Chiefs 20, Titans 17: Game Review

Laddie Morse

If you had been told that the Kansas City Chiefs would end up with 499 total yards and the Tennessee Titans would end up with 229 total yards, you’d likely have bought into my prediction that the score of this game would be 44-to-17. The reality is, the Chiefs played a much better game on Defense, than they did on Offense. While the Defense hit David Bell’s magic number for holding teams down (17), the Offense was 24 points shy. Especially when you consider that this was a game won in Overtime (OT).

We should have expected a much closer game than we originally thought it would be. After all, both teams came into this game with a 5-and-2 record, but only one came out tied with the Buffalo Bills for the AFC lead with a 6-and-2 record. The Chiefs. BTW, the Chiefs are still a game behind the Bills since they lost to Buffalo so they have the edge because the first tie breaker is head-to-head competition. However, it looks like the Bills remaining schedule is a little tougher than the schedule that K.C. faces:

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Part of the reason for the difference in the Totals is that prior to the season most everyone was ranking the AFC West as one of the best Divisions in the NFL, then the season began and the AFC East turned out to be much better than we all thought… and the AFC West, not so much. Yes, the Chargers are good, apparently more on paper than national pundits thought, and the Broncos (3-and-5) and Raiders (2-and-6) have mostly stunk up the place.

The Difference in This Game

Patrick Mahomes. The difference in this game, pure and simple, was QB Patrick Mahomes. This will forever be remembered as a game in which Mahomes put the team on his back, and carried them over the finish line. Mahomes threw the ball 68 times in this game. Why? Because the game situations called for it.

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The Titans QB, Malik Willis thew the ball 16 times. That means Mahomes threw the ball over four times as many times as his rookie rival. That leads me to say Patrick Mahomes is the…

Player of the Game

Patrick Mahomes who is often the actual best player in most every game he plays, was clearly the best in this game. Not only did Mahomes throw for 446 yards, but he was the Chiefs best rusher with 63 yards. That means Mahomes was responsible for 509 total yards from scrimmage.

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That run and TD, made the score 17 to 15 Titans and set up the Chiefs three Two point conversion tries. One of the fails looked like this:

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After a couple of penalties, this happened:

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The Chiefs then went into Overtime and sent Chris Jones to the middle of the field for an OT coin toss. The Titans called Tails, but it was Heads and the Chiefs received the OT Kick-off then drove the field and settled for a Harrison Butker 28-yard Field Goal. (BTW, If Harrison Butker had not missed a 47-yard Field Goal earlier in the Game, he would not have had to kick this Field Goal to win it.) Next, the Chiefs kicked off to the Titans and held them on four straight plays to end the game. After the Chiefs Defense had given up 14 points in the first half, they only allowed 3 point in the second half and overtime.

Runner-Up Player(s) of the Game

Defense. It’s hard not to say the Defense played lights out over the course of the game, even thought they gave up 14 points in the first half. Forcing 6 Punts in the second half and 8 Punts overall, says all you need to know about this defensive effort.

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DT Chris Jones may have committed a Dee Ford foul by lining up in the neutral zone, which came at a particularly bad time allowing the Titans score. However, after that, Jones seemed to be making comfortable a living in the Titans backfield. Kudos to Stone Cold.

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It’s also worth mentioning that TE Superman Travis Kelce had 10 catches for 106 yards vs the Titans. All his catches were of the highly contested variety and that now gives him 659 receiving yards for the year… so far. If you extrapolate that over a 17 game season he should end up with somewhere near 1,400 yards receiving. That would give Kelce 7 – 1,000 yard seasons IN A ROW, while only Gronk, Jason Witten, and Tony Gonzalez have four (4) total (at some point along their careers, but not necessarily in a row).

Quote of the Game

“This game is, definitely, NOT recommended by

Pat [his wife] and my respective cardiologists.”

-chieflybrandt

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Tweet of the Game

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Song of the Game

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Back to the Future

Next, the Chiefs will take on the Jacksonville Jaguars in Arrowhead Stadium. That game will be next Sunday at 12:00 noon CST. Thank goodness the Jaguars are not one of the top defenses in the league. After all, it’s seems like those were the only kinds of defenses that K.C. has been going up against this year. The Jags are ranked #13 in defense, so our predictions of a big Chiefs victory should be closer to reality.

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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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