There’s 4:05 left in the fourth quarter. The score is 19-19 between the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos. And the ball is in the hands of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes at his own 26-yard line.

In seemingly any other year, this would have been swinging at a piñata without a blindfold. It was more than an ideal opportunity for the Chiefs. It was a quintessential setup.

And yet, this is what Mahomes and the Chiefs’ offense produced: an incomplete pass down the middle meant for tight end Travis Kelce; another incomplete pass to the right intended for Kelce; and an 11-yard sack that featured running back Kareem Hunt failing to identify a slot corner blitz by the Broncos’ Ja’Quan McMillian. And just like that, a quarterback with 30 career game-winning drives in the regular season and playoffs … failed.

Making matters worse, the Chiefs burned barely a minute off the clock, giving the ball back to the Broncos with 2:59 remaining. Denver turned that gift into a back-breaking drive and a game-winning 35-yard field goal as time expired.

A silver-platter moment to get their season back on track had evaporated, and the Chiefs had fallen to 5-5 — with all five losses coming in one-score games.

Later, Mahomes would lament a win slipping away: “Just having an opportunity at the end of the game and not coming through — getting the ball back with four minutes and all you need is a field goal, is a spot that we’ve been in a lot and we’ve been able to do that. … You want to get that opportunity at the end of the game and I didn’t come through.”

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A game. A playoff seed. An expectation that the Chiefs will figure it out. All seemingly slipping away.

How Kansas City got here and where they go next has suddenly become the lingering NFL storyline that nobody expected heading into late November. Not because the Chiefs haven’t had problems in the past, but because this is Patrick Mahomes being coached by Andy Reid. This tandem usually figures it out, especially when the rest of us think we’re starting to see meaningful cracks in the Kingdom’s foundation.

This time, though, a crossroads really does appear to be creeping for the franchise. From the Chiefs hosting the 8-2 Indianapolis Colts this weekend and potentially facing their first three-game losing streak in a single season in the Mahomes era, to the suddenly very real possibility that Kansas City fails to make the playoffs for the first time since 2014 — this feels different. Especially with a core group of talent that has questions.

Is Kelce going to retire? Are we in the midst of the decline of defensive tackle Chris Jones? What can be done to dial Mahomes back into the MVP form of 2022? Are we ignoring a salary cap pinch next offseason? What about the necessary extensions for cornerback Trent McDuffie and wideout Rashee Rice?

If the Chiefs were 8-2, these would all be Champagne problems. At 5-5, they’re concerning. But if Kansas City misses the playoffs? The bubbly goes flat and all you’re left with is an offseason of real problems.

Of course, some of this probably should have been expected. After a season of catching seemingly every green light in 2024 — going a mind-boggling 11-0 in one-score games — the Chiefs have repeatedly hit reds this season. The 0-5 reversal in one-score games can be attributed to multiple things, but it underscores that some of Kansas City’s flaws are starting to cost the Chiefs at times when they need to close out an opponent late.

Some of it has been game management. Some a lack of balance in the offense. And some has been self-inflicted mistakes. That’s a lot of “coaching” categories, which is suggestive that the staff either needs some fine-tuning, or there are some roster tweaks required to get the players, schemes and expectations aligned again. What can’t happen is a casual approach to the problems, or falling into the quicksand of thinking 2025 is an aberration and that so long as Mahomes is the quarterback and Reid is the head coach, things will work themselves out. In some ways, that’s what happened last offseason, which became more about extending current players than augmenting the roster with meaningful free agents.

While it’s a fair assessment that the Chiefs can’t do everything — especially with their current tight cap situation — it’s also a fair assessment to start realizing they now have to do more. Winning so many one-score games in 2024 should have been taken as a sign that margins for error were tightening on Kansas City, with a presumption that breaks could very easily go the opposite direction in 2025 and push the franchise to 5-5 and contemplating the mortality of its playoff chances. Because make no mistake, the teams around Kansas City in the AFC are getting better.

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Patrick Mahomes: ‘I’m just not making the throws’

In some ways, Kansas City’s issues this year are reminiscent of the warning signs that faced the 2021 Green Bay Packers, who went 13-4 and captured the No. 1 seed in that season’s playoffs, only to lose in the divisional round to the San Francisco 49ers. In retrospect, it was telling that the Packers had won seven games by one-score or less in 2021, catching multiple breaks over the course of the season. Were there red flags in Green Bay? Yes, but the wins made them seem less urgent.

The following offseason, the Packers did little to meaningfully improve or change the state of the roster, presuming the playoff loss to the 49ers was just a bad break. Little was done to change a running game that was mediocre and costly in the playoff loss. Little changed on the coaching staff. Free agency was virtually nonexistent, with Green Bay choosing instead to re-sign players and again lean on Aaron Rodgers. What they ignored was that the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings were getting better in their division. And that the Philadelphia Eagles were building an NFC juggernaut. And that Rodgers had some erosion in his game that was going to be hard to overcome. All of these things played a big part of 13-4 in 2021 turning into 8-9 in 2022.

While that’s not a perfect 1-for-1 scenario with the Chiefs, some of the underlying factors are similar. Kansas City’s running game is still maddening, either due to talent, or health, or a scheme that is converting a run game into RPO passes. Whatever the case, it truly is a problem in terms of how the game is setting up. Runs of 3, 4, 5 yards and more have a cumulative effect of depleting a defense. RPO passes of the same substance don’t. Sure, the efficiency matters. But the mentality does, too. And the Chiefs have not maintained a consistent mentality of beating up teams with the run.

Consequently, that continues to put more onto the shoulders of Mahomes, whose deep-ball accuracy has been off just enough to be problematic in some losses. Heading into the Colts matchup, he’s gone 17 for 48 on passes of 20 air yards or more. In some of those situations, a miss was game-changing — something that was illustrated perfectly when he overthrew wideout Xavier Worthy on what likely would have been a 61-yard touchdown in the 22-19 loss to the Broncos last Sunday.

As Mahomes told reporters Wednesday, “I’m just not making the throws. [That’s] pretty much the biggest thing. Guys are getting open and giving me chances to make the plays down the field.”

It’s not all on him, of course. Rice is still working to get to a consistent role as a high end No. 1 wideout. Worthy is still finding his way as a deep threat that is more finesse than physical. The offensive line has been in some state of flux all season, either from inconsistent performance, health or just not having rookie left tackle Josh Simmons for an extended stretch. There can be chemistry growth in that group sheerly from the standpoint of getting it together and keeping it together.

That’s certainly not an ideal problem to have right now, with the Colts coming into Arrowhead and then a quick turnaround to a Thanksgiving Day road game against a Dallas Cowboys team that is suddenly experiencing a galvanized emotional wave after the death of defensive end Marshawn Kneeland. Add in games against a defensively feisty Houston Texans, the Los Angeles Chargers and Broncos — with all of these opponents in five of the next six weeks — and the Chiefs have a mountain to climb.

And as we saw against the Broncos, this trek back into the playoff picture feels less promised than ever before. Maybe it’s something the Chiefs should have seen coming after winning so many close games. Or maybe it’s simply the arrival of inevitable challenges that come for every dynastic period in NFL history. Through the remainder of the season, what it is will be less important than when it is.

The time, the place, the crossroads for the Chiefs — is now.