A Kansas City Chiefs column: That was better, but Sunday’s effort won’t beat best teams
The Chiefs won going away, the kind of game that ends with the quarterback on his knee, and there is a danger in looking at the 42-30 final score and believing this team is anywhere close to where it needs to be.
Chiefs fans of a certain age might have some residual muscle memory rejection of the idea of being annoyed with a two score road win, but life moves fast, and that’s where we are now.
We’re there for a few reasons. The most obvious is that the Chiefs have earned their way to the NFL’s highest standard, which is chasing not just a Super Bowl but Super Bowls. Plural. The slightly less obvious is that the opponent on this day was the 1-3 Eagles, a team that an optimist would say could be good someday.
So, yes, the Chiefs won, and the backdrop of Andy Reid winning his 100th game for the Chiefs in the city where he became a coaching star makes for a fun story. But the truest thing said after the game came when someone asked Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes if he felt like the team met its expectations.
“I think we started it,” he said. “There’s still a long ways to go.”
That’s exactly right.
The Chiefs did a lot of spectacular here on Sunday. They rushed for 200 yards, including Clyde Edwards-Helaire’s second straight game over 100. Mahomes threw five touchdown passes.
Tyreek Hill caught 11 of 12 balls thrown his way for 186 yards and three touchdowns. Defenses have been focused on stopping him; he’s now on pace for 128 catches, 1,925 yards and 17 touchdowns.
On defense, Mike Danna had two sacks and — this may have been the most significant progress — the Chiefs made three stops on six red zone drives by Philadelphia.
In a different season, with a different group of players and a different group of expectations, that might’ve been enough for this space to reflect the glow of a happy locker room.
But not now. Not with this group. Not with these expectations.
“I feel like we’re still missing a step,” Hill said.
The Eagles are not a good team. Not yet, anyway. They beat the sorry Falcons in their season opener and have now lost three in a row by a total of 38 points. The next time they’ll be favored could be against the Lions on Halloween, or the Giants after Thanksgiving. That’s the kind of company they’re keeping right now.
The Chiefs are supposed to be the NFL’s upper class. They’ve played in three straight AFC Championship Games and two straight Super Bowls and have the best quarterback on the planet with a Hall of Fame head coach. Teams like this are supposed to measure regular-season success by whether they earn the first-round bye, and postseason success by whether they have a parade.
The Eagles entered this game 23rd in scoring, with points scored on just 28.1% of their possessions. Only five teams had punted more often.
Against the Chiefs, the Eagles scored 30 and came away with points on six of eight possessions. They punted zero times.
It’s impossible to play perfect defense in the NFL. Offenses are too advanced, and the rules are stacked in their favor. But too often the Chiefs make it easier on their opponents with missed tackles, missed communication and guys out of position.
“We’ll get that cleaned up,” Reid said.
The Chiefs’ offense is good enough to cover for a mediocre defense most of the time. They scored touchdowns on six of their seven possessions, the exception coming when Mahomes forced a third-down pass against pressure and was intercepted. The Eagles trailed from the middle of the second quarter on, including by 19 points before a last-minute touchdown.
We don’t mean to diminish the Chiefs’ red zone success here. That’s important, and it marks significant progress after what they’d done through the first three weeks of the season.
But even mediocre defenses can get a bad team like the Eagles to punt, or turn it over.
The Chiefs had too many of the mistakes we saw in the first three weeks — missed tackles, not enough pressure, too much miscommunication. The Chiefs’ coaches failed to challenge what would have been a fumble on the Eagles’ first possession. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts missed a wide-open receiver in the end zone.
These are the cracks that better teams can exploit, and now is a good moment to acknowledge that the Buffalo Bills — AFC runners-up a year ago, and winners by a combined score of 118-21 the last three weeks — come to Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday night.
“I’m sure they want to beat us pretty bad,” Mahomes said.
It is far too early to take the NFL standings seriously, but it’s worth noting that the Chiefs are behind five AFC teams in wins. That didn’t include the Ravens, who played late Sunday afternoon, or the Chargers, who play Monday night.
The Chiefs could climb to the top by the end of the season without surprising anyone. They have the talent, and the 17-game schedule instituted this year allows for more growth.
But they had all the urgency and motivation possible for a Week 4 game against an inferior opponent, and the most accurate way to put it is they got by.
They know that the effort and execution that beat the Eagles won’t be enough against the AFC’s better teams. Interesting timing, too, because the Bills might be the AFC’s best and they’re coming to Arrowhead for the NFL’s largest regular-season platform.
This story was originally published October 3, 2021 at 5:29 PM.