The Patriots contained Patrick Mahomes. But the Chiefs’ defense changed the game again
The supposedly dwindling Patriots empire was coming off a wild-card round playoff TKO last season, lost Tom Brady to Tampa Bay and was further depleted by eight players opting out of this campaign because of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Then came the upheaval of the last few days, when starting quarterback Cam Newton tested positive for the virus and their game against the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium was postponed from Sunday to Monday and they were relegated to flying on game day.
Oh, and all of that meant their quarterback would be Brian Hoyer, who threw four interceptions and fumbled twice the last time he started against the Chiefs, for the Houston Texans in a 30-0 playoff loss in 2016.
So all leading indicators sure pointed to a romp for the defending Super Bowl champions, who were seeking to become the first NFL team to start 4-0 in four straight seasons and, more to the point, further assert their dominance in a quest to repeat.
The 26-10 final score in a franchise-record 13th-straight win (including last postseason) might serve to reinforce all that — not to mention serve as testimony to a broader shift implied by the fact that Chiefs coach Andy Reid now is 4-3 against Patriots coach Bill Belichick since Reid came to Kansas City after the 2012 season.
But this was less a blowout than a grind-down by the Chiefs.
And that testified to something substantial in its own right.
On a night when Patrick Mahomes was relatively muted to 236 yards passing and two touchdown passes that traveled a few feet in the air, the Chiefs demonstrated that their defense is dynamic enough to not merely keep them in games but be the winning edge.
While the Patriots’ offense without Newton was tepid, and mistake-prone enough to give the ball away four times, and while the Chiefs prospered by some breaks, the defense also manufactured plenty of its own.
Perhaps one play epitomized the whole picture: Tyrann Mathieu’s 25-yard pick-six from a deflection off of Julian Edelman with 8 minutes 55 seconds to play.
The touchdown, officially 2 seconds after Mecole Hardman 6-yard reception, accounted for the final score and effectively put away a game that only moments before was in the balance.
Perhaps fittingly, the signature defense that stymied the Patriots stems from the 37-31 overtime loss to New England in the AFC Championship game that ended the 2018 season for the Chiefs.
In the wake of that, the Chiefs fired defensive coordinator Bob Sutton and replaced him with Steve Spagnuolo and his fresh scheme and acquired the key likes of Mathieu and Frank Clark.
For as mesmerizing as Mahomes and the offense are, the defense became instrumental in the franchise’s first Super Bowl triumph in 50 years … a journey that included a 23-16 win at New England last season.
And now it’s proving as vital or more this season, even on a night when the Chiefs were without Chris Jones (groin injury) and playing with a further scrambled secondary after L’Jarius Sneed suffered a broken collarbone last week.
A year ago at this time, before the defense was gelling, the Chiefs might have lost even with the Patriots in adverse circumstances.
Especially on a night when the offense was largely stifled, at least by Mahomes-ian standards.
Despite outgaining New England 157-30 in the first 15 minutes, they had only a paltry 6-0 lead to show for dissecting the Patriots over most of the field before getting clogged up in Patriots territory and settling for two Harrison Butker field goals.
Then they shipped a gift right back to the Patriots after a Hoyer pass was intercepted by Juan Thornhill and returned 20 yards to the New England 23. If a double-digit deficit wasn’t going to be a deathblow for the Patriots, it at least would have compromised their game plan.
But the Chiefs failed to apply that sort of pressure, because two plays later Sammy Watkins fumbled it back.
So the Patriots cut it to 6-3 by halftime. And, really, the Chiefs were lucky the game wasn’t even less in their grasp at that point.
Consider the “forward progress” gift they got when Mahomes lost the ball but was ruled down instead of in the possession of Shilique Calhoun.
And defensive back Devin McCourty dropping what would have been the first interception Mahomes had thrown this season.
And that Hoyer, remarkably, took a sack by Frank Clark on the last play of the half that botched hopes of at least a field-goal attempt.
The Chiefs enjoyed another reprieve from a brush with dysfunction early in the third quarter, when a New England punt went between the wickets of Hardman — who avoided touching it by perhaps a centimeter to avert a turnover that would have given the Patriots the ball deep in Chiefs territory.
Still, the Chiefs’ offense remained discombobulated and on the verge of going through three quarters without a touchdown for the first time in the Reid era.
And the Patriots drove to the Chiefs’ 10 with a chance to take a lead when Taco Charlton’s strip-sack of Hoyer was recovered by Ben Niemann.
Then Tyreek Hill’s 6-yard TD reception with 49 seconds left in the third quarter made it 13-6, ending the longest into a game the Chiefs have gone without a touchdown since Mahomes took over.
That didn’t exactly break the Patriots, though it did mark the breaking point of Hoyer’s night with Jarrett Stidham replacing him and promptly throwing his first career touchdown pass (after a 41-yard run by Damien Harris) to cut it to 13-10 with 13:50 left.
But then came the 1-2 punch that made it look like a runaway, a nine-play, 75-yard drive that ended with Hardman’s TD and soon was followed by Mathieu’s.
It wasn’t anything like the script might have suggested. But it sure was further evidence of the Chiefs being the team to beat in the NFL.
This story was originally published October 5, 2020 at 9:50 PM.