Laddie Morse
Patrick… Happy Birthday victory sir! Your defense may have handed you this win, but your offense needs to do much better in future games. Since it’s Sunday evening now, I expect that you’re back home blowing out some candles with Brittany, Sterling and Bronze now. Enjoy your Birthday and then please get right back to work helping to fix this offense, because it really is broken.
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The Kansas City Chiefs may have won this game over the Jacksonville Jaguars 17-to-9, but there wasn’t much to write home about… unless you were Homeless (not that I am making fun of being Homeless, because I’m not… it’s just that you know you can’t write home, if you are that way). The Chiefs led 7-to-6 at the half way mark then outscored the Jags in the second half, 10-to-3. If that doesn’t sound like an exciting game to you, you are 101% correct.
First Score
The Jags had the ball first, because K.C. won the toss and elected to defer, so K.C. could get the ball first in the second half. The initial drives in the game went like this:
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· 7-and-out (for the Jags)
· 3-and-out (for the Chiefs)
· 3-and-out (for the Jags)
· 9-and-out (for the Chiefs)
· 11-and-kick a FG (for the Jags)
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That last drive by Jacksonville was split up with part of it taking place in the first quarter and then the last four plays in the second quarter. Talk about un-exciting… the whole first quarter resulted in zero points for either team. Plus, the next three possessions were turnovers… by both teams. What followed was:
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· 5 plays and a Fumble (for the Chiefs)
· 1 play and a Fumble (for the Jags)
· 2 plays and an INT (for the Chiefs)
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What followed was an 11 play drive by the Jags which failed and was turned over on Downs. K.C. then followed that up with a 7 play drive with a TD catch for Skyy Moore: see below (0:06).
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The Jags then drove for 5 plays and kicked a Field Goal before the Halftime whistle. That summarizes the First Half of scoring. Boring game? Ugly, more than boring.
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The Second Half
The Chiefs opened the second half with a 7-play scoring drive and a TD by Travis Kelce. So, in other words… the Chiefs offense is back? Not nearly. It was the Defense that carried the day in this game. I should say, it was the Defense, AGAIN... who carried the day. When the Chiefs went up by a score of 14-to-6, I thought the game would quickly get out of reach for the Jags, but it didn’t turn out that way. The Jags were never more than one TD and a 2-point conversion behind… at least it ended up that way.
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Chiefs Record Book
Patrick Mahomes has now thrown more TDs (47) to a single player (Travis Kelce) than any other Chiefs has ever thrown. The old record was held by Lenny Dawson and Otis Taylor (46).
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How Bad/Good Was It?
There were 9 PUNTS and 4 Field Goals in this game. That alone should tell you just how badly both teams played… on offense. The defenses came through. It’s hard to know if that’s because it’s early in the season or not, but the Chiefs defense has now only allowed 23 total points on two TDs (to the Lions) and three Field Goals (to the Jags). Speaking of un-called penalties, regular Twitter blogger Obi-Wan Mahomie said: “How is this not (Offensive Pass Interference) OPI (0:03)?
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In other words, the 12-to-2 penalty discrepancy in this game makes you think the league does have it in for the Chiefs. A Conspiracy Theory? Let’s unite and march on Roger Goodell’s office… oh, never mind. Still, I think there’s something there.
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Chiefs Defensive Stats
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In the middle of this game, Nick Bolton went down, but eventually got up and walked off the field. That was truly disconcerting. He was temporarily replaced by newcomer Drue Tranquill, but Bolton returned to action and as you can see, he led the team with 8 total tackles. In an article for The Athletic, Nate Taylor and Austin Mock wrote a piece about Chris Jones in this game called, “Chiefs top Jaguars in low-scoring affair: How Chris Jones’ return saved Kansas City” and said:
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“Jones, known as the Chiefs’ defensive closer, ended three of the Jaguars’ possessions on his own. His first sack of the season was on a fourth-down play, he deflected a pass on third down to force a punt and, on another fourth-down play in the fourth quarter, he pressured Lawrence into an incompletion.”
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Again, if you love defense, you would have loved this game. Nine times, the Chiefs defense forced a PUNT or a TURNOVER on DOWNS. One or the other. If you can do that with Patrick Mahomes on your offense, you can win most every game, every time.
I like defense, so I’m very happy with the final outcome, but I also like offense and there just wasn’t much of that in this game.
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The Game Ball Goes To
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The Game Ball Goes to —> THE DEFENSE
For the first two games of the year, the defense has allowed a total of 23 points, or 11.5 points per game. If you take David Bell’s magic number of 17 allowed Defensive points… which he expanded two years ago to 21 (given that the NFL is now a full time aerial show), then you can see the Chiefs are in great shape on Defense heading into the rest of this season.
One the other side of the ball, the offense has scored 20 (against the Lions) and 17 (against the Jaguars) to average 18.5 points per game. Since K.C. led the league in Points Per Game in 2022 with 29.2, you can see they have quite a ways to go to reach that milestone again.
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The Tweet of the Game
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“First regular season touchdown for Skyy Moore.”
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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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