Four Takeaways From the Chiefs' 20-17 Win Over the Titans
Coming out of a bye week, many expected the Kansas City Chiefs to put forth a dominant performance against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday Night Football. That couldn't have been further from the case but in the end, it didn't matter.
After being down 17-9 in the fourth quarter, quarterback Patrick Mahomes put the Chiefs' offense on his back on a touchdown drive and converted on the two-point conversion attempt to bring the score to 17 all. Following some back-and-forth between both offenses, overtime ensued and the Chiefs finally woke up. A 20-17 victory wasn't pretty, but Kansas City escaped and rose to 6-2 on the season in a thriller.
Here are four takeaways from Week 9's game.
1. The Chiefs' defense saved the day
Early in the first half of Sunday night's contest, Steve Spagnuolo's defense got gashed on the ground by Derrick Henry and couldn't quite figure out how to limit the effectiveness of Tennessee's offense. Once Kansas City got settled in, though, all bets were off. The Chiefs' defense had a downright dominant stretch of play in which it forced a chain of three-and-outs and neutralized the Titans' entire attack. Tennessee's lack of consistency and firepower in the passing game was glaringly obvious, and the home team took advantage of that. During the lull of the Chiefs' offense and into overtime, it was the defense that gave Kansas City a chance to complete its comeback.
2. And so did Patrick Mahomes
Until late in the fourth quarter, not a ton was going the Chiefs' way on offense. The running backs weren't effective (more on that in a moment), offensive line play was far from perfect and dropped passes were commonplace. Additionally, self-inflicted penalties made things far more difficult than they needed to be. To tie things up late, Mahomes put all of that aside and had a vintage drive that shifted the game's momentum. The Chiefs leaned on Mahomes more against Tennessee than they ever had in a game before, and it worked. The 2018-19 NFL MVP continued to build his case for this year's edition of the award in front of his home crowd.
3. Running backs struggled immensely
When taking Mahomes's numbers out of the picture, the Chiefs' first-half ballcarriers totaled six rushes for... five yards. That deficiency didn't make anything easier on anyone, and a -0.57 EPA on rushes in the first half was staggeringly poor. Finding consistent production out of the running back position has been a challenge for Kansas City all season long and in half No. 1, things were more of the same.
That trend continued into the second half, as the Chiefs committed to abandoning the run game and relied on Mahomes to make plays. At least having the threat of running the ball will help the offense overall, but it's something the Chiefs don't always have. That will need to be fixed moving forward in order to prevent games like this. Mahomes may not always be able to bail others out.
4. Kansas City wasn't great in the trenches
In addition to not executing run blocks well in the first half, the Chiefs' offensive line surrendered a pair of sacks on Mahomes despite him not being blitzed a single time by the Titans' defense. On the flip side, Spagnuolo's defense got consistently beat by Derrick Henry and company in the run game and Kansas City totaled just a single pressure on Malik Willis on six dropbacks. Tennessee is known around the league as being an ultra-physical club with plenty of attitude on both sides of the ball, and that manifested itself in the opening half of the game.
The Chiefs' defensive performance up front improved in the second half, which was a positive development. Despite the win, however, neither line showed up to play its best football for the Chiefs and if they end up facing a team that's well-built in the trenches come playoff time, that lack of grit could come back to bite them. For their sake, they'll hope that the late-game performance was more telling than the rest.
