New England inflicted defeat on Kansas City for the first time this season but the Chiefs showed they will be a power for years to come
It had all the elements to be the game of the
NFL season so far. One one side was the most exciting young player in the league and, on the other, maybe the greatest player in history. At the end of the first half, however, it was looking like the Sunday Night
Football match-up between the Kansas City Chiefs and the
New England Patriots was going to be a bust.
Patrick Mahomes, the wunderkind quarterback manning the (at the time) undefeated Chiefs, tossed his second interception of the night, a forced throw into triple coverage. With the turnover, New England were ahead 24-9 heading into halftime and the Patriots have historically been near-invulnerable at Gillette Stadium when they’ve started the second-half with a lead.
If anyone was worried the game was going to be a huge disappointment, Patrick Mahomes promptly settled those fears. He threw for his first touchdown of the game on the second half’s first drive, cutting the lead down to eight points. The Patriots responded with a field goal but by this point it was clear that the promised shootout between the 41-year-old
Tom Brady and the 23-year-old Mahomes was on. Field goals were not going to cut it.
The Chiefs, aided by an ill-timed Brady fumble, cut the Patriots lead down to a point by the end of the third, setting up an epic fourth-quarter. The Patriots extended the lead with another field goal and then immediately gave up a 97 yard kickoff return that led to yet another Chiefs touchdown. Improbably, with eight minutes left, the Chiefs had secured their first lead. With these two teams, both gifted with unstoppable offenses and saddled with relatively porous defenses, it felt like there may as well have been centuries left in the game rather than less than 10 minutes.
And so it went. Brady ran (!) in for a touchdown on the next drive and the defense finally forced a Kansas City punt. Stephen Gostkowski nailed a 50-yard field goal to put the Pats up by a touchdown. That left a full 3:15 for Mahomes, he needed mere seconds to tie things up with his fourth TD of the game, a bomb to Tyreek Hill that covered 75 yards. It looked like this was going to be one of those games decided by whichever team had the ball last.
Unfortunately for Kansas City and their undefeated record, that ended up being New England. Brady found Rob Gronkowski, who found the Chiefs nine-yard line and, with time running down, Gostkowski kicked the game-winning field goal. With the 43-40 win, the Patriots improved to 4-2 and kept themselves on top of the AFC standings. The Chiefs fell to 5-1; experience had won out, this time.
In was one of those games where there wasn’t really any losers, just one team that didn’t win. Certainly fans got all they could hope for: a dramatic second-half comeback, several reversals of fortune and some impressive quarterback play in a game that wasn’t decided until time was expiring. Nobody should be disappointed to see these two teams facing each other again in the playoffs.
MVP of the week
Dak Prescott, QB Dallas Cowboys. Several worthy candidates here, we will give Todd Gurley his due later, but considering that the Dallas Cowboys absolutely destroyed the Jacksonville Jaguars 40-7, it feels right to give the honors to Prescott, who threw for two touchdowns and ran for another. He picked up 183 yards through the air, plus an additional 82 on the ground. With the win, the Cowboys are now at .500 with a 3-3 record, the Jaguars dropped to 3-3 and it feels like order is being restored in the universe.
Video of the weekChicago Bears linebacker Leonard Floyd decided to pull a wrestling move on Miami Dolphins receiver Danny Amendola, which unsurprisingly led to a penalty. Thanks to the penalty, much maligned quarterback Brock Osweiler, replacing an injured Ryan Tannehill, put together a drive which ended with a Dolphins touchdown.
Somehow the game got weirder after that. The Bears let a solid lead slip away and the game ended up going to overtime. There, the Dolphins overcame a brutal Kenyan Drake goal-line fumble, and took advantage of a Bears missed field goal, and squeezed out an improbable 31-28 win to improve their record to 4-2. With the loss, the Bears fell to 0-3 against teams starting Osweiler.
Stat of the week11. That’s how many times the Baltimore Ravens sacked Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota in their 21-0 victory, a franchise record. The last time a quarterback was sacked that many times was back in 2012, when the victim was the New York Jets’ Greg McElroy. In the loss, Mariota went 10-15 meaning, yes, he ended up with more sacks than completions.
Quote of the week“At the end of the day, I know where my true identity lies: in Christ. Being a child of God, basically. Not finding my identity in football. Just trying to find it in who I really am. I love this game and put everything I have into this game, but can’t let it define me.” - Buffalo Bills quarterback Nathan Peterman after his team lost to the Houston Texans 20-13.
It’s a good thing that Peterman doesn’t identify as a football player because it’s increasingly looks like he isn’t one. After Sunday’s game, he has thrown nine interceptions in just 79 pass attempts. Taking over for a hurt Josh Allen in the second half, Peterman was responsible for an impressive touchdown before he quickly reverted to form. He threw two interceptions, a pick-six to cornerback Johnathan Joseph and a last-minute pick that promptly ended Buffalo’s comeback attempt.
Elsewhere around the league-- The Los Angeles Rams remain undefeated after fending off a feisty Denver Broncos in a 23-20 win. The hero of the week was, not surprisingly, running back Todd Gurley who ran for 208 yards and was responsible for the team’s two touchdowns. That’s the ninth straight game that he’s scored a touchdown.
-- Sunday was the first game from London’s Wembley Stadium this season and, once again, it wasn’t exactly a thriller. In this case, the Seattle Seahawks put up a crooked number on the Oakland Raiders, eventually winning 27-3. The Seahawks improved to 3-3 while the Oakland Raiders essentially saw the plug pulled on their postseason hopes as they fell to 1-5. As far as the chance for an exciting game during the next London match-up? Well next week is, uh, the Tennessee Titans v the Los Angeles Chargers. Good luck with that.
-- It was a cavalcade of comedy in football on Sunday. Maybe the most inexplicable moment came when Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Jameis Winston, on the 21 yard line with just seven seconds left on the clock, made the decision to run with the ball rather than attempting to throw a game-winning touchdown. Unbelievably, the Bucs almost managed to make something out of Winston’s the play, only for the play to die on receiver DeSean Jackson’s fingers. The Falcons held on to win 34-29.
-- The Pittsburgh Steelers improved their win streak over the Cincinnati Bengals to eight straight games after Sunday’s 28-21 win. This one was particularly painful for their historical rivals, as the Bengals held a 20-21 lead over the Steelers with less than a minute to go when Ben Roethlisberger connected with Antonio Brown for an almost literal last-second touchdown.
-- There were varying fortunes for the rookie quarterbacks on Sunday. Sam Darnold had perhaps his best game of the season, throwing two touchdowns as the Jets beat the floundering Colts. Meanwhile, Baker Mayfield had his first real wobble as his Browns capitulated to the Chargers. The No1 overall pick completed fewer than half his passes and was intercepted twice. Elsewhere, Josh Allen was hurt in the Bills’ loss to the Texans, and Josh Rosen was accurate for the Cardinals but could not do any real damage to the Vikings as Kirk Cousins’s team won 27-17.