The fire-breathing dragon returned, and the Chiefs are back from the dead
After one of the worst halves of his life, Mahomes (with help from the defense) reminded the world who he is.
One game isn’t enough to completely reverse course on a rough season, let alone one half. And a single competent performance against a bad team isn’t enough to erase 5 games of struggles for a defense.
But it’s a start.
Patrick Mahomes was mired in a performance that was filed with a handful of inexplicable plays. Travis Kelce was playing hurt. Tyreek Hill was hobbled. And yet AGAIN, turnovers were torpedoing an offense that was moving up and down the field with relative ease. In other words, last week’s nightmarish blowout against the Bills was continuing into another week, this time against a Washington Football Team that was, on paper, a “get right” opponent for the Chiefs.
Things were going badly. And then a beleaguered defense that has been one of the worst in recent history managed to shrug off a terrible touchdown (one of the worst blown coverages of the year) and keep the Chiefs in a game that looked like it was going to get away from them.
After the Chiefs’ offense came out of the half and stumbled into a punt, the defense managed to hold and force a missed field goal to give the offense the ball back. And they did so by stopping one of the sorts of plays that has destroyed them all season.
The Chiefs have struggled to defend quick sideline throws all year, in part due to having a lack of closing speed all across the defense. Earlier this week, I wrote about some personnel and schematic approach changes the Chiefs could make that could at least staunch the bleeding on that side of the ball.
Not to put too fine a point on it (believe me, I’ll do that later this week), but several of those changes got put into action and were seen on this play: Getting Juan Thornhill on the field and playing a much more aggressive approach to try and force errors by the offense. Here Spagnuolo, on a “gotta have it” 3rd down, sends multiple defenders. Washington has a nice play called with a quick sideline throw to try and take advantage of the blitz, but Thornill closes quickly. The blitz causes an errant throw, and even had it not been the speedy safety was in the right spot. The Football Team is forced to kick a field goal, and the missed attempt breathed a little life into the stadium.
That’s when the fire-breathing dragon woke up.