Chiefs Weekly: What Happened?

The Chiefs find their game plan flipped upside down.

Nick Dawson
October 6, 2023

The Chiefs beat themselves. The Chiefs were the best team by a mile and they beat themselves with minor mistakes that added up.

Chiefs Offensive Notes

Another lackluster performance from this Chiefs’ offensive. There were really no good takeaways from the Chiefs’ offensive this either than the play by Juju Smith-Schuster. Coming into the year I believed we would see a very improved Chiefs’ run game, but when Patrick Mahomes leads your team in rushing yards, you are going to have a problem. Clyde Edwards-Helaire the Chiefs’ main running back had zero rushing yards on 7 attempts. The Chiefs had zero running backs averaging more than 3.1 yards against the Colts. This cannot continue, we need to see more rushing attempts at Isiah Pacheco. Pacheco only got 3 rushing attempts in the game against the Colts which is just not enough. On Mahome’s blind side we have Orlando Brown Jr. who was expecting to get paid like a top tackle the last offseason, and his play on the field has not been anywhere near that type of salary. Brown was getting humiliated all game against very average pass rushers. I believe the Chiefs might have to move on from Brown because of his performances and how much he wants to get paid. Mahomes even though putting up his worst stat line of the season so far, frankly looked very well against the Colts. Now he did have a missed touchdown throw early in the game, but other than that I believe Mahomes played very well. There were some very catchable passes that were dropped that would have really changed the game. Kelce dropped a pass in the endzone that would have put the Chiefs up by two possessions, but he dropped it and Matt Ammendola went on to miss the field goal. Also on 3rd and 10 and late in the game Justin Watson dropped a pass and the Chiefs then had to go on to punt the ball back to the Colts. To conclude the offense just played really badly against the Colts. I do not believe you will see another game like this from the Chiefs for a while.

Notable Offensive Players

Patrick Mahomes (20/35 262 YDS 1 TD 1 INT)
JuJu Smith-Schuster (5 REC 89 YDS)
Travis Kelce (4 REC 58 YDS 1 TD)

Chiefs Defensive Notes

Where do I even start? Beginning with the positive, the Chiefs’ pass rush looks very scary. Chris Jones, Carlos Dunlap, Frank Clark, and George Karlaftis look like a very nice group. Jaylen Watson could be the steal of the draft. Watson was a 7th-round pick, and he played phenomenally in this game and last week’s game against the Chargers. The biggest positive has to be Nick Bolton. Bolton looks like a star in this defense. Bolton is getting 10 tackles a game while also rushing the QB and playing great run defense. Now let us get to the negative. There are mainly two things I want to talk about, special teams and Chris Jones. First, Chris Jones got an unsportsmanlike penalty which ended up giving the Colts a first down. That drive ended up scoring the game-winning touchdown. This was a very soft call made by the referees, but at the same time, Jones should not be smack-talking in front of referees when you know you can easily get flagged for it. Now, what lost us is this game’s special team. All of the parts of the special teams looked poor other than punt. You had people sleeping on a kick-off return and fumbling the ball. On punt return, you had Sky Moore muff a punt that the Colts end up recovering. Then you have Matt Ammendola missing a PAT, a very short field goal, and the Chiefs doing a fake field goal attempt that just looked dreadful. We need Butker back because if he was playing this game we probably would have beat the Colts and be 3-0 right now.

“

I do not believe you will see another game like this from the Chiefs for a while.

— Nick Dawson

Notable Defensive Players

Nick Bolton (9 TCK – 2 Sack)
Tommy Townsend (3 NO – 170 YDS – 56.7 AVG – 2 IN20)
L’Jarius Sneed (1 Sack)
Carlos Dunlap (1 Sack – 1 FF)
Jaylen Watson

This game was a fluke. I am not scared about the Chiefs and I am still very confident in this team making the postseason. We just need to see improvement upfront from the O-line and in special teams. If we make these improvements we will steamroll the Buccaneers next week.