Chiefs 30, Panthers 27
Laddie Morse
Who would have thunk it? Patrick Mahomes put this game away with his legs. That’s amazing when you think about all the games he’s led the Chiefs to in victory. That being said, the Kansas City Chiefs Defense is a worrisome group. With L’Jarius Sneed now playing for the Titans and Jaylen Watson sitting on the IR sidelines, the Chiefs defensive backfield is thin. Thin enough to bring a free agent in off the street? Yes. Absolutely. However, let’s get back to this game.
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The Chiefs looked like they were about to run away with it… when the score was Chiefs 27, Panthers 16… but that didn’t happen. The Panthers kicked another Field Goal to make it, 27-to-19… then their RB, Sam Hubbard, rammed it into the end one for two points (after a penalty moved the ball to the one yard line).
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(01:13)
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If K.C. had scored another TD at that point the score would have been, 34-to16 and I would have been happy with that, as I predicted a final score of 38-to-10. However, the Defense did not look like one of hte league’s best in this game and will need to improve by a lot by the time the playoffs come around if the Chiefs want to three-peat.
While QB Patrick Mahomes threw for 259 yards and had a 120.0 rating in this game, his counterpart, Bryce Young, had 262 yards passing and finished with a 92.8 rating. He played well enough for many to say he should keep his job (over veteran Andy Dalton).
Penalties, Penalties
Together, the Chiefs and the Panthers had 19 penalties called on them. 10 for the Chiefs and 9 for the Panthers. While those figures come from ESPN.com, I assume that doesn’t include the number of times offsetting penalties were called on both teams (so the down was replayed). the Chiefs called 37 passing plays and 26 rushing plays while the Panthers called 35 passing plays and 21 rushing plays. All told, their were 119 plays in this game and divided by 19 (penalty plays) the percentage of plays in this game were right at: 16%. IOW, 16 percent of the plays in this game were penalties (but it felt like a lot more). The announcer’s kept saying — as they re-viewed a video replay — that the penalty had to be called. From my view point, there were only a few of the instant replays that looked like the penalty “had to be” called.
What’s your take?
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Patrick Mahomes Legs
I’ve said many times before, that I am not fond of QBs who run the ball. I was referring to run-first QBs who don’t look for their playmakers down field first and foremost. However, Patrick Mahomes won this game with his legs and so something needs to be said about his running the ball. Here’s his run in this game which resulted in a 33 yard run:
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(0:16)
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That was a fantastic play, I’ll grant you that. But, that does win him the Player of the Game? No.
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Player of the Game
Noah Gray
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Gray had two TD catches in this game… and although he was my Player of the Game last week, he is again here. Gray, on this day, was the team’s leader receiver, in terms of yards, with 66. He did that on four catches and although Travis Kelce had 64 yards on 6 catches, it was Noah Gray who stood above the crowd with two TD receptions.
Here’s Noah Gray’s two TDs:
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(0:43)
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(0:14)
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Tweet of the Game
The Chiefs won another game giving them 10 wins for the season. They now have the third most ten-win-seasons in a row:
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Tweet of the Game #2
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The Defense, A Retort
It seems like all of a sudden the Chiefs Defense has soured.
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“Only three teams have put up 25+ points on
the Kansas City Chiefs defense this season. Joe
Burrow and the Bengals Josh Allen and the Bills
Bryce Young and the Panthers“
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The Chiefs Defense has issues. Do they need help at CB? Absolutely. What they’ll do about it at this point of the season is unclear.
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Quote of the Game
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“They’ll never learn…the Chiefs were 9-6 last year
after 16 games and everyone was dancing on their
graves and they won the SB… Here they sit 10-1
through a massive amount of injuries and we’ve
got people saying they’re the worst 10-1 team ever.”
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What do you think? Can these Chiefs win out or make it to another Super Bowl?
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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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PS It’s Raiders Week!