The Kansas City Chiefs (2-1) are heavy favorites to defeat the New York Jets (1-2) in primetime on Sunday Night Football. The matchup had great anticipation because of the QB battle it featured with the first-ever meeting between Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers. Instead, the latter suffered a season-ending Achilles injury, and now the matchup appears one-sided.
Since losing Rodgers, the Jets have been a mess with Zach Wilson leading the helm as Gang Green’s season is quickly spiraling out of control. After defeating the Buffalo Bills in their season opener, New York is riding a two-game losing streak and has been outscored 45-20. The Jets offense hasn’t scored more than ten points in each of their last two games.
At a glance, it’s a reasonable assumption to say the Chiefs should have another field day like they did last week against the Chicago Bears. But as defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo preps his defense for the upcoming matchup, he warns not to take this struggling Jets unit lightly.
“Well, I can tell you this: the thing that we led off with in [Wednesday’s] meeting was that anybody in this league can beat anybody, and any unit can make another unit look bad,” Spagnuolo told reports on Thursday. “I mean, all you got to do is look around the league and see what happened in some of the games this past week, and the expectations are for this team to do that,” he explained.
“It didn’t happen because they’re pros too. They’re in the NFL planning about the offensive players for the Jets because they’re all good players. But we got to make sure that doesn’t piece together, and it makes us look bad. That was really the first message, and then let’s go about finding out who they are, what they are, what they do, and find a way to slow it down.”
Kansas City’s defense is arguably the best it’s been in the Patrick Mahomes era, ranking seventh in the league in total yards allowed. Still, in a league that’s any given Sunday, the Chiefs must remain disciplined to avoid an upset.
