Jaguars at Chiefs - Week 5 - Record: 5-0

In this one we faced the quite acclaimed Jaguars defense. It was billed as the No. 1 offense vs. the No. 1 defense. The Jaguars defense was certainly up to it -- their players were perceptive, fast, and pursued with a relentlessness we haven't seen before. Patrick Mahomes even had his first interception, a pick that flew on him and it may have been aided by the wet conditions. He had another one later.

Our defense actually played pretty well. Was it us or the exceptionally poor play of the Jags offense, particularly the ugly messiness of their QB Blake Bortles? In the 1st half we actually got some surprisingly strong defensive play and key stops -- a nice Armani Watts pass breakup at the goal line on a 4th-down play, a Dee Ford strip-sack right after that 1st Mahomes' interception to get the ball right back, and a Chris Jones pick-six after an attempted screen pass.

In the 2nd half we held, but we were a bit more bendy. Before Jordan Lucas made a pick to terminate the Jaguars last-ditch drive to try to get back in this at the beginning of the 4th quarter, Orlando Scandrick had two key pass breakups. This guy and his experience may be more valuable than we think, his interception at the very end of the game sealed it.

Over on the offensive side our O-line played especially well. There was a long pass to Sammy Watkins in which Mahomes had all day to throw. How nice is it to see that happen for us for once. When Kareem Hunt scored a rushing touchdown for the Chiefs the O-line just blew up the Jags defensive front.

And what can you say about Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill. They just made play after play after play -- snatching passes anywhere they were and getting great yardage after the catch. Even though neither of these guys scored, their plays set up all of our offensive points.

Now to the not-great things.

The disqualifications thing is major. Chris Jones and Dee Ford were both ejected because of unsportsmanlike conduct calls. We cannot lose those guys, and I'm sure this week they are going to express enormous contrition as they play on an Andy Reid-led team.

To be honest, I have a lot of reservations about the taunting thing. Yes I do think there should not be taunting and I don't know what happened there on the field, but unless I can see more consistency from the officiating I still can't believe the Chiefs are not squeezed more in these kinds of calls. These kinds of calls that are just far too much open to interpretation. I don't know but it looked to me like the Jaguars Jalen Ramsey continued to spew the trash-bilging while Tyreek was a model of decorum.

Still, we're suffering from too many other-kinds of penalties. It just shouldn't be that hard for Reid to get our team to tighten up these areas also. I kind of thought we were looking to be one of those preeminent, reputable, disciplined NFL teams. Well those first two things ain't happenin' unless we start doing that third thing.

There are also the injuries. The sidelines were an infirmary ward today. We lost several key defensive players including Justin Houston, and we still don't have Eric Berry out there. We even lost Laurent Duvernay-Tardiff late. Let's hope these are not that serious as we move forward. I mean, we've got a well-rested New England waiting for prime time next week. This hurts.

When your best players are going down or getting kicked out, you can't help but allow an NFL team to make it a game, especially when the Chiefs have already spent the season leaping out to a huge leads then getting the Chiefs Kingdom adrenaline surging when they let the opponent back in it late.

It was like that in this one. Even though we had a very comfy lead, up 30-7 with about nine minutes left, things did happen to make us nervous.

The good thing we can take from this is that Patrick Mahomes got his feet wet (not just literally!) getting picked twice and throwing no touchdown passes -- let him get a feel for what that is like and motivation to keep working at not having it happen when it could hurt us the most.

I have seen a little analysis of Mahomes' play and when you get past all the phenomenal tool-set stuff, it is very apparent that this kid doesn't just run well, he doesn't just pass well, but he probably does the one thing most important for a quarterback to do: make reads well. Seriously, it has been amazing how well he's been seeing what's happening, adjusting, and making good decisions. Today he got to do that against what they say is the No. 1 defense in the NFL. That's great experience to have for a kid this young.

Now we just have to wait and see the extent of all these injuries and how much Andy Reid can get guys to be team players and not do ding-dong things to get themselves ejected.

For now we're 5-0 for the second year in a row. That's pretty neat, I wonder how many teams in NFL history have had two straight 5-0 starts -- I can't imagine it is that many.
___