Vahe Gregorian: Are you panicking about the Chiefs' 5-5 start? Andy Reid says he isn't.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The aura of the dynasty has dimmed, if not vanished, and what really remains suddenly seems an open question.

The pivotal X-factor that defined them has gone dormant, perhaps even evaporated, and Andy Reid’s gaudy 22-4 record after bye weeks didn’t hold up. Heck, even Mahomes’ magic has dwindled for the time being.

And now the AFC West portal to the postseason has been rerouted to, well, who knows where?

Because the franchise coming off three straight Super Bowl berths and appearances in five of the last six probably now must win more games in its final seven than it did in the first 10 to even reach the playoffs.

No wonder it’s all doom and gloom from the outside looking in, anyway, after their momentous 22-19 defeat Sunday at Denver. The loss left the Chiefs stranded at 5-5 and suggests a seismic shift from what we’ve known most of the last decade.

It all seemed dire enough to ask Andy Reid on Monday whether this is the sort of situation that calls for him to draw on or point to past evidence that this needn’t be a season-ending predicament.

Like when the Chiefs last were 5-5 — after a 1-5 start, no less — in 2015 and went on to win out in the regular season and earn the franchise’s first playoff victory in more than two decades.

But if Reid thinks this is a dire crossroads requiring an infusion of that sort of extra motivation and hope, he sure wasn’t letting on.

“We’re not quite as negative as the outside world is here,” he said with a laugh. “We know what we need to clean up. And we need to do it. But the guys — they get it. I mean, some of these guys have been through some pretty good seasons. And this isn’t like this one’s lost.

“We’ve just got to clean up a few of these things. And the urgency level — obviously we need to make sure we take care of that now.”

It’s easy for observers, from fans to media, me included, to process such words as mere coach-speak.

But Reid’s words reprised something I think we too often forget.

As panicked, outraged, depressed or otherwise aggrieved as Chiefs loyalists might feel right now, as much as the Chiefs have conjured well-earned skepticism from the media, those emotions and observations just aren’t pertinent when it comes to the Chiefs themselves.

Or at least they’re not useful toward where they go from here.

Well, except maybe in this sense.

Distressing as the loss was, Patrick Mahomes said Sunday night: “You’ve got to feel that. But you’ve got to be able to kind of use that energy to push it into next week and into the rest of the season.”

Because the Chiefs don’t have the time or luxury of lingering in what’s been squandered.

They can only turn toward what’s ahead and what’s still in their reach by seizing the urgency of the moment at hand. And with the practicality of understanding they can’t, and needn’t, win multiple games on one day.

Yep, they’ve got to take it one at a time.

A notion that might make you roll your eyes, yet is trite but true for good reason — generally but also when it comes to Reid himself.

The ability to typically get his teams to buy into that is one of the reasons he is the fourth-winningest coach in NFL history and was able to transform the Chiefs from a franchise that hadn’t played in a Super Bowl in 50 years to one that expects to be there annually.

No wonder he started reiterating the point pronto after the loss.

“I mentioned that to them after the game, actually,” he said, apparently repeating what he’d told them. “‘So, what can you do? You … can get yourself ready to play Indianapolis (on Sunday). That’s what you can do.’”

Because, really, that’s all that matters.

“Everything else is involved with a crystal ball,” he said. “You can take care of today, tomorrow and the following day. Let’s start there.”

Apparently to reinforce the message and otherwise turn toward the Colts (8-2), Reid went around the plane on the way home to “see where we’re at” and get a feel for “what the guys are thinking.”

Between what he heard and what he believes about the culture, Reid figures the baseline is there to “get on the positive end of this thing.”

As Reid reflected on past turnarounds, he pointed to taking care of the small things — whether in terms of coaching decisions, footwork and blocking fundamentals, what goes into penalties, execution, etc.

“All those things you control, you’ve got to take care of those things,” he said. “Small things. But they all add up.”

Beating the Colts this week would be one small thing they need to add plenty more of … but is also the only place it can start.

And while this team and the dynamics have little resemblance to the 2015 team that Reid coaxed back from oblivion a year after the Chiefs had missed the playoffs, there’s one key common denominator: the persona of Reid.

Even if he apparently doesn’t want to incorporate that scenario yet, it sure bears mention.

Because when the Chiefs fell to 1-5 that season, Reid’s teams had won just 12 of their previous 30 games. The direction was disconcerting enough that owner Clark Hunt last season recalled being asked if Reid’s job was in danger.

And then-quarterback Alex Smith told me in February that it was such a “miserable” situation that he often shares the overarching story with “people going through something.”

“I always go back to Andy in that moment,” Smith said days before the Super Bowl at the Sirius XM set in New Orleans. “It’s a lot of pressure on the head coach — a lot of pressure. When pressure gets too much, head coaches do funny things, right? They do uncharacteristic things. We see it every year. Guys aren’t prepared for that.

“It’s a hot seat, right? When it gets hot, they start to do stuff. People get fired. … Happens all the time.”

Instead, Reid was able to fend off the noise and keep his team in the moment.

Moments that fed off themselves that season and, in fact, ultimately enabled all that came since.

“The only reason that we ever got out of that was because it’s like he was just built for that,” Smith said. “He was just so unfazed.”

Much like he seemed Monday when he deftly reminded us that what comes next is a lot more about what the team believes and how it strives to improve than how any of us might perceive or project it.

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