The San Francisco 49ers were initially placed as second most likely to win this year, after their 2023 season. You can imagine fans’ disappointment with how things have been going then. Here in week 7, they’ve had more losses than wins, with a 3-4 record, placing them second in NFC West. And the team didn’t do themselves any favors with their performance on the field against Mahomes’ Chiefs yesterday.

The 49ers were one step shy of being shambolic over the course of their 28-18 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. The defense were running around like headless chickens and their offense struggled significantly too. Brock Purdy underperformed so bad he earned himself his career-lowest single-game passer rating at 36.7, suffering 3 interceptions. Patrick Mahomes, on the other hand, had an absolute field day. Particularly impressive was a 33-yard rush he made, pump faking the whole time, running circles around the defense. Sportswriter Bill Barnwell mocked their defense by asking Dominique Foxworth, “If I’m walking down the street and I see you and I pump fake, are you jumping?”

Of course, both Barnwell and Foxworth later acknowledged it’s not because the 49ers were stupid. It’s worked on so many people before, so it must be for a reason, no? That won’t make them feel any better though. This is a team that won the first five games of their last season in a row, but look at them now. Besides defensive struggles, their red zone play was weak too, even with their rookie wide receivers playing quite well. Their performance will certainly improve with the return of Christian McCaffrey, if he recovers this season. Guess they’ll just have to hold on till then.

With this win, the Kansas City Chiefs have extended their win-streak to 6 games, and are now the only unbeaten team in the league. Until yesterday, the Minnesota Vikings had kept them company, but their narrow 31-29 defeat at the Lions’ hands ended that. Interestingly that makes both the Vikings and the Lions the only teams in the league to have suffered only 1 defeat. With the Chiefs’ next three games coming against the Raiders, the Bucs, and the Broncos, it’ll be interesting to see how long they can keep it up.

Have the Chiefs finally clicked into “win” mode with Patrick Mahomes?

Though the Chiefs have been unbeaten so far, the stats can look confusing. Those five wins that came before this one weren’t always that pretty. They were suffering their own red zone troubles, and often had to lean on their defense to pull through. Patrick Mahomes himself admitted that things weren’t looking good and took the blame on his own shoulders. We’d generally treat promises to do better with a healthy air of skepticism, but this time Mahomes really meant it.

Sure, Kelce hasn’t had a game to write home about yet (and not a single touchdown), but Mahomes picked up the slack. He was dynamic on the field, and though he did throw 2 interceptions, he was poetry in motion as he ran through the defense. It’s not every day you see a quarterback rush for a touchdown. This was Mahome’s first since 2022. He put Malik Mustapha down, no problem on his way to the end zone.

With Mahomes seemingly having the fight back in him, and his team a cohesive unit, things are looking good. That 3-peat looks ever more achievable, and a playoff finish is practically inevitable at this point. They’d have to mess up so monumentally to miss it that it might honestly be more entertaining than the 3-peat. Not that we’d wish that on them. Be sure to tune in to catch our reporting on the Chiefs’ game vs. the Raiders next Sunday.