Even with no Rodgers or Mahomes magic, win over Packers huge for Kansas City Chiefs
First things first: If you watched the Chiefs slog past the Packers 13-7 on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium, chances are you found the win unfulfilling and otherwise unsavory. We get it.
Because A) it’s hard to believe the Chiefs would have won if Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers hadn’t been out after testing positive with COVID and B) Patrick Mahomes continues to befuddle and even exasperate.
And, yes, both those elements of this day make the victory hard to frame in any broader context, specifically in the sense of just where this team might be headed.
Nevertheless, facing inexperienced quarterback Jordan Love instead of Rodgers, bizarre as the circumstances were, is part of the ebb and flow of a season that more typically arises from injuries. Sometimes you get to play against the raw backup.
And while it’s somewhere between startling and distressing to see Mahomes labor after uncanny performances through his first three-plus seasons as a starter, it might well be remembered that even being a generational talent is different than being infallible.
And frustrating as that may be, perhaps it shouldn’t blind us to seeing the Chiefs seeming to emerge in other ways as they wait for Mahomes to resume the regularly scheduled programming we came to take for granted.
Since the offense sputtered most of the game other than the opening and closing drives, it was defense (and special teams) that paved the way to beating a team that had won seven in a row — a team that certainly was diminished by Rodgers’ absence but also has plenty else going for it and was allowed to step up without him.
Never mind, for a moment, anyway, that it was a dull game and that the glamour and glimmer of Mahomes at his best wasn’t much on display.
Their first winning streak of the season left the Chiefs with a winning record (5-4) for the first time since they won the opener over Cleveland ... which was also the last time they hadn’t surrendered a turnover until Sunday.
Suddenly, they’ve hoisted their way out of the AFC West cellar into as many wins as every other team in the division as they prepare to play at Las Vegas (5-3) next Sunday.
These are no inconsequential developments even if each of the last two wins weren’t stylized.
And while Tommy Townsend’s punting was a spectacle to behold and all (averaging 56.8 yards on six attempts, including one that was muffed to set up a Chiefs field goal) and Alex Okafor’s blocked field goal was another key highlight, this day was another step forward for a defense.
Case in point: The group has given up just 24 points in its last 10 quarters after enabling opponents to amass 203 in the previous 26 quarters.
Whether that’s a blip or a reset absolutely remains to be seen.
But there’s certainly some encouraging factors in it that extend beyond the fact that Love entered the game having thrown just seven passes in his career and that last time out the Chiefs played the Giants and Danny Jones.
For starters, the Chiefs made some key personnel moves, including inserting Juan Thornhill for Daniel Sorensen at safety and Chris Jones being primarily moved back inside from defensive end … especially with the acquisition last week of Melvin Ingram, who on his first play on Sunday jostled Love’s arm.
They’re also more healthy and whole now than they’ve been all season, with Charvarious Ward, Frank Clark and Anthony Hitchens all back at it over the last few weeks.
And youngsters like L’Jarius Sneed (with an interception Sunday), Willie Gay and Nick Bolton have made the defense more athletic and dynamic and been part of being more aggressive.
Here we’ll give another cautious caveat, courtesy of Clark himself.
“Although they didn’t have their guy (Rodgers) out there,” he said, “I feel like it’s a start.”
In this case, it was a start that included again generating a pass rush that had been largely non-existent through the first two months of the season and allowing the Packers to convert just two of 12 third-down opportunities.
We’ll know more about what this means in the weeks to come, of course. But at least this defense has progressed from disaster to competence to an asset these last few weeks, and as unsettling as the journey has been it’s a reminder of the recent past:
This core group finished in the top 10 in the NFL in points allowed each of the first two seasons under defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. And two years ago en route to the franchise’s first Super Bowl victory in 50 years, it took a good 10 games for his unit to get it together.
That made sense at the time, given that it was his first year as the coordinator, installing new schemes with a radically different lineup.
The process has been much more disconcerting this season, given that the nucleus was still here and the idea that this group should be closer to peaking than sagging.
To hear Clark tell it, though, by now it’s almost a rite of passage that “the beginning of the season is always rocky” and that the pattern is to “sort of take that turn mid-season defensively.”
There always are a lot of moving parts, he reminded, from tweaks in schemes and injuries to new players or experiments such as Jones being moved out to end.
Now, he says, the Chiefs are “getting back to what we know best.” He was referring to Jones directly, but he meant it more widely about the entire defense.
So while the Chiefs wait to get back to what they’re best known for, the magic of Mahomes, what had been their most alarming weakness figures to be what has to keep them afloat. And maybe, just maybe, these forces will converge into something special yet this season.
This story was originally published November 7, 2021 at 10:00 PM.