Coming out of the Kansas City Chiefs‘ 20-3 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, there was plenty to be concerned about with the Chiefs. The receivers, the offensive tackles, the pass rush — all of it is under a critical eye heading into the remainder of the schedule.
When thinking about the Chiefs’ lack of sacks, one player comes to mind: defensive tackle Chris Jones, who has half a sack this year, three quarterback hits and just one tackle for loss through six games.
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Chiefs have pressing concerns after loss to Seahawks. Which can be fixed? | The Athletic
“Room for progression, I think, so far,” Jones said. “It’s about getting better every game. Haven’t reached my sack number. I think I’ve got point-five of a sack right now. It’s all good. It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish.”
The good news for Jones is he still has time to rewrite this season’s narrative if he produces his typical splash plays.
So far, though, there hasn’t been much on-field evidence that better days are coming.
There’s no backup plan for when the league’s top-paid defensive tackle isn’t producing like himself. The Chiefs have no choice but to keep Jones in his current role, while hoping he can recapture some of his previous magic.
“Stuff like that doesn’t really bother me,” Mahomes said of the report, “because I’m so in the moment and in the team. When you’re in this building, you don’t even really hear stuff like that unless (Chiefs Vice President of Football Communications Brad Gee) tells you that stuff.”
Simmons, who has dealt with a back injury since the middle of August, was placed on injured reserve a day after the alleged incident, which Mahomes did not deny.
“We’ve had the right conversations now. We’re moving in the right direction,” said Mahomes, who in his 10th season with the Chiefs is also a team captain. “You have to have hard conversations at some point and I think we’ve had those. We’ve had great conversations after, and we’re moving in the right direction and that’ll be great for the team.”
The Broncos do not throw the ball well downfield. They don’t do that well with Waddle. Add in that Waddle may be out, and this could be huge for the Chiefs.
Next Gen Stats show that quarterback Bo Nix was highly effective on short passes, connecting on 11 of 13 attempts under 10 air yards for 114 yards and a touchdown. However, he completed only four of 12 deeper throws for 108 yards. Notably, 66.2% of Nix’s passing yards came after the catch, bringing his season total to 64.4%, the second-highest mark in the league behind Jalon Daniels of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“But me and Pat, we’ve been having the same mentality for this game all week long. And it was you’ve got to go in there and have the right mindset and we just weren’t in a joking mood. We were ready to get after it and So Justin, sorry if we took it to a level that you didn’t think it’d get to. If you’re gonna be a (jerk), I promise you I can one-up you every time.”
Mahomes said at the time that he wasn’t surprised Tucker pulled the stunt.
“I’ve had like seven years of kind of doing that same warmup routine, and there’s only been, I think, like three occasions where there’s been a kicker that … wasn’t necessarily moving out of the way or kind of sharing the field in the right way,” Mahomes said at the time on 96.5 The Fan. “And it was in Baltimore all three times, so he does little stuff I think to try to get under our skin.”
“The Chiefs don’t—they don’t scare me. Like, watching that game, I’m not—I was not scared,” Parsons declared on The Edge.
He then revealed that his lack of fear is because he doesn’t feel Mahomes has a weapon on offense that can take the top off of a defense vertically and went on to call out Chiefs wide receiver Xavier Worthy personally.
“They need someone to be able to take the top off… We have to stop this madness. Just cuz you buy Tyreek Hill speed don’t mean you buying Tyreek,” Parsons said of Worthy. Your speed could be efficient, but people forget Tyreek’s strong. And it’s not even just his speed. Reek was stopping on the dime.”
Winless Chargers sticking with Mike McDaniel as offensive playcaller | ESPN
“We’re very confident in Mike and his talent, his work ethic and his ability,” Harbaugh told reporters, according to The Athletic. “We continue to be.”
Harbaugh made the decision after the organization’s self-scouting over their bye week.
“I feel like every stone, any part that we could look to better, that’s the way we responded,” Harbaugh said.
A new study from JAMA Network Open by researchers at Boston University, Mass General Brigham, and the Concussion & CTE Foundation has found that an estimated 75 percent of former NFL players who died between 2008 and 2023 had CTE.
“Many cases may have been early stage at the time of death and possibly symptom free,” the paper said, via Shwetha Surendran of ESPN.
That observation speaks to one of the basic realities of CTE. It’s unknown how many people have it. And it’s no surprise that the vast majority of former NFL players who die with CTE symptoms are later determined to have had CTE.
Josh Downs landing spots after Colts WR reportedly asks out, Indy continues fire sale | CBS Sports
Wide receiver Josh Downs has requested a trade, per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. Downs is in the final year of his rookie deal and has reportedly fetched interest from multiple teams. With the Colts rebuilding, he seems to want out now.
“It is what it is,” Downs told reporters in the Colts locker room on Wednesday, per The Athletic. “I’m here today, but whatever comes my way comes my way.”
Downs has caught 26 passes for a team-high 307 yards and zero touchdowns in seven games this season. He and Keenan Allen, along with tight end Tyler Warren, have been shouldering the load in the passing game with Alec Pierce sidelined by an ankle injury.
Third-down failures doomed the Chiefs’ offense in Seattle
No phase of the offense was good, but the Chiefs’ inability to sustain drives and convert on third downs doomed them.
The Chiefs converted just three of 11 third downs, which helped them muster only a field goal in a game where each team had just eight total offensive drives.
With so few possessions, every third down carried extra weight, and while the Chiefs converted two fourth downs, third-down issues stalled drives and kept them from even coming close to the end zone.
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