Patrick Mahomes on Chiefs No Longer Being Undefeated, Hoping Bills Loss Is a ‘Spark'

The Chiefs finally dropped a game, but Patrick Mahomes and Noah Gray think the loss to the Bills can inspire better football moving forward.

Nov 17, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes (15) rolls out looking to throw the ball against the Buffalo Bills during the second half at Highmark Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images / Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

Life comes at you fast in the NFL, unless your franchise is the Kansas City Chiefs. It took the back-to-back Super Bowl champions over 300 days to finally drop a game, serving as a testament to one of the sport's more impressive regular-season and playoff winning streaks in the past handful of years.

While an individual loss won't alter the entire season for 9-1 Kansas City, the context of it does at least raise an eyebrow. Down its starting running back and multiple key wide receivers, the Chiefs' offense couldn't quite hang with that of the Buffalo Bills. On the defensive side of the ball, Steve Spagnuolo's unit broke after bending in recent weeks.

Still, though, it's important to remember that the champs didn't play to their ceiling. That's what quarterback Patrick Mahomes is taking away from Week 11. Kansas City's quest for a perfect season is now over, but Andy Reid's team has bigger things in mind.

"Yeah, you can use it as fuel," Mahomes said. "I mean, like I said, that's a good football team, so nothing to hang your head on losing to them. We feel like we can play better, so we'll get back to work and try to use this as a spark so we can be a better football team in the end. The undefeated thing was cool but that's not our ultimate goal, so we'll keep building towards that."

Does this loss compare at all to the last outing the Chiefs dropped? Mahomes doesn't draw many parallels to 2023's Christmas Day embarrassment – yes, that far back – at the hands of the Las Vegas Raiders. The only thing he hopes this game has in common with that is how the season will end.

"Not in [that] sense," Mahomes said. "You hope you have the same result to end it, I'll say that. But at the end of the day, that's a really good football team. It's going to take your best football to beat great football teams, and we didn't play our best football today and they went out and beat us. That's just how it rolls in the NFL. All the respect to them. That's going to be a good football team that we'll probably see again."

The "spark" Mahomes mentioned is something the offense seemed to have for a handful of weeks. Even down receivers Marquise "Hollywood" Brown and Rashee Rice, the Chiefs had scored between 26 and 30 points in four games in a row from Weeks 5-9. Last weekend, however, saw the team take a step back and put up a mere 16-point effort against the Denver Broncos and need a game-saving blocked field goal to stay undefeated. Many assumed that reintroducing JuJu Smith-Schuster on offense would help on Sunday, yet things were somewhat stagnant at times.

Tight end Noah Gray, who downplayed his two-touchdown performance in the loss, also embraces the future-focused mentality.

"Yeah, I don't think we ever put too much stress on that whole aspect," Gray said. "We just take it game by game. Buffalo played a tremendous game, tremendous team, but we're really looking forward to next week. We're just going to come back out to practice, be the best possible team that we can in practice, learn from it, look at the film and move forward, listen to our coaches, play as a team and ultimately be better for it down the road."

Luckily for Kansas City, the next two weeks provide favorable matchups. Week 12's opponent, the Carolina Panthers, entered Sunday as the league's worst scoring defense and its third-worst when it comes to yardage. The following Friday, it's a rematch against a 2-8 Raiders squad that has surrendered more points than all but two teams. The opportunity for an uptick in efficiency will be there.

It all comes down to whether Sunday was a spark or will lead to more of the same.

Read More: Four Takeaways from the Kansas City Chiefs' 30-21 Loss to the Buffalo Bills