chris Jones said.
Walker said the hunger is obvious from the outside looking in.
“You could see how hungry everybody is,” Walker said.
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It was the sort of wrinkle Reid can pull when he wants to keep a defense guessing, and it gave the Chiefs another reminder that the playbook does not always have to stay in the present tense. The Heisman look worked in the game, but it also left open a bigger question for opponents: if Kansas City is willing to dust off something this unusual in September, what else might Reid have tucked away for later? [Read more 🡒]