Chiefs at 49ers - Week 7 - Record: 5-2

I have to admit, very sheepishly, that I thought the Chiefs were toast in this one. I confess I doubted our offensive firepower to get the job done today. Indeed, I'm ashamed of that when we do have the best quarterback in NFL history on our team, right now, today.

Last week Mahomes had a bit of a subpar game, and this week we were facing a team that I thought was too daunting, with its Nick Bosa-led defense and newly acquired Christian McCaffrey-led offense. I was convinced our line would get overpowered on both sides of the ball, and when the Niners opened with a very imposing effort and a 10-0 lead, I thought the rout was on.

But we not only have Patrick Mahomes, but we also have...

Mecole Hardman.

Yes, I agree, Hardman is tremendously aggravating when he doesn't course through or cut off or even improvise his routes when he must, I get it. But when Andy Reid uses him as he did today, it is easy to forget Tyreek Hill. Hardman had three touchdowns on the day, all on jet sweep type action. They were saying on the television broadcast that he's the only WR in the Super Bowl era to have two rushing TDs and a receiving TD in the same game. Very nice.

Our defensive line started out limp, but stiffened later and started to shut down McCaffrey. Having Willie Gay back in there made a difference. We also got the Niners line on both sides shook up and committing a lot of penalties that kept them from really finding their rhythm as the game wore on.

When the score was still relatively close there at the beginning of the 4th quarter, 28-16, the Niners were deep in Chiefs territory when L'Jarius Sneed had a pick-six right in his hands, and dropped it. I'm always thinking about the points lost when a defender just drops any easy pick. Sure enough the Niners scored shortly after that -- and there it is: a 14-point swing. Aagh.

Right after that, however, Mahomes connected with MVS on a long pass play, then slung another nice pass to JuJu to get closer to paydirt, then Mecole got his 3rd TD.

Never mind -- we're up 35-23 after all.

Add to that a nice TD catch-&-run from JuJu, a safety, and it's suddenly 44-23 us with only about six or seven minutes left of game time.

Mahomes had 400+ yards passing in this one, his highest total of the year so far. There was also a stat they showed on the television that I have to reproduce here. The Chiefs are successful at a 48% clip when facing 3rd-&-7+, in other words 3rd-&-long. That is actually really really good, especially when noting the league average is 25%. 

Indeed, apologies please for not giving these guys enough credit. Mahomes may indeed have a subpar game here and there, but not often. He is just so good. Another incredible television-broadcast stat: in his first 70 starts he has 56 wins. Wow.

Bye next week, then the Titans on another Sunday night prime time affair.

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The image is from a photograph by Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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