What You'll See when Jets Entertain Chiefs PLUS How To Watch Sunday Night Football
Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift and maybe even Aaron Rodgers will be at MetLife Stadium for a Sunday Night Football matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and New York Jets.
With the Super Bowl champs, along with an iconic pop star, in town, there could be a record audience tuning into NBC on October 1 at 8:20 pm ET. Mike Tirico (play-by-play) and Cris Collinsworth (analyst) will have the call live from East Rutherford.
The Jets' struggling offense and its embattled quarterback Zach Wilson will have the chance to right the ship in the primetime spotlight. It'll be the franchise's first SNF appearance since the 2011 campaign.
Charged with protecting Wilson, the recently re-shuffled offensive line will have to account for Chiefs' elite defensive tackle Chris Jones.
"It’s a test for all of it. Run game, protection. [Jones] 95’s a game wrecker. He lines up inside, lines up outside," said Jets' head coach Robert Saleh. "When he’s rolling, he’s a very, very hard player to block and he can single handedly take out an entire game."
Jones and Mahomes give the Chiefs legitimate game-changers on both sides of the ball. The latter owns a 99.5 quarterback rating and a 7:2 touchdown-to-interception ratio through three games.
"Kansas City does a great job creating advantageous situations for their guys, and we’ve got to find a way to counter it with our guys, and then at the moment of truth, we have to win," said Saleh.
Kelce was Mahomes's top target in the Week 3 win over Chicago. The All-Pro tight end, who missed the season opener due to a knee injury, made seven grabs for 69 yards and one touchdown.
In terms of defending Kelce, whose combination of speed and size presents a mismatch for defenders in pass coverage, the Jets could elect to deploy lockdown cornerback Sauce Gardner. The lengthy Gardner neutralized Baltimore Ravens' tight end Mark Andrews in 2022.
"Everything’s on the table," said Saleh. "The difference between that situation and this one, is they’ve got really good receivers too, not saying Baltimore doesn’t have good receivers. They do, but in a situation like this, this Kansas City team is loaded, so there’s a lot of different players that we have to take care of."
A reenergized pass rush would only help the Jets in their quest to contain the Andy Reid-devised offensive scheme. Gang Green has only one sack and no takeaways in its back-to-back losses.
"We got a lot of quarterback hits, we are still generating pressure and we can do better, absolutely. We can game plan it better," said defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich on Thursday.
After opening as a 9.5-point favorite, the Chiefs have watched the spread move to 8.5 points as of Saturday evening. The Jets have been betting line underdogs heading into all four games thus far this season. They won outright as Week 1 'dogs but failed to cover the spread in losses to Dallas and New England.
Kansas City and the Jets last met in 2020, a 35-9 loss for the Green & White at Arrowhead Stadium. Sam Darnold was New York's quarterback at the time, passing for 133 yards on 30 attempts. Mahomes threw for 416 yards and five touchdowns.
Jets vs. Chiefs (Week 4)
Sunday, Oct. 1 • 8:20 pm ET
Location: East Rutherford, NJ (MetLife Stadium)
Watch: NBC / fuboTV (start your free trial)
Point Spread: Chiefs -8.5
Money Line: Chiefs -450; Jets +330
Total (Over/Under): 41.5
Odds provided by SI Sportsbook. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-522-4700.
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