Tyreek Hill’s Chiefs Shoot Down Philip Rivers’ Chargers

Tyreek Hill’s Chiefs Shoot Down

Philip Rivers’ Chargers

by Laddie Morse

Talk about stealing the show. In what was supposed to be Patrick Mahomes coming out party, teammate Tyreek Hill had a career year, in one game, and was responsible for 268 total yards. After Justin Houston called “heads” and won the coin toss, the Chiefs deferred and the defense forced Rivers into a 3-and-out setting up a Hill punt return for a TD. Tyreek caught the punt at the 9 yard line, jumped one way and then the other then bolted down the left sideline breaking one tackle along the way to another very memorable touchdown return. 

That was only the beginning for Tyreek Hill.

Philip Rivers brought the Chargers back on an 8 play drive culminating in a field goal and with the score 7-to-3 and the Chiefs on top, Hill stuck again. On the 5th play of the ensuing drive by the K.C., Patrick Mahomes hit Hill on a crossing pattern and Hill took it the rest of the way, 58 yards for another long TD.

Tyreek Hill ended up with several exceptional grabs catching 7 balls on 8 targets for 169 receiving yards. If he’s not the best wide out in the NFL, I don’t know who is. He seems to be able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, to whom ever he wants. The Chiefs are fortunate to have him on their roster. Thank you John Dorsey. There were many others who had a good day in Carson, California. The Chiefs victory over the Los Angeles Chargers was a team win and many helped make that happen:

• Safety Ron Parker had an INT that helped change the course of the game when the Chargers were driving
• If not for Hill, many would call this “Mahomes Game” and he was 15-of-27 for 256 yards passing, with 4 TDs and zero INTs
• FB Anthony Sherman caught a 36-yard TD pass that was thrown perfectly in stride.
• Dee Ford had a good game and a sack to boot. He usually seems to play well vs Philip Rivers and he did this time too.
• De’Anthony Thomas had a great game. He almost had a long TD which was batted away at the last second, however, he also stripped the ball from their punt returner to set up a late TD.
• Patrick Mahomes spread the ball around and targeted 8 different receivers.
• The defense held when they had to and held the Chargers to only 3-of-11 on third down efficiency.
• Andy Reid proved again that he’s the master of the Chargers and has now beaten them 9 straight times. The last time the Chargers beat the Chiefs was in 2013.

Now for the Bad News

Philip Rivers was 34-of-51 and threw for 424 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT. There’s no doubt that if his receivers hold onto the long passes that he threw to them, the outcome of this game is different. While RB Melvin Gordon only had 64 rushing yards in this game, he also had 102 yards receiving and was left alone in the flat more than you can say “ME-ME-ME-ME-ME” in two minutes time… and that’s a lot.

The Chiefs supposedly fixed their ILB hole this offseason… or in the past year… but there were too many times when the Chargers running backs were seen ripping off long runs right up the gut of the Chiefs defense. For some reason, Anthony Hitchens and Reggie Ragland could not keep up with the Chargers RBs either when it came to covering them. I don’t know if it was a scheme problem or Ragland and Hitchens are just too darn slow. Slow… looked like the answer to that one on Sunday in California. Hitchens did have 15 tackles so at least he was getting in on a lot of action.

TE Travis Kelce had one catch in this game. That’s not going to fly if the Chiefs hope to have continued success this season.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about penalties because the Chiefs had 6 for 50 yards but the Chargers had 7 penalties for 45 yards. It did appear to me that the officials called some pretty-petty-cash-calls but, when the team you’re playing gets more calls… meh, and moot to boot.

Andy Reid got his peddles mixed up again at the end of the game. He said he wanted to start fast and get faster… but the Chiefs led by 31-to-12 at one point and the game ended with the Chargers going on a 16-to-7 run thanks to a muffed punt by the Chargers to set up a late TD by the Chiefs. Instead of stepping on the accelerator, Reid kept stepping on the brakes, in fact, I think he was also pulling on the hand brake at the same time.

In several ways, it seems like the Chiefs were lucky to win this game. I can hear Reid saying, “But good teams find a way to win” and that’s all fine and good, but… if they keep this up, they’re going to find themselves on he wrong end of the score and that might just be next weekend.

With few exceptions, the Chiefs defensive backfield was trashed by Philip Rivers. There were a few PDs (passes defensed) but the reason the Charger receivers ever dropped the ball was because they had a bad day and not because of any pressure the DBs were putting on them.

A regular blogger here at ArrowheadOne named Priest-MaHolmes summed it up best when he said after the game,

“Scandrick looked like Amerson had a son with Phillip Gaines.”

The Kansas City defensive backfield “must” play much, much better when the Chiefs face the Chargers later this season on a Thursday evening, week 15, December 13 if they have any hopes of winning.

It was great to see Ron Parker back there and at times it looked like he was the only one who knew what he was doing or where he should be if he wanted to make a play. I’m not sure that the return of Eric Berry will fix enough of the problems that they faced.

Finding the Fix for the Defensive Backfield

David Bell has already suggested that CB Tremon Smith be inserted posthaste. I couldn’t agree more. We’ve seen enough out of Smith in preseason and Training Camp to know he’s already better than Orlando Scandrick. If they’re saving him for later… what are they waiting for? At least get Smith in there part-time now so he can be up to speed by the time the playoffs roll around.

If this is the week to go after Bashaud Breeland… go get him. Please. The Chiefs are not going to have the luxury of watching Antonio Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster drop all those long TD passes that the Chargers receivers dropped.

The Chiefs have other young CBs on their roster and they need to begin to give them some experience Charvarius Ward and Jordan Lucas could each be better than Scandrick. Scandrick looks like his best days have passed him by… so let’s move on. CB Keith Reaser is sitting on the practice squad, so, call him up and let’s release Orlando Scandrick. Enough is enough.

So Begins the Era of Patrick Mahomes

I knew Andy Reid was holding his best cards under the table all preseason long. I knew the Chiefs would come out and go for broke and I didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t score as many points as they scored in last year’s opener, a 42-to-27 victory over the Patriots in Gillette Stadium.

Mahomes avoided throwing an INT but could have easily ended up with two. He’ll need to do better if he hopes to lead the team past the Steelers in Pittsburgh next weekend.

Any time the Chiefs win, it’s a good day. No major injuries to report is even better news (apparently Ben Niemann pulled a hamstring but it was minor). I predicted a 38-to-21 win and the final was 38-to-28… so I was close. Next week… it’ll likely be a little closer. Go Chiefs!

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