Chiefs Win Another Cliffhanger

When the Kansas City Chief hosted the Washington Redskins on Monday Night they battled a team who took them all the way to the last play of the game before it was decided. Again. You see, that’s not the first time that’s happened this season. If you’re a Chiefs fan then you’re thrilled they are 4-and-0 right now, and the only unbeaten team in the National Football League, however, if they keep going down this road of allowing opponents to stay in the game until the end, they’ll be the tempting fates of the football gods on Mt. Olympus.

• In their first game of the 2017 season against the Patriots, the Chiefs scored 21 fourth quarter points, including a late score to put the game out of reach.
• In game two vs the Eagles in Arrowhead, the Chiefs scored with 3:13 left in the game for a victory, 27-20. Then, they needed stops by their defense to lock down a victory.
  
• In game three the Chiefs were leading the Chargers in Los Angeles by a score of 17-10 during the whole second half, until they scored with 1:16 left to go ahead 24-10, the final score.
• In their Monday Night game they drove the field on 6 plays in 43 seconds to set up new rookie kicker Harrison Butker for a 43 yard field goal to go up, 23-20.

Once the Chiefs went up by three points and kicked off with 4 seconds left in the game, they choose not to squib-kick but kicked it through the end zone and give the Redskins one more play from the 25. That resulted in a number of backward passes, one of which was fumbled into the sure hands of Justin Houston, who ran it into the end zone, setting up the final score.

While watching games like these are forever entertaining, the Chiefs are literally walking a tightrope when they play this way.

It’s a bit surprising the Chiefs were able to pull this one out because they were playing without Center Mitch Morse and LG Bryan Witzmann hasn’t yet figured out how to stop hurting the referees eyeballs, and then of course, there was RG Laurent  Duvernay-Tardif going down.

That meant that every time QB Alex Smith went back to pass, the middle of the Chiefs pocket was collapsing. Can you say, “HOT- Pocket!?”  

As expected, R-CB Terrance Mitchell kept improving as the game went along. The Redskins picked on him but also didn’t hesitate to pick on Marcus Peters who gave up a long TD to WR Terrelle Pryor on the Skins first drive. If you’re wondering, yes, Pryor spent a while with the Chiefs a couple of years back (Jan-May, 2015).

We shouldn’t pass by the achievements of this game without noting a bad drop by Demetrius “Emmylou” Harris (he really should take up songwriting instead) but more importantly, the late catch by Albert Wilson. Wilson’s catch saved the day. Not only that but he caught ball over his head running down the sideline (difficulty: 10 out of 10, and if this was the Olympics he’d have gotten a 10 out of 10), bobbled the ball shortly, secured it, making a great catch, and then held onto it as he was hit by a mack truck hurling him out of bounds. Here’s another play that Wilson made good on:

Rookie running back Kareem Hunt had another 100-yard game, his third in four games. He now has gained 502 yards on 68 carries for a 7.3 yards-per-carry average. Oh, by the way, he leads the league in rushing. Todd Gurley is second with 362 yards.

It was mentioned by one of our brilliant bloggers that the league MVP race should now be between QB Alex Smith and RB Kareem Hunt. Smith is averaging 267 yards passing per game and 2 TDs per game and still hasn’t thrown an INT. However, AS11 also scored a TD with his legs in this one, as well as rushing for 56 yards including a 32-yarder late in the game, helping to secure a critical drive.

While Smith was sacked 4 times, the defense didn’t have any sacks vs the Redskins QB Kirk Cousins. Could that have anything to do with Dee Ford being out for this game? Sure, but it exposes a weakness in the OLB depth.

As head coach Andy Reid likes to say, take 24 hours to enjoy this one, then let’s get back to work. Although these Chiefs are perfect right now, they appear to have plenty to work on too.

If you are viewing this in Apple News and would like to join the Discussion, [GO HERE.](http://arrowheadone.com/chiefs-win-another-cliffhanger/#disqus_thread)