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The Kansas City Chiefs came out of the gate swinging on Sunday afternoon to kick off the NFL regular season against the Arizona Cardinals. Here are some of the bigger takeaways from the Chiefs beating the Cardinals 44-21.
The Chiefs Passing Attack Looks as Potent as Ever
It’s not a huge shocker that the Chiefs offense had something to prove, as crazy as that sounds. After Tyreek Hill got traded to the Miami Dolphins, one wondered what the Chiefs were going to do to keep their offense in the upper echelons of the league without their top wide receiver. Sure, signing players like Ju Ju Smith-Schuster and Marquez Valdes-Scantling helped fill the void, but was somebody gonna have to level up their game to remove all doubt about the offense? The answer so far appears to be no as Patrick Mahomes cruised with a cool 360 yards through the air and 5 passing touchdowns. Travis Kelce had a monster game, but that’s to be expected. Mahomes also spread the ball around, as six different players caught at least two passes and were targeted at least three times. Everybody was eating, and that’s how you end up scoring 44 points on offense. It’s worth mentioning, though, that he did get a little bit of help from the Cardinals.
The Cardinals defense tried something against Patrick Mahomes that not a lot of other teams have tried: they blitzed him a lot. According to NextGen Stats, Mahomes was blitzed on 54% of his dropbacks, the most so far in his career. Mahomes responded by throwing four of his five touchdowns while getting blitzed. It’s a strategy that I wouldn’t expect many other teams to try going forward, much less a team like the Chargers, a team the Chiefs will square off against this Thursday at Arrowhead. For now, it’s worth appreciating that Mahomes and the Chiefs passing attack was more than happy to take everything the Cardinals offered ‘em.
The Run Game is Earning its Keep
Another lingering question surrounding the Chiefs heading into this season was how they were going to conduct themselves in the run game. Sure people wanna see the fireworks show, but would it be at the expense of your running back room and your young, aggressive, and relatively cheap (for now) offensive line? Turns out the early answer to that question is also no, as the Chiefs were able to get their running backs involved in more ways than one. Clyde Edwards-Helaire had a couple of touchdown passes caught from Mahomes, rookie Isiah Pacheco led the group with 60 yards rushing and one rushing touchdown, but the most eye-popping stat is how many explosive runs the unit had. Last season, Chiefs running backs had five runs of 18 or more yards in total. They had four yesterday afternoon. The offensive line was aggressive and dominant, and the running backs took advantage of it as they racked up 128 yards on the ground. If the Chiefs can trust their RB room to grind out yards on possessions to give the passing attack a little room to breathe, you’re talking about a Chiefs offense that’s added a dimension they haven’t had in a hot minute.
The Defense Was Sharp and Disciplined
Goofs about Kyler Murray “doing his homework” aside, the Chiefs defense did more than enough to keep one of the more dynamic quarterbacks in the NFL at bay on Sunday. The final score really doesn’t do it justice how locked down the Chiefs defense had that Cardinals offense. The Cardinals offense was 3-12 on third down, racking up 18 first downs to KC’s 33. 282 total yards of offense, and that’s accounting for the two garbage time touchdowns the Cardinals were able to salvage towards the end of the ballgame. According to Pro Football Focus, Chiefs rookie George Karlaftis, Chris Jones and Mike Danna pressured the QB six times each, keeping Murray off kilter throughout the entire ballgame. Not only did the defense keep one of the more dynamic (albeit shorthanded, no Rondale Moore or DeAndre Hopkins this go-around for the Cardinals) offenses, they kept their hands clean with zero penalties. Chiefs fans can recall defenses of yesteryear that would be set up for success and then shoot themselves in the foot with a costly penalty, keeping drives alive and in some cases leading to points where they could have had punts. That’s not to say that won’t occasionally happen this season, since it does for just about every football team no matter who you talk to, but for now it’s good to appreciate the Chiefs defense for minimizing the mental mistakes and coming out of the ballgame like a bold, confident, strong unit. If they can keep that level of play up, it is going to make the Chiefs one of the scariest teams in the NFL, much less the AFC West.
