For the second straight week, the Kansas City Chiefs beat a team of horses.
Unlike last week, the game never felt in hand. This game was back and forth — and although it wasn’t a perfect game by either team, it was quite entertaining and literally came down to the last possible second before the Chiefs finally sealed their 33-30 victory in overtime over the Indianapolis Colts, via a walk-off field goal by Harrison Butker
Here are five things we learned from Kansas City outlasting Indianapolis on Sunday
evening:
1. The passing game isn’t dead.
After a mostly quiet debut back from his injury last week, quarterback Patrick Mahomes — QB1 — was back to being that dude again, tossing the rock for 382 yards and three touchdowns.
And while tight end Travis Kelce was the main beneficiary of Mahomes’ targets, the most encouraging part of this game was how many contributors Mahomes connected with to rack up nearly 400 passing yards. Mahomes completed passes to seven different receivers. Five of them had four or more receptions. It was also nice to see Jalen Royals get in the mix and score his first NFL touchdown.
And as I mentioned, this was by no means Mahomes or the Chiefs’ best game, which should be even scarier for the rest of the league. The Chiefs had 523 yards of total offense, and it still felt like they left a few plays out on the field.
2. Kelce is still Kelce
The Chiefs’ future Hall of Fame tight end proved tonight that he still has plenty left in the tank to play another season, and hopefully make another playoff run. Over two weeks, we’ve seen the explosive plays return to Kelce’s game. He’s not the player he once was, but he can still do the job.
After the game, former captain of the site and current Kansas City Star reporter Pete Sweeney asked Kelce about his touchdown. As the consummate team player he is, he credited wide receiver Xavier Worthy for laying the block on the Colts defender that allowed him to get into the end zone.
Kelce may be Mrs. Swift’s husband, but he’s also still one of the best tight ends in the NFL.
3. Emmett Johnson will make Kenneth Walker better
If you want to wear down an opposing defense, throw an absolute unit like Kenneth Walker at them 25 or more times a game and watch their will to make contact deteriorate.
But if you want to absolutely obliterate them, then bring in another running back who is almost as talented as Walker.
Johnson’s vision, lateral agility, and contact balance make him just as hard to bring down.
The one-two punch of Walker and Johnson is only going to get better as the year progresses, and we saw tonight what happens when an opposing defense has to respect the run first when Mahomes is on the field cooking.
4. Nohl Williams looks like a star
For the second straight week, Chiefs’ second-year player Nohl Williams looked like one of the best cornerbacks in football. That matters, considering we don’t know when first-round draft pick Mansoor Delane will return to the lineup from injury. In the meantime, Williams is more than holding up his end of the bargain. He stayed in the opposing receiver’s hip pocket all night Sunday. He nearly single-handedly won the game for Kansas City, if the back of L’Jarius Sneed’s hand hadn’t grazed Colt’s receiver, Laquan Treadwell, on his way to the ground.
5. The ‘refs are in the Chiefs’ back pocket’ narrative is dead
Listen, I’m not mad the refs overturned the call on the field in overtime to give the ball back to the Colts. I’m not angry, because the Chiefs still figured out a way to win.
Now, if the game had been different. And the Chiefs hadn’t found a way to stop the Colts in the red zone, and they hadn’t figured out a way to drive down the field and win the game.
I would have been fuming.
But either way, this narrative is dead, or at least I don’t want to hear about it whatsoever anymore.
