The Kansas City Chiefs face what may be their most important regular season game since Patrick Mahomes took over as full-time starting quarterback in 2017. Since then, Mahomes has led the Chiefs to a 95-30 regular season record, winning the AFC West division every season, and advancing to the conference championship game every year as well.
But Mahomes and the Chiefs’ incredible string of success stands in peril on Sunday when the Chiefs come out of their bye week — though still nursing the wounds of a devastating 28-21 defeat at the hands of the Buffalo Bills in their final game before the weeklong break — to face the new West division leaders, the Denver Broncos.
Bills rookie cornerback Maxwell Hairston who collected his first NFL interception in the game off a Mahomes throw, couldn’t resist adding a little insult to injury in his postgame comments.
At the podium for the first time since the aftermath of the Buffalo game on Wednesday, Mahomes delivered a pointed, four-word response to the rookie.
In fact, Mahomes said that Hairston’s remarks might help the Chiefs deal with their immediate problem — the Broncos.
Behind sophomore quarterback Bo Nix, Denver’s first-round pick, 12th overall, out of Oregon in 2024, the Broncos have powered their way to what, at least so far, looks like their best season since 2015 when Denver won its third Super Bowl in franchise history.
More importantly, at 8-2, the Broncos stand 2 1/2 game ahead of Kansas City in the divisional standings. The Chiefs not only are looking a steep comeback to win the division, but they are currently out of a playoff position altogether, occupying the eighth seed in the conference.
A loss to the Broncos could effectively put an end to the Chiefs’ hopes of winning an eigth consecutive division title — and could put them in danger of not making the playoffs at all. According to a mathematical formula created by The Athletic, the Chiefs currently have a 75 percent chance of making the playoffs, but that probability falls to 61 percent if they fail to defeat Denver on the road Sunday.
Clearly, the Bills need to address some flaws in their performance if they want to prevent that scenario, and one of those flaws was identified by Hairston. In the aftermath of the Bills’ win over Kansas City, Hairston — who was playing in only his second NFL game — said that he had identified certain body language “tells” in wide receiver Xavier Worthy that enabled him to lock down the Chiefs’ second-year pass catcher.
“Finding a difference in his posture and his effort for real — when he knows he’s not getting it, when it’s a run,” Hairston said, as quoted by journalist Tyler Dunne. “So just applying what I saw from the film room and taking it out to the field. There are tells that everybody gives. It’s just about finding it.”
Told of Hairston’s remarks on Wednesday, by reporters at Mahomes’ media appearance, the Chiefs’ two-time NFL MVP signal-caller had four words to say.
“I appreciate the info,” Mahomes remarked.
The three-time Super Bowl winning QB went on to say that the information provided by Hairston would help the Chiefs in their crucial game against the Broncos on Sunday, in a game that will be televised to almost the entire country by CBS in the 4:25 Eastern time slot.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have to try and figure out how to make sure that poor offensive performance from Week 10 does not happen again. They showed no ability to move the ball down the field until garbage time late in the fourth quarter. Everything that could go wrong did for that unit. It’s probably just an off night, but one more week of that type of play will result in fans panicking and once again loudly proclaiming that change has to happen, especially since their next opponent is currently statistically the worst defense in the NFL: the Cincinnati Bengals.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers took most of the blame for that awful Week 10 performance for his constant overthrows. However, top receiver DK Metcalf explained that his biggest overthrow was actually a good pass, and the incompletion was his own fault.
The play in particular was a scramble drill, and Metcalf tried to modify his route to make things easier on his quarterback. Instead, he missed the chance to get a big touchdown and have momentum swing towards Pittsburgh. Even though the Steelers lost by a lot more than seven points, that play could have helped so much more than the stat sheet could ever say.
Something clearly was not right in Rodgers’ head all game long. However, if he connected with Metcalf on that play for what would have been a 41-yard touchdown, maybe that gives him the confidence needed to make those throws that he had missed throughout the game. We will never know for sure, but completing a pass like that definitely raises the confidence and morale of the entire team.
On that same front, maybe Metcalf gains more confidence in his routes if he does the right thing there and catches the ball. He could not get consistent separation throughout the game, as every move he made seemed to be the wrong one.
There is one theme that has constantly come up for Pittsburgh’s defense over the past couple seasons: doing too much individually and not trusting teammates. There have been many times where the players say that they lost gap integrity or left a man wide open because they wanted to help others. In reality, if they just do their job and stick to their assignments each week, good things will happen.
That can be applied to the offense as well. Run your routes, stick to your assignments, and good things will happen. Metcalf has never been much of an elite route runner, but he still needs to learn this as well. Just do what you’re supposed to do, and Rodgers will find a way to get you the ball. There’s no need to run flat, especially when you have the ability to go up and score an early touchdown.
Sometimes, it’s good to just get back to the basics. All these players in the NFL have these contracts because of how good they are, but sometimes they don’t perform like that. They can overthink things, or the team gets behind, and they feel like have to do more — which just puts them in a bigger hole.