Do KC Chiefs have their swagger back? It’s just one win, but here’s why it feels vital

The turnaround came after halftime, resembling the way the Chiefs used to demoralize teams by first offering them hope only to punish them with talent late.

Sunday’s 31-13 victory at Washington featured another second-half comeback orchestrated by a quarterback who’s led a lot of them. For a quarterback who wins more often than he loses when he’s trailing.

But there’s something about this one that felt different. Something that feels like the Chiefs just played their most important half of the season.

They were 2-3 until Sunday, for starters, briefly staring at the possibility of 2-4, with their early-season wins categorized more as “on to the next one” than cause for celebration.

On Sunday, even if just for a half, the Chiefs regained their swagger, outscoring the Washington Football Team 21-0 after the break. For a half, they made evident that their current championship aspirations are based on this team and this roster, rather than recent history.

For a half. (Did we mention that?)

“Honestly, the way we did it, even though it wasn’t pretty in the first half, I feel like hopefully it will get us rolling,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “We had another bad first half. It could’ve spiraled right there.

“How this season’s gone and the adversity we’ve dealt with, it could’ve spiraled. But I thought the guys, it was a lot of mental toughness to go back and to battle and to go out there and believe in each other.”

There’s acknowledgment in that comment that expectations have changed, intentionally or otherwise. The Chiefs played 2019 and 2020 as though they expected the switch would eventually flip. Mahomes would make a play. The defense would make a stop. Whatever they needed, they would eventually produce.

This fall, “with how this season’s gone,” as Mahomes put it, the Chiefs have seen that the reality of the NFL is far different now. Expectations have changed. The Chiefs have lost three games, and that has a way of humbling you.

They were absurdly bad in the first half Sunday. Let’s be clear. What could go wrong did go wrong. And in self-inflicted ways. They turned the ball over three times. Another ball went through the arms of Tyreek Hill and fell into a defender’s body for an interception.

Mahomes threw the worst interception of his career, and that might include whatever mistakes he made in college, high school or Pop Warner. A defensive sequence frustrated safety Tyrann Mathieu so badly that he couldn’t hide it anymore.

Anyone within earshot could hear his anger.

In recent years, this franchise shrugged that stuff off. And on Sunday, like old times, the Chiefs moved on. They played the third and fourth quarters like the first and second never happened.

That’s what seemed to return.

Washington is an inferior team. It’s not as talented as Buffalo or Los Angeles or Baltimore. That matters, of course. But this is more about the Chiefs’ emotional response than the score itself.

And Mathieu noticed it before kickoff even arrived.

“What is it, Week 6? After awhile, you have to have a sense of urgency,” he said. “It’s not about anything outside our locker room. As long as we can play with that attitude, play with that energy, we can handle the lows and the highs of the game — the sudden changes.

“As long as we have that attitude, that spirit, it doesn’t really matter the situation you’re in.”

The players and coaches who walked to the post-game podium at FedEx Field in this Washington D.C. suburb couldn’t pinpoint the reason it all finally came together — offense, defense, special teams — for the first time this season. There wasn’t some gifted speech or moving moment on the sideline, they insisted.

But this is where the experience matters.

After a miserable first half, a group of players spotlighted in back-to-back Super Bowls kept it simple, as if to say ...

“Enough’s enough,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said, later adding, “The guys get tired of it. The leaders, you get tired of it. And it’s gotta change.”