Chiefs 19, Jaguars 14: Insta-reaction!

The other night, I took the toddler and baby out to eat. Wife was out of town this weekend, so it was just us three dudes, the Mellingers playing without the family's most-liked and top parent.

I picked a layup of a restaurant. Not too far from the house. Kid-friendly sports bar, with lots of noise and TVs. We got there around 5, so we wouldn't have to wait for a table, and so the service would be faster, and hopefully so there would be lots of families there who'd understand if our table turned into an unmitigated disaster. When you're playing short-handed, it helps to have a friendly schedule.

I spent the whole dinner playing defense. Feed the baby, make sure the toddler has milk and matchbox cars. Sneak in giant bites of a buffalo chicken wrap when possible. Ask for the check early, so we get the heck out of there quickly.

You know what? It actually turned out ... OK. We caught some good breaks. Super friendly server. Great service. No major freakouts. It wasn't a great experience. I wouldn't say that. We were never as comfortable as we should’ve been, and I wasn’t sure we were safe until it was all over. But we all ate, which was the most important thing, and we went home relatively uninjured.

It was, in other words, a pretty good analogy to the Chiefs' 19-14 win over the Jaguars on Sunday.

Onward:

▪ I'm old enough to remember Nick Foles dropping a perfect lob pass down the left sideline to Travis Kelce on the Chiefs' first snap.

He was, otherwise, not very good, at least on first look. Missed open receivers — sometimes missed on the accuracy, and sometimes missed on even seeing the open receivers. Threw a terrible deep ball that should've been picked, but the Jags went all Jagsy on it and one defensive back knocked the ball away from another.

Please let me pause here for the disclaimer that I need to watch again to have a better idea, but Foles left a lot of points on the field. Looked like De'Anthony Thomas was wide open on a play in the third quarter. Foles checked and threw short — where have you heard THAT before? — and the Chiefs ended up with the field goal. There was another play on that drive, actually, where Tyreek Hill may have been open. The ball fell incomplete.

Let's be fair to Foles, and not just with that disclaimer. The Chiefs were missing a starting left guard, their best two running backs*, and for most of the game their best receiver. Yes, the Jags are a bumbling mess, particularly defensively, but Foles was not playing with a full deck.

* Their third-best running back, Charcandrick West, appears to be playing hurt, too.

Still, the demands for him to be the starter should probably be slinking away quietly now.

▪ Dee Ford will be my column, and quite possibly the entire film review this week. He beat his man throughout the day.

▪ Can we talk about Travis Kelce for a second? What a selfish, immature, empty-brained thing he did with a tempter tantrum about what he thought was an uncalled pass interference penalty that ended up with him being ejected and the Chiefs walking back something like 83 yards in penalties.

I like Kelce. I like players who play with emotion. I like players who care. I like players to be able to express themselves. But what he did there was so dumb, and something I thought Kelce was beyond by now. He's 27 years old. This is his fourth year in the league. C'mon.

▪ The Chiefs' run defense has been an under-the-radar problem all season, and this may have been their worst day. Blake Bortles was terrible for most of the first half, but even so, the Chiefs gave up 132 yards on 18 carries by halftime. That included a ton of yards after contact, and yards after making the first guy miss. Ron Parker was absolutely trucked by Chris Ivory on one play. Derrick Johnson was a step slow plugging holes on other plays.

The Panthers are going through a Super Bowl hangover, but one thing they can do is run. This will be a problem next week.

▪ This makes three weeks in a row that the Chiefs' opponent has essentially given up on trying to throw Marcus Peters' direction. Bortles did complete at least one pass on Peters, a fairly short ball to Marqise Lee on a slant late in the second quarter on that touchdown drive, but for the most part didn't even look to his right — where Peters covers.

I don't remember any opponent doing this before Drew Brees and the Saints two weeks ago. This is three in a row. And, it should be said, it's a perfectly reasonable strategy. It's what every team should do, and probably what the Chiefs should expect most teams to do going forward.

▪ Goodness, the Jags stink. What a hard team that must be to root for, and I don't even have the heart to follow that up with the obvious joke about there not being many people who go through the trouble of rooting for them.

Blake Bortles must be the worst kind of quarterback to have on your team. Very talented, big arm, athletic, all the good stuff ... just makes dumb decisions, overthrows open guys, and loses his accuracy on basic throws. A better quarterback would've completely turned this game, too. Bortles missed a few deep balls that would've changed the entire tilt, but it wasn't just on him. Allen Hurns dropped a fourth down pass near the goal line, there was the fumbled punt return, just a ton of mistakes by a bad team.

Good week for the Chiefs to be so short-handed.

This story was originally published November 6, 2016 at 3:34 PM with the headline "Chiefs 19, Jaguars 14: Insta-reaction!."