KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Hours before the Kansas City Chiefs boarded a flight to Oakland on Saturday, coach Andy Reid stood in front of the entire squad — 50-plus men — in a meeting room at the team’s practice facility and delivered a message.

The Chiefs always meet as a team on the Saturday before a Sunday game, often so Reid can deliver a few final points. However, the circumstances the team found itself in at the time — smack dab at the epicenter of controversy surrounding its ex-star running back, Kareem Hunt — was far from ordinary, so much so that a player felt compelled to address the team as well.

That player was quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

The day before, TMZ posted a damning video of Hunt shoving and kicking a woman in a hotel hallway. The Chiefs, publicly citing Hunt’s lack of honesty about the matter in their dealings with them, promptly released the Pro Bowler.

“The elephant in the room,” offensive lineman Cam Erving noted.

As several other players relayed to Yahoo Sports on Wednesday, Reid and Mahomes went out of their way to address the Hunt situation before they boarded their flight to face the woeful Raiders.

First Reid went.

“We have to move on — we have to,” outside linebacker Dee Ford recalled Reid saying. “Everything we’ve built to this point now, we can’t just lose that. The decision’s made — we’ve just got to move on.”

Mahomes spoke once Reid was done.

“Starting through Friday [afternoon] until Saturday morning, we’ve had everyone else’s [opinion] brought on us [about this],” center Mitch Morse recalled Mahomes saying. “But the only opinions that matter are the opinions in this locker room.”

Then, Mahomes — who is 23 and the youngest offensive starter — brought it home by reminding everyone that to reach their Super Bowl dreams, they’ll have to thrive under the microscope the rest of the way.

“All eyes are going to be on us,” Morse recalled Mahomes saying. “But that shouldn’t change how we’re going to handle our business and how we keep going about that.”

“He said, ‘This is about us,’” backup quarterback Chad Henne recalled. “We want to support Kareem as a person, but when it comes to this building, this is about football and what we need to accomplish to get to where we need to go.”

Patrick Mahomes (15) has done his best to play down the loss of Kareem Hunt and the controversy that came with it in Kansas City. (Getty) More

The meeting was a quick one, players said, but it still left an impact on Mahomes’ teammates, who weren’t oblivious to the fact that it was the kind of thing an alpha on a football team would do.

“It was definitely a moment,” Morse told Yahoo Sports. “it was just another peg on his leadership resume that he’s just absolutely blown out of the water this year.

“Not only is he an exceptional football player, but the way he carries himself in the locker room is just special. And I think when you bring that kind of confidence and intensity at the same time, it’s infectious.”

Especially when it’s backed up with actions, as Mahomes tends to do. The Chiefs went out and beat the Raiders 40-33 to improve to 10-2, and Mahomes, an MVP candidate, led the way by completing 23 of 38 passes for 295 yards, four touchdown and zero interceptions.

Plus, on a day when the Chiefs’ rushing offense lacked dynamism without Hunt, who entered the game second in the NFL in missed tackles forced, Mahomes led the team in rushing with 52 yards.

Henne, an 11-year veteran, said Mahomes is “light years ahead of a lot of young guys” in the leadership department.

“I think he expresses himself and he wants to be that guy and he’s not afraid to step up when something needs to be said,” Henne said. “That’s great for a young guy to be like that, and I think a lot of people respect him for that.”

Mahomes stepped up, but the Chiefs’ 31st-ranked defense — which surrendered 442 yards to the league’s 22nd-ranked offense — didn’t. Nevertheless, Ford says the message both men expressed Saturday hit home.

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