‘The struggle is real in Kansas City.’ What national NFL media is saying about Chiefs
The big “Sunday Night Football” showdown between the Chiefs and Bills turned into a lopsided victory for Buffalo.
The Bills rolled to a 38-20 victory, handing the Chiefs their third loss in five games.
Are the Chiefs in trouble? Here is what national NFL media members are saying.
Mark Maske of the Washington Post wrote a story with the headline, “The Bills are formidable, while Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs look nothing like themselves.”
Here is an excerpt: “The Chiefs have reached the last three AFC championship games and the past two Super Bowls. But they’re having their early-season issues, as they fell to 2-3. They’re in last place in the AFC West, two games behind the division-leading Los Angles Chargers. And even if they regroup and get back into the thick of the jostling for playoff seeding, they now trail the Bills by two games plus the head-to-head tiebreaker.”
NFL Media’s Grant Gordon offered his takeaways from Week 5 of the NFL season.
This is part of what he wrote: “The Chiefs’ offense is still sensational, but it hasn’t been that level of outstanding it needs to be to overcome such a bad defense. The Bills had big chunk gains throughout the night, with four Bills tallying plays of 24 yards or more with Dawson Knox (three catches for 117 yards) scoring on a 53-yard pass and Stefon Diggs hauling in a 61-yard catch. Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu looked frustrated trying to organize an overmatched and out-of-sorts secondary that led to the team allowing 436 yards of offense and was helped little by a Chris Jones-less pass rush. After five weeks, it would seem the struggle is real in Kansas City.”
ESPN’s Dan Graziano doesn’t necessarily think the Chiefs are in trouble.
This is from his column: ”But to be fair, the defense has not been whole all year. Frank Clark has missed games. Tyrann Mathieu missed a game. Chris Jones and Charvarius Ward missed Sunday night’s game.
“Steve Spagnuolo’s Kansas City defenses have had their tough stretches, but they’ve also shown the ability to stand up and play tough in the biggest moments. If they can get healthy, there’s little reason to think they won’t be able to do that when it counts in December, January and February.”
Kyle Brandt discussed the Chiefs on Monday’s “Good Morning Football.”
“They just got their butts kicked at home, this was not close, and here’s my real concern ... I don’t think anything’s happened with the Chiefs, I think the other teams have gotten better,” Brandt said. “I think the other quarterbacks have gotten better, I don’t think that the Chiefs are falling apart, necessarily regressing. ...
“And last night, they were not the best team in their own building, they didn’t have the best quarterback in their own building, they didn’t have the best tight end in their own building, they got their butts kicked.”
The New York Times’ Ben Shpigel wrote about Sunday’s game. The headline: In rolling over Chiefs, Bills encounter little resistance.”
This is a snippet of his story: “Under Mahomes, the Chiefs have won the last three division titles, played in the last three A.F.C. championship games and competed in the last two Super Bowls. Whether any of those streaks will continue depends not so much on Mahomes but on what happens on the field after he leaves it.
“The Chiefs are threatening to waste both the best offense of Mahomes’s tenure and the best season of his superlative career because they have forgotten how to cover, how to tackle and how to play defense.”
In his “Football Morning In America” column, Peter King wrote about the Chiefs’ issues.
This is an excerpt: “(T)hat Kansas City defense. Frighteningly bad. I go back to draft day 2020 and think of the Clyde Edwards-Helaire pick. He’s been a B player. Imagine if that pick had been at a defensive need spot — at safety, maybe, where Antoine Winfield Jr., went 13 picks after Edwards-Helaire, or at corner, where Trevon Diggs went 19 picks after the runner. The Edwards-Helaire pick sounded great at the time, but needs were glaring elsewhere, and those needs really showed up all over the field Sunday night—and in the team’s 2-3 start.
“Look at the standings this morning. Kansas City’s allowing 32.6 points per game, most in the league. Never thought I’d see this in the Mahomes Era, but the offense can’t outscore the defense (154 points for, 163 against) right now.”
On ESPN’s “Get Up,” former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovksy said the Chiefs are a bad football team right now. Former Bills/Jets coach Rex Ryan bashed the Chiefs defense.
This story was originally published October 11, 2021 at 12:21 PM.
