It’s been a disaster of a year for defensive tackle Chris Jones and the Kansas City Chiefs. With the regular season now over, the DT probably wished that the frustrations still lingering would fade away with time, but things only got worse. The news of an important coach’s potential departure left Jones shocked.
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“Oh sh!+…….,” he wrote on X after Adam Schefter reported on Friday that Chiefs defensive line coach Joe Cullen interviewed with the Washington Commanders for their open defensive coordinator job.
If he ends up taking the job, it would be a promotion for Cullen. That means, as per NFL rules, the Chiefs cannot block him from giving an interview for the DC position with the Commanders. That said, Washington has many candidates lined up, and there is no guarantee that Cullen will bag the position.
Yet, for the Chiefs, a team that’s lived in January for most of the past decade, this kind of uncertainty isn’t something Jones is used to. But after a 6–11 season that ended without a playoff spot, Andy Reid made it clear that changes were coming. The shakeup has already started.
Earlier in the week, the Chiefs moved on from wide receivers coach Connor Embree, after three seasons marked by drops and no 1,000-yard receiver.
On top of that, offensive coordinator Matt Nagy isn’t expected to be back, having already taken interviews for head coaching jobs with the Tennessee Titans and Las Vegas Raiders, along with the Arizona Cardinals also on his schedule.
Even defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has interviewed for a head coaching role with the Titans. So when Cullen’s name popped up, Jones probably reached his breaking point. Cullen is highly respected as one of the league’s best defensive front teachers. He joined Spagnuolo’s staff in 2022 and helped anchor a run that included three straight Super Bowl trips.
In Cullen’s first two seasons in Kansas City, Chris Jones piled up 26 sacks combined. Even in 2025, during a down year for the team, he still led the Chiefs with seven sacks and remained one of the league’s most productive interior pass rushers since Cullen arrived.
It’s not just about Jones. The defense, particularly against the run, held together better than most. Kansas City allowed only two 100-yard rushers all season, and finished ninth overall in rushing defense at 105.7 yards per game. There is a lot of deadwood this team needs to get rid of, but Cullen is definitely not one of them.
The potential loss of a respected coach like Cullen is a symptom of the larger dysfunction that plagued the Chiefs all season. The team’s play-by-play announcer, Mitchell G. Holthus, recently broke down what went wrong for the club.
Holthus identifies the pillars of the Chiefs’ breakdown
It’s tough to find many bright spots from this season. The rough parts, though, are easy enough to list. Holthus didn’t mince words, starting his list of failures with the team’s schedule when looking back at what went wrong in 2025.
“It was the logistics of the schedule, throw in Brazil, which was a real clunky trip, then you throw in a Sunday night on the road, a Monday night on the road, all before Columbus day,” he said earlier this week.
A 10-hour flight to Brazil certainly didn’t help the Chiefs. But that’s the cost of being one of the league’s marquee teams. You get rewarded (or punished) with international games. And still, Kansas City wasn’t alone. The Giants and Lions both faced similarly difficult slates, with opponent win percentages of .574 and .571.
From there, Holthus turned to the offense’s inconsistency and subsequent injuries.
“Offensively, it was a series of things, never getting into a consistent rhythm, losing [Josh] Simmons when they did, the injuries, it was always off,” he added.
Talking about injuries, even Patrick Mahomes was sidelined
It always starts with Patrick Mahomes. In past years, if the game was tight late, fans almost assumed he’d find a way to finish it. That feeling wasn’t there this season. A year ago, the Chiefs were 12–0 in close playoff games. This time around, they went 1–9 in those same situations.
Mahomes finished with 3,587 yards, 22 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions. Those numbers aren’t disastrous, but the late-game edge wasn’t the same. And when you talk about inconsistency, it’s hard to pin it all on him. The injuries made things so much worse.
The Arrowhead team lost both starting tackles, Josh Simmons and Jawaan Taylor, in Week 13. Their replacements, Jaylon Moore and Wanya Morris, dealt with their own issues in the weeks that followed, leaving the Chiefs scraping the bottom of the roster. The season ultimately ended with Mahomes tearing his ACL.
The defense couldn’t bail them out either. “Defensively, the inability at critical times to get teams off the field on 3rd and long. It’s all of those things combined,” Holthus added. The pass rush was the clearest problem.
The Chiefs finished tied for 22nd with 35 sacks and struggled to get steady pressure from anyone besides Chris Jones, who himself had a slow start. Turnovers were an issue, too, with Kansas City tied for 26th at just 14 takeaways.
As the coaching staff splinters and the front office faces a crucial offseason, Chris Jones’s simple, frustrated tweet speaks for a fan base bracing for more changes. The Chiefs aren’t just rebuilding a roster; they’re trying to salvage a championship culture that appears to be eroding.