Why the best version of these Kansas City Chiefs can still repeat as Super Bowl champs

Twelve games into the NFL season, the most realistic view of the 2023 Chiefs is that they are one confusing team about which there can be no valid consensus or conclusions made ... or real way to know what’s ahead.

Just when you think you’ve got a bead on them, wham, they twist another way.

At 8-4 with five games to go, they’re one win from being tied for the AFC No. 1 seed … and one loss from a five-way tie for the fifth seed.

Against teams that would be in the playoffs if the season ended today, they’re the essence of mediocrity at 3-3.

In theory, the good news remains that each of their losses are at least as attributable to lapses of their own as to what was done unto them.

But that would be a source of more consolation and optimism if that paradoxical theme didn’t keep repeating itself, including where it’s punctuated by coach Andy Reid on a loop saying some version of, “We can fix all that stuff.”

So it’s become easy to see them as more exasperating than exhilarating — especially since their offense has lacked the customary rhythm and capacity to astonish that otherwise has underscored the Patrick Mahomes Era.

Really, it’s a shadow of its recent self on the skewed and spoiled scale we’ve come to know these last few years as the Chiefs have played in three of four Super Bowls and won two of them.

Just the same, there’s more to this than meets the eye test as the Chiefs prepare to play a presumably desperate (6-6) Buffalo team in what looms as one of Kansas City’s most pivotal and revealing games of the season.

Think of it as Mahomes put it Wednesday: “I mean, we’re still sitting there on top of the AFC West, and I think a lot of the stuff is out in front of us. We just have to go out there and capitalize on it,” he said.

With a smile, he added that if the Chiefs were to win, “Next week, we’ll be talking about how great we are. It’s kind of how the NFL works.”

He’s absolutely right.

Reset with a win after losing three of five, and it’s easy to picture the Chiefs winning out into the playoffs. And it would be natural to refocus on their upside as they seek to become the first NFL team to repeat as champions in nearly 20 years.

Trouble is, it’s hard to know what to expect on Sunday. And if they lose again, understanding who they really are and projecting their trajectory is going to be all the more confounding a matter.

So this is an urgent time for them to become who they are, such as that might actually be. And while some of that seems rather locked in now, both in terms of personnel and what this team’s habits have told us, we still figure this:

Even if they’ve recently left us more conscious of their vulnerabilities than their capabilities, the best version of themselves remains good enough to get back to the Super Bowl.

Not because they can fundamentally change who they are at this point, but because they can change the fundamental elements that have sabotaged the operation.

So much as we might crave seeing or hearing of something dramatic happening to shake it up — like a fiery team meeting or the football equivalent of turning over a buffet table in baseball or a getaway like Sporting KC experienced — this is going to be all about making good on the dullest of terms: the process and the grind.

Trite and tiresome as it might sound, Reid still is right when he says the Chiefs “can” fix the issues that have plagued them.

Like the red-zone disarray. Those jarring dropped passes to go with the stunning miscommunications in the passing game. The costly penalties against (76 for 645 yards, 17th in the NFL, vs. only 56 for 479 by opponents, 31st in the NFL). And their deficiencies in turnover margin (26th in the NFL at minus-6).

Yes, that’s a lot of self-inflicted stuff to correct.

Which is why “can” fix is the operative terms. And it remains to be seen if they will.

But it’s so easy to fixate on what’s gunking up the Chiefs that it’s easy to forget some simple but vital points.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, it’s human nature to obsess over the flaws of that with which you most identify while overlooking those of others. Every team has issues, some of which have been exposed more than others to this point but others of which will become apparent and with injuries always an X-factor.

The Chiefs, for instance, have beaten two (Miami, 9-3, and Jacksonville, 8-4) of the other three teams best-positioned for the AFC No. 1 seed and haven’t played the other, Baltimore (9-3) — whose grueling stretch run includes games at the Jaguars and San Francisco and a home game against the Dolphins.

That means the AFC race still is very much there for the taking for the Chiefs.

And not by morphing into something they aren’t but by sharpening what they are with simple and subtle steps forward.

Because for all the stuff that might gnaw at you about them, it’s still a team that moves the ball at a top-10 NFL rate (362.6 yards a game, 252.7 passing yards a game and 5.64 yards a play, each eighth in the league), converts third downs (fourth in the NFL) and protects the quarterback (second-fewest sacks allowed behind Buffalo).

Despite the season-high 27 points allowed against Green Bay, it’s still a team whose defense is third in the NFL in points surrendered (17.3 a game) and fourth in yards allowed (297.7).

All of that, and the issues they struggle with, suggest that the Chiefs aren’t being outclassed but are sub-par when it comes to attention to detail along with all that goes into generating more turnovers than you give away.

It’s fine to hope for some radical breakout in the passing game, and I’m not convinced that there won’t be some more breakthroughs. But what they do from here hinges more on not giving games away than anything else.

First, do no harm. Because that’s been the common denominator in each defeat, including:

• Being foiled by a fake punt and a pick-six off Kadarius Toney’s hands against the Lions (while also being without Travis Kelce and Chris Jones).

• Five turnovers against the Broncos with a flu-depleted Mahomes.

• The five dropped passes (including what could have been the game-winner to Marquez Valdes-Scantling) and turnovers by Mahomes and Kelce against the Eagles.

• And the red-zone issues and late malfunctions against the Packers.

Now, it’s true that almost any team can point to a handful of plays that caused any loss.

But not every team is the defending Super Bowl champion with a Hall of Fame coach, a transcendent talent at quarterback and a stalwart defense — albeit one increasingly challenged by injuries.

So to me they’re a little reminiscent of one of the few lines I can remember from “Paradise Lost” in a college English class: “Sufficient to have stood though free to fall.”

They’re capable and everything still is in reach, in other words.

Just less so if they don’t transform “can fix” to did fix this weekend and start realizing what this team still could become.