Shawn Sorter and Peyton Bowers
Some people were calling this the game of the season. Lots of star power, lots of history, lots of fans interested in it. However, in my opinion, it was one of the least important games of the Chiefs season. Whether we end up 4-0 or 3-1 against the NFC it does nothing for us in respect to tie breakers. All those upcoming AFC and especially AFC West games will be far more critical… but, another win never hurts the resume. The Chiefs got RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire back.
The Chiefs were missing their top two Right Tackles, Lucas Niang and Mike Remmers. CB L’Jarius Sneed is banged up, but other than that, K.C. was mostly healthy. DE Randy Gregory was out for the Cowboys as was WR Amari Cooper after testing positive for Covid. The Cowboys All-Pro Left Tackle, Tyron Smith, was out as well. Tyrann Matthieu was questionable at the last minute with some swelling on one of his knees, but ended up playing.
The Good
Early on the Chiefs play calling was really solid. A great blend of the short passing game and running the ball effectively was used. For some reason later they went away from that and had Patrick Mahomes standing in the pocket waiting too long and far too many times.
Mahomes had a good rhythm with his cadence early, using the aggressiveness of the Dallas front against them to get an important first down by drawing them offsides.
So many of the Chiefs defensive players had an impact in this game.
- Nick Bolton with several stops behind the line of scrimmage setting an early tone.
- Willie Gay was all over the field going sideline to sideline making hard hits and wrapping up runners very effectively.
- L’Jarius Sneed was great in coverage, and again was great as a tackler. This kid is the complete package. He had the pick to seal the game late.
- Charvarius Ward was also great in coverage. He had the pick to stop the Cowboys scoring drive at the end of the half.
- Frank Clark seems to be officially back. He was in the backfield much of the day and harassing Dak over and over.
- Chris Jones had 3.5 sacks and a fumble recovery as well as a forced fumble. He also tipped the pass on the final interception to seal the game. He was all over the field. Putting him back in the middle and adding Ingram to the outside along with a healthy Clark has really got this defense humming again.
The defense was impressive all day long. They held the top offense in the league to 9 points. 3 of those points were the direct result of a turnover. So in effect all day they just had the answers. Amari Cooper being out for the Cowboys may have had a bigger impact than many people thought. Losing Lamb at the half just helped ensure a comeback would not be possible.
RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire looked quicker to me than he has all year.
The Chiefs didn’t feature him, he only had 12 carries. Some of that may be him coming back from injury or it may just be more of the same where they don’t see him as being special enough to be featured.
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The Dak
Mecole Hardman had yet another drop today. He doesn’t get many chances to catch the ball downfield (three (3) targets and two (2) catches). This was yet another example as to why.
Harrison Butker has been automatic all year. However, he missed his first extra point today and later he also missed a long FG, but he also made several as well as having a beautiful pooch punt at the end of the game.
Josh Gordon had two (2) targets and one (1) catch which included a drop. He continues to be a non factor.
The Chiefs need to get a handle on their dumb penalties. Clyde doesn’t need to point at a defender on a score and add 15 yards to the extra point try.
Trey Smith needs to control himself after he gets a penalty called. He cost K.C. 25 yards on one drive and killed that drive all by himself. Fenton once again had his mouth running, and instead of possibly having a 15-yard gain from a facemask that was not called until later the penalties offset because he acted like a fool. I still don’t know how the refs added that facemask penalty late, but I also don’t understand how a player can drag a guy around by his facemask for several seconds, have the official right there, and still not call it in the first place.
Both QB’s took a sack while in FG range. Not sure how Mahomes can better avoid that, and thankfully Butker hit that 50 plus yard FG anyway.
Travis Kelce’s drop for yet another Patrick interception that was not his fault was a gut blow. That ended up being a 6 point swing that we can be thankful didn’t affect the outcome of the game.
Patrick had 2 or 3 times where he hesitated to run. From where I was sitting if he had run right away he would have had a lot more yards including a 1st down or 2. He normally has much better instincts as to when to take off.
Mike Hughes once again fielding a punt at the 5 yard is just baffling. We need to clean these things up and hope they don’t come back to bite us in a game that is closer.
The Chiefs had no answer for Micah Parsons. You would think we could slide help to wherever he was or do more of what we did with Travis Kelce last week where he chipped and then went out short. He had 2 sacks and 2 tackles for a loss on the day.
The Ugly
I have no idea how the officials could miss a roughing the passer penalty where Mahomes’ facemask was hit plus a pass interference on the same play. The Chiefs had to settle for 3 on that drive. Overall the officials were lacking, missing calls both ways.
TV announcer, Troy Aikman, didn’t seem to grasp this fact, acting like only the Cowboys were affected by it. Him doing their games would be like allowing me to call the Chiefs games. Guy is way too biased. It’s a bit like listening to local announcers in a preseason road game. He’s the new Dan Fouts.
Troy needs to take lessons from Tony Romo. Later in the game a Cowboy defender was allowed to dive at Mahomes after he reached for the first down. Guy must have thought the ball had a chance to be loose, but you still can’t crash into a QB who has already been tackled, including a helmet to helmet hit. I’d love to see the day when Mahomes gets those calls. He was roughed twice where it was not called.
I had the joy of being out of state and watching the game with my family. My 15-year old nephew, Peyton lives in Minnesota. Much to his parents chagrin he has decided to be a lifelong Cowboys fan. Needless to say he was not happy today, but the kid knows his football. Very smart at analyzing what is going on. Much better than Troy Aikman.
Andy Reid provided an update on Rashad Fenton’s injury:
“Then, Fenton, he landed on his knee,” Reid said. “And we’ve just got to —we’ll get an MRI on that tomorrow.”
Then, Fenton provided an update of his own:
All in all, the day was good if you are a Chiefs fan. We went toe to toe with the team many people have picked to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl and most so-called “experts” had the Cowboys beating the Chiefs today.
Once again, early in the game the Chiefs were very effective at the short-game, both runs and throws. When they started to struggle they went away from that and seemed to call plays that took way too long to develop. So, the offense was hot early, scoring the first 3 times they had the ball, and the defense was hot all day long. It’s a great win heading into the Bye Week. First place still feeling good.
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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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