The defending AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday looked a bit more like the team that has gone to seven straight conference championship games, and played in five Super Bowls winning three in that same time span. Their 30-17 win over the Detroit Lions, despite the brawl that followed the final whistle, raised their record to 3-2, but was their first genuinely convincing win over a quality opponent of the season.
Did the win mark a real turnaround for the most dominant team of the decade? They have another chance to continue righting the ship in Week 7 when they host a struggling (2-4) Los Vegas Raiders team whose four defeats have come by an average of 15.5 points each.
But according to Peter King â an NFL pundit whose 40-year career, including 29 as author of the must-read Monday Morning Quarterback column for Sports Illustrated, has made him as legendary as the players he has covered â there is still “something wrong” with the Chiefs.
One Major Problem: Kelce’s Drops
In an interview on Tuesday, the 68-year-old King identified two specific issues with the Chiefs that in his view must be fixed for the Chiefs season to continue on a track toward success.
One of those issues â Travis Kelce.
With three dropped passes already, Kelce is second in drops among NFL tight ends only to Juwan Johnson of the New Orleans Saints.
“You’ve gotta catch these balls,” King said, appearing on the weekly Let’s Go podcast, hosted by another longtime sports media figure, Jim Gray.
“It’s like the ball he, dropped at Philadelphia at the goal line that turned into an interception. So, Travis Kelce, he had an, he had an impact on the game last night, and it was mostly good. He’s gotta stop dropping the ball, period. You know, that’s going to be important in very big games,” King said.
Kicker a ‘Worry’ For Kansas City
But King saved his strongest opinion for another Chiefs problem â kicker Harrison Butker. With three misses in 14 attempts, the nine-year veteran ranks 24th among the 34 NFL kickers who have attempted at least two field goals this season with a 78.6 percent success rate.
Perhaps even more alarming, Butker has missed three of 17 extra-point kicks. That’s a success rate of 82.4 percent, worst in the NFL for any kicker with more than five attempts at the 33-yard kick.
Butker is Highest Paid Kicker
Making his misses sting even worse, Butker’s four-year, $25.6 million contract makes him the highest paid kicker in the NFL â despite being the worst, at least so far in 2025.
“You don’t pay a guy $6.4 million a year to miss three PATs (points after touchdowns) in the first six weeks. And to miss three field goals,” King said on the Let’s Go podcast. “I’m not a special teams coach. I don’t know why he’s missing. Who misses PATs? This is an era where kickers make most of their kicks in the 50s. So if you miss the equivalent of a 33 yard field goal three times in six weeks, there’s something wrong.”
What will the Chiefs actually do to solve the Butker problem? According to King, cutting the 30-year-old kicker is not likely to happen.
“He’s gonna get his chance to work out of it,” King said. “But early on Harrison Butker, I would say, is definitely a worry for the Chiefs.”
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