Since I can blog and watch this thing unfold at the same time I'm just going to track our drives with the score posted after each one. Make it simple tonight in a game we should win, but then... yeah...
1st drive - We moved the ball well, getting it nicely to Travis Kelce. We finally throw the ball deep and a wide-open Worthy near the goal line can't adjust and not go out of bounds on a sure TD. On 3rd down Mahomes lets himself get sacked to keep us from any points. We punt. 0-0.
2nd drive - We moved the ball well again this time with DeAndre Hopkins making the plays. Then we try a double-reverse to Worthy but an unblocked defender messes it up. Big loss. We must settle for field goal. 3-0.
3rd drive - Matriculated well again. This time Justin Watson is the key receiver. A swing pass to Worthy goes nowhere -- just seems Worthy is playing like a rookie tonight. But then, DeAndre Hopkins. Dang. As Mahomes is getting hammered he drops a deep pass into Hopkins' breadbasket around three defenders. Then the TD pass to Hopkins in the back of the end zone. Dang what we're seeing from this guy is truly something the Chiefs have not had at wide receiver. He is looking like the future Hall-of-Famer that he is. 10-7.
4th drive - With two minutes left in the 1st half we started okay, but, well, turnovers. At midfield with a minute left Kelce had the ball knocked loose. Bucs recovered. 10-7.
5th drive - We got the ball once again but now with :30 left. Got nothin'. Halftime 10-7 us.
6th drive - Now in 2nd half, 1st possession. Fat zero. Three-&-out. Mahomes was totally flummoxed. Bucs just making plays tonight, on both offense and defense. 10-14.
7th drive - Worked Kareem Hunt much more. Also started raining more heavily. Matriculated well, yet again. Got down to 3rd-&-goal and Mahomes magic happened again with a run to the line-of-scrimmage then a quick flip to Perine for the TD. 17-17.
Except the magic came at a price.
Mahomes tossed that ball awkwardly, landing weird on his left leg, and it looked bad. He was helped across the field to the Chiefs sideline, but it did appear he straightened up when he got there, walking decently. At the time of this writing right this minute we have no idea what happened.
After the commercial break we saw that he came out of the medical tent and jogged along the sideline. Oh my. Apparently it was just an aggravation of the left ankle issue he'd been having. Major ::whew::
8th drive - Mahomes back in there, doing decent matriculating. Hunt getting called upon a lot again, and what a runner. He finds creases wonderfully. Thing is they simply don't take advantage of that workload, employing more play action off Hunt's success. But with about 4:00 left we get the pop slant at the goal line to who else, the guy who's going to for-sure make the clutch catch, D-Hop. 24-17.
9th drive - Now we have the seven-point lead with 2:30 left. It is pouring rain, and it is funny that the greatest downpour during an NFL game happened back on the last game of the 1979 season when, you guessed it, the Chiefs played the Bucs in Tampa. Thing is now we're just giving hand-offs to Hunt and they are predictably stuffing him. The only thing that really does is get the Bucs to burn timeouts. Yep. Erggh: Three-&-out.
10th drive - After the Bucs drove right down the field to score a game-tying TD -- something we could have done -- actually just run some decent plays on that drive just before to at least try to get some 1st downs -- derrp, we were left with :30 to try to get down to try to win it. We did squat. Had to punt to take the game to OT. 24-24.
11th drive - We get the ball to start OT. Matriculating the ball really well yet again. Now we're mixing it up brilliantly. Showing different looks -- giving it to Hunt sometimes, getting it to D-Hop, Travis other times.
Finally.
From the one, give to Kareem and he powers his way into the end zone.
Thuh end.
Still undefeated. 8-0. Now holding a 14-game winning streak, longest ever in Chiefs history. Before the game I happened to catch the odds for an undefeated season at 4%, and with the win tonight that goes up to 8%. That's pretty amazing actually -- just fun that it's even there. No big deal if we lose one though, take the pressure off really. Tonight it was pretty close to being the one.
Except this one should not have been this close. The Bucs were without their two best WRs, but give them credit, their other guys actually played extremely well. We kept messing up too many times. Even though Patrick did not have a pick for the first time in, how many games? It's been a few.
Still there were too many things we did that got us derailed against what they said was a pretty weak pass defense. Again, kudos to them, their pass rush was stout, their heart was fully in it, their offense messed with our defense quite effectively -- I mean I watched our defense just get taken like it never had before.
But then for the Chiefs, what an addition is D-Hop. I honestly do not think we win this game without him, and we just got him a week-&-a-half ago. Yeah, I can only echo what so many are thinking -- they even mentioned it on the broadcast tonight, "It just isn't fair."
All good for us.
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The photo is by Sam Lutz at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.
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