Chiefs Season Opener: The Positives

Laddie Morse

Looking at the bright side when you’ve just lost a game — it could be argued — is what losers do. The Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Detroit Lions in their season opener and it was largely due to their wide receivers dropping the ball 45% of the time (targets to receptions ratio), however, there were many positives that appeared during the game so let’s take a look:

Perfect Pass Catchers

MVS, Isiah Pacheco, CEH, and Justyn Ross were a combined 8-for-8 in catches and  targets. The reason for pointing this out is obvious. The rest of the Chiefs pass catchers in this game were an abysmal 13-of-29. That’s just under a 45% catch rate. It doesn’t take a football aficionado to tell you: that’s not very good, not very good at all.

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I used to tell people: “You can’t get to heaven by running away from Satan.” That, of course, requires that you believe in the devil, which I did at the time. The idea still holds true. You need to focus on the positives to attract the positives. In this game, one of those positives could be found in the person of CB Trent McDuffie:

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Some more positives include:

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My take on that one is… the Chiefs probably win if either DT Chris Jones or TE Travis Kelce are included in the active players list. Some thing that means Kelce more than CJ, but I’d say that CJ makes up one point difference, easily.

While drawing a flag for your performance on any given play is a negative, the play of LB Nick Bolton was amazing. He was tied for second in Tackles for the game with 7 and only Trent McDuffie had more. Here’s the top 8 Tacklers for K.C.:

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Bolton also showed how dominant he’s become… even to bigger players:

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When he did get in the game, new LB Drue Tranquill was very, very good:

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Any way you look at it, it’s a huge positive that the Chiefs gave up only two TDs on defense but only lost the game by one point.

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Matt Conner at ArrowheadAddict said this about the Chiefs loss:

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“Rational thoughts: Chiefs will be just fine. They laid one ridiculous egg after another and still lost by a single point. Inexperience, injuries, and lack of chemistry will all improve for offense, and the defense deserves significant credit for stellar execution.”

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Kylie Winfrey says, “It’s early and the sky is not falling” and I would agree. It’s just one loss in a long season of games. I won’t be surprised at all if the Chiefs take it out on their next opponent, the Jacksonville Jaguars. You have to see the game against the Lions for what it really was: the Lions offense is a top offense in the NFL (4th in the league according to ESPN), and the Chiefs defense held them to two TDs. That’s it.

Mahomes faced Zone Defenses 56.7 percent of the time in the first four games of 2022, but face the Zone defense against the Lions 66.7 percent of the time. That was likely because Travis Kelce wasn’t on the field. With Kelce, the Chiefs are a much more potent offense and he gives Mahomes a reliable pass catcher.

The biggest positive take away from this game is Patrick Mahomes. Some of this throws were off a bit and I’d bet that this doesn’t happen again. Not only did the Chiefs offense have a tough game on Thursday evening, so did NBC:

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It’s not like the offense didn’t have their positive moments. Rookie WR Rashee Rice scored his first TD in the Chiefs first game while last season rookie Skyy Moore score his first TD in the Chiefs last game: the Super Bowl.

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Beyond that, I wholeheartedly agree with Nick Bolton about the offense. The Chiefs are in great shape moving forward, and let’s not forget that Patrick Mahomes is 13-and-3 in his career following a loss.

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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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