Chiefs Finding Old Ways to Beat Themselves
Chiefs jumped out to a 17-7 first half lead, fall to Eagles 21-17
The Chiefs defense has been playing lights-out football throughout the entire season and it continued on Monday night. They had five sacks in the first half and couldn’t find a way to stop the Eagles enough in the second half because the offense kept going three and out. This team has an elite defense for the first time in the Mahomes era and they are on the verge of wasting it.
Drops
The Kansas City Chiefs lead the NFL in drops on the season and while that is obviously not new it is something that they had started to make adjustments to over the past couple of weeks. These were difficult conditions to play in tonight and made the ball more slippery but they couldn’t haul in passes that in most cases were right where they needed to be.
Just a few examples. Late in the game, Mahomes threw a slant to Watson over the middle of the field and he couldn’t bring it in. The replay showed the ball slide right through his hands and cost the Chiefs a first down in a scenario where even just getting a first gives the defense a chance to rest. 3rd and two with just over 2 minutes to go and Mahomes hits Kelce who drops what would have been a first down. The most egregious drop came on 2nd and 10 on a deep ball to MVS. You can argue that he was overthrown a little bit but it doesn’t matter he has to catch the ball as it hits him in both hands. It’s a ball that likely scores a TD and could have won the Chiefs the game.