The Chiefs' hope of contending hinges on the deep ball.
Patrick Mahomes and company finally cut loose on a few big plays, and were inches away from more against Cincinnati. They need to keep firing.
For the eighth straight season, the Kansas City Chiefs are AFC West champions.
This historic run (and it is indeed historic, now tied for the second-longest streak of division titles in NFL history) has made the Chiefs the most successful team in the history of the AFC West in terms of division titles. It’s demonstrative of how impressive this current run is that prior to it Kansas City had half the division titles of every other team (they stood at 7 vs 15 for every other team in the division). It’s a time for celebration, made a bit sweeter by the fact that it came over the rival Bengals with a fantastic performance from L’jarius Sneed against a (ahem) talkative Ja’Marr Chase.
That’s all terrific news, and worth being happy about. What’s more important to me, though, is the way in which the Chiefs were able to get their offense moving a bit (albeit against a bad Bengals defense) following one of their worst offensive performances of the Patrick Mahomes era last week. Some of it was a hard-charging Isiah Pacheco, who as usual ran the ball as though his life and the lives of his loved ones depended on it. He’ll be critical to Kansas City’s offense if they want to advance.
But even more critical, though, was the fact that on at least few plays Mahomes and company were able to grab chunks of yards down the field through the air.
This type of downfield action is something that has been taken for granted in Kansas City since 2017, but has been almost nonexistent for much of 2023. Against the Raiders on Christmas, the Chiefs didn’t take many shots as Vegas clamped down on underneath routes and dared Mahomes to test them at deep and intermediate ranges.
The Bengals did the same throughout the day Sunday, albeit often with different coverage looks than what the Raiders utilized. But this week, Mahomes was willing to keep firing down the field even when a few early deep shots didn’t pan out. And that willingness (with some help from the WR room) was the difference in a close game.
Let’s talk about the deep ball, taking what the defense is giving them (a concept normally reserved for “safe” throws, but not in this case), and how the Chiefs were able to hit on a few big plays in a way that will be necessary if they want to advance towards their goal of the Super Bowl.