The Kansas City Chiefs your older sibling told you about may finally be back.
The Chiefs improved to 5-0 with a 22-6 win over the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday, and the Patrick Mahomes-led offense that once ran roughshod over the NFL appears to have returned in nearly full force.
From 2018 (the year Mahomes became Kansas City’s starting quarterback) to 2022, the Chiefs ranked first in expected points added per play on offense over those five combined seasons, per RBSDM.com, a website that specializes in advanced analytics. In that time, Kansas City won two Super Bowls, while Mahomes won two regular-season MVP awards.
From 2023 through 2025, however, the Chiefs ranked only 10th in offensive EPA, taking a significant step backward. Kansas City still managed to win one more championship during those three seasons. But in that time, the Chiefs also suffered a humiliating Super Bowl loss in which their offense crumbled, and last season they started 6-7 before Mahomes tore an ACL and ultimately missed the playoffs.
Now, Mahomes and the Chiefs are undefeated through five games for only the third time in his career, and the offense much more closely resembles the heights of his torrid five-year start compared with the more recent three-season malaise.
Entering Week 6, Kansas City ranked fourth in the NFL in EPA per play on offense, which would be its best finish since the 2022 campaign. The Chiefs also entered the week ranked second in EPA per rush, which would be their best mark this decade.
There are several reasons for the offense’s stellar performance through five games.
Mahomes himself has been better, posting his highest yards per attempt average and passer rating since 2022. Even after his no-touchdown, one-interception game against the Chargers, Mahomes is on pace to throw 32 touchdown passes this year, which would be his most since (you guessed it!) 2022.
Meanwhile, Kansas City is also getting a major boost from running back Kenneth Walker III, who signed with the team before the season fresh off winning the Super Bowl MVP award with the Seattle Seahawks.
Walker has rushed for at least one touchdown in every game but one so far this season. After having run for 128 yards and two scores against Los Angeles, Walker has amassed 655 yards and six touchdowns on the ground while adding two TDs as a receiver.
“He’s a stud,” coach Andy Reid told reporters postgame. “He knows how to run the ball, knows how to set up runs. There’s an art to that and patience that you’ve got to have and vision and all those things that the great ones have. He’s got all of that, and he’s tough. He’s a tough kid.”
Walker’s first five games have put him in elite company. He’s only the third player this millennium to have at least 750 scrimmage yards and eight touchdowns through the first five games of a season, according to NFL researcher Tony Holzman-Escareno. Priest Holmes did it in 2002 and won the Offensive Player of the Year award. Marshall Faulk did it in 2000 and won the same award … as well as the MVP award.
Walker is also the first player since Hall of Famer Jim Brown in 1963 with at least 600 rushing yards, six rushing touchdowns and multiple receiving touchdowns through his first five games, per Holzman-Escareno.
The offense still may have another level to reach, according to Walker, who said postgame, “I feel like we’re going to get better.”
(On top of all the offensive success, the Chiefs have also been stingy defensively, allowing only 16.3 points per game after Sunday’s win.)
The last time Kansas City started 5-0 was in the 2024 season, when it finished the regular season 11-0 in one-score games and white-knuckled two playoff wins before getting blown out by the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl.
But this is an entirely different 5-0, as the Chiefs are now powered by a highly efficient offense and a capable defense. While Kansas City has been a perennial title contender under Mahomes, this year’s team is much more formidable than it was the last few seasons.
“We had played in so many Super Bowls, the last few we didn’t play our best in the regular season,” Mahomes said, saying coming back from the ACL injury has changed his perspective. “Today, for me, is about the process. Having to go through that rehab process and not play football has really made me enjoy the process of it.”
He added, “You want to take advantage of every opportunity you get to step on the field.”
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