Indianapolis went old school against Kansas City exploiting a run defense that had no answer for Marlon Mack, who steamrolled them on 29 carries for 132 yards to, as Hank Stram would say, matriculate the ball down the field and help the Colts hand Andy Reid’s squad their first loss of the season.
They say football is won and lost in the trenches and while quarterback Patrick Mahomes put up good numbers, 22-39 for 321 yards and a touchdown he threw early in the second quarter, scrambling to his right on a broken play to find Byron Pringle in the endzone for a 27-yard score to put the Chiefs up 10-7.
Despite Mahomes’ efforts, injuries, penalties, and the inability to win battles in the trenches on offense and defense became Kansas City’s downfall.
The Colts game plan against the Chiefs was very simple, run the ball right at their defense because they won’t be able to stop it, and the Chiefs didn’t/couldn’t. Then defensively, put heavy pressure on Mahomes and play tight man coverage on his wide receivers which will force him to either throw it away or wind up overthrowing his intended receiver.
It’s no longer a secret, if you want to beat the Chiefs, this is all teams have to do and you can bet every coach that Kansas City goes up against is going to adopt this strategy until the Chiefs prove they can beat it.
Luckily, Tyreek Hill will be coming back and his presence on the field should be able to counter any man coverage schemes from opposing defenses.
What will be tougher to overcome are the injuries that have decimated the left side on the offensive line. Eric Fisher is still out since having core muscle surgery a few weeks ago and Cam Irving has been less than impressive. Now, left guard Andrew Wylie is down with an ankle injury and if he isn’t ready to go next Sunday, Ryan Hunter will be his replacement.
On the other side of the ball, the defensive line is banged up just as bad. Defensive tackles Chris Jones and Xavier Williams both left the game last night due to injury. Jones’ status is reported ‘week to week’ with a groin injury and Williams suffered an ankle injury that caused him to leave the game as well. The recent dings to the d-line mean Derrick Nnadi and Frank Clark are the only regular starters that aren’t on the injury report and Emmanuel Ogbah, Khalen Saunders, and Tanoh Kpassagnon are the only backups the Chiefs have on the roster.
Kansas City also saw wide receiver Sammy Watkins leave the game with a hamstring strain and linebacker Anthony Hitchens left due to a strain to his groin.
Head Coach Andy Reid spoke with the media following the 19-13 loss.
“We got beat in just about every faze you could get beat in this evening, that’s my responsibility to take care of business,” said Reid. “Eleven penalties against a good football team are gonna hurt you, turnovers are gonna hurt you, I got to get the [the guys] playing better on both sides on the offensive and defensive line, it starts there whether you win or lose,” he explained. “It’s early in the season we’re going to go back and learn from this and get ourselves a little healthier with these injuries and get rolling and then the guys that have an opportunity to step up and play, they need to step up and play and go win games for us,” he declared.
Kansas City moves on to Week 6 to prepare for a Houston Texans team that put up 53 points on the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday and then they’ll have to travel to Denver the following Thursday.
