Thing is, the NFL and much of the anything-pro-American-football interests everywhere have to know that this team is so good that it may actually start to get bit frustrating to see them beat just about every team they play. Now we all must be careful about this because in the very first AFL game ever, back in 1960 when the Texans were playing, yes, the Chargers, Lamar Hunt watched his team blast out to a 20-point lead and blurted at the half, something like, "Maybe we shouldn't be so hard on this opponent." I'm sure he feared his Texans in his new league of full of teams he'd love to beat would be so good no one would pay attention to the league itself because his team would dominate without ever giving the other team and their fans a chance to enjoy any winning!
He needn't have worried. The Chargers came back and won 21-20. So that's what happened with that thinking.
It does look overwhelming for the other teams in the NFL with the Chiefs playing so well, particularly our star duo of Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. They connected on three touchdown passes tonight including the game-winner with half-a-minute left in the game. We're 8-2 right now and the team we beat tonight is in 2nd place at 5-5. Thing is I do think what we're going to be like if we're so far ahead so early before the regular season ends that we have nothing to play for, and we get flabby and go into the playoffs ill-prepared.
I know Mahomes and Kelce won't let that happen. Especially when there're still evidences that we simply are not running away with any game we play.
Tonight we still had to work very hard to beat a team without traditional Chiefs-killer WR Mike Williams and several key guys on their defensive line. Last week we won a one-score game against a pesky Jaguars team, and the week before that the Titans defense really stood us up. Tonight we also lost to injury Kadarius Toney, Clyde-Edwards Helaire, and Juan Thornhill. I have no idea at this point how serious they are, but at WR we were already down JuJu Smith-Schuster and Mecole Hardman.
Skyy Moore did great work out there to fill in, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Justin Watson, and Jody Fortson helped out too. I'll add that our running game was in gear tonight against a pretty weak run defense, with Isiah Pacheco pounding out a 100-yard running game.
But then, there was always Travis Kelce. We needed that good play from those other receivers to keep the defense honest, because really I don't know why teams don't triple-team the guy. Maybe they are doing that in some defensive schemes -- in fact Chargers safety Derwin James has always been one of the best defenders against Kelce -- but he still got free to make key plays and get touchdowns, just a testament to his greatness.
Crazy to think Mahomes has still never lost a divisional road game. Yep, every time the Chargers, Broncos, and Raiders have had the Chiefs in their place, every single game for the past four-plus years starting with Mahomes' first ever start in that final game of the 2017 season in Denver -- they've been beaten by the Chiefs.
Then there is the guy on the defensive side of the ball who is being regularly double-teamed, and that is Chris Jones. Dude could easily be Defensive Player of the Year. Even with the double-teams against him he still made plays and allowed our other guys to get to the quarterback. It is obvious our D-Backs are still very raw -- wow, how we're holding down the fort with those youngsters is amazing -- and our tackling can be spotty. Chris Jones makes things happen to keep us in games, especially as the game gets deep into the 3rd quarter and on into the 4th quarter, he always seems to raise his game to another level.
Anyway, what I was going to say when I first started talking about how much people perceive how good this non-media-darling non-super-large-market Chiefs team is, I still keep wondering about the refs calls. It was much worse in the first half but it really seemed the refs let anything close go when the Chargers did a penalty-worth thing, but they sure called the close ones against the Chiefs -- anything to slow down this team.
I feel like adding a note about the artificial turf field raising serious concerns. Several players have expressed their objections -- I don't remember the name of that brand of turf but they've openly insisted it causes more injuries. I looked up the six stadiums where they have that particular turf and sure enough, one of them is the hellhole that is the Indianapolis Colts stadium. But guess what.
That turf is at the Cincinnati Bengals stadium too, and the Chiefs play there in two weeks.
Sorry, but this stuff scares me. Of course a ton of it is I don't want my Chiefs to be lost to injury because of that turf, but really, no one should be injured because of it. Get rid of it, now.
Maybe it is good we build a huge cushion in the AFC particularly of the hazards like these that could detrimentally affect our team's success, much more the players' health.
We have a reeling Rams team next week, then the wonderment about how it will go against the Bengals, the only team we lost to last year after October, and we lost to them twice.
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The image of Travis Kelce is from Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.
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