Even the most casual NFL fan knows that the Kansas City Chiefs' biggest flaw over the last year has been dropped passes.
The Chiefs led the league in drops in 2023 with 44. Many of those drops came during crucial situations, ultimately costing them some games. Two of the biggest culprits, Kadarius Toney and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, are no longer with the team. However, even Rashee Rice and Travis Kelce, who are among the top of the league at their positions, had a combined 15 dropped passes last year.
Kansas City knew knew this issue was atop the list of things to fix during the offseason, leading to the acquisitions of receivers Hollywood Brown and Xavier Worthy. While it seems like Worthy will be a major weapon for the Chiefs this season, Brown will unfortunately miss most, if not all of the regular season with a shoulder injury.
The Chiefs recorded two dropped passes in their Week 1 victory over the Baltimore Ravens, extending their regular season streak of games with a drop to 10. One was a bit costly, as JuJu Smith-Schuster dropped a would-be touchdown pass, forcing K.C. to have to settle for a field goal.
In Week 2 against the Cincinnati Bengals the Chiefs finally snapped their streak of drops, as our friend Chris Clark of Chiefs Corner pointed out on X.
With how well Bengals defenders were locking down Chiefs receivers, it was a good week to not have any costly drops. Rashee Rice had a huge 44-yard touchdown reception and drew a crucial fourth down pass interference penalty on the final drive of the game that put the Chiefs in position for Harrison Butker to kick the game winning field goal as time expired.
There will always be dropped passes from time to time, but hopefully it's not as big of a problem for the Chiefs this season. Sure, all ended well with a Super Bowl victory last year, but it was by far their toughest road to get there out of their last three championship runs.
Even just cutting their drops in half from last year, which would have put them in the middle of the pack, would make a dramatic improvement in scoring, preventing turnovers and field position.
