To paraphrase a great writer who also happened to be from Missouri, it turns out that those rumors about the demise of the Kansas City Chiefs were greatly exaggerated. Media post-mortems about quarterback Patrick Mahomes and company were turning up everywhere after the first two weeks of the season, to the point where it felt like the end of an era.
Oops. Turns out the Chiefs just needed to get healthy, and with speedy receiver Xavier Worthy back in the lineup, Kansas City now has an opportunity to jump up into a tie for first in the AFC West at 3-2 with a victory after the Los Angeles Chargers dropped sloppy game to the Commanders.
The Chargers situation is worth talking about. Their offensive line is struggling with injuries, and they’re also not playing like a team coached by Jim Harbaugh. Suddenly LA looks like the third wheel in this three-team race, which is shocking how dominant they seemed to be early on.
The offensive line injuries aren’t unusual at all. Every team in the NFL typically goes through a run of bad injury luck at some point in the season, and this is theirs. The Chiefs already know what this feels like, but they’re not likely to extend a lot of sympathy.
What is different is the sloppy play. The Chargers took a lot bad penalties—is every team in the league doing this right now?—and they also had trouble lining up at times with the game on the line.
“Sloppy errors,” as linebacker Daiyan Henley put it in an article written by Daniel Popper of The Athletic.
“We didn’t play clean football,” safety Derwin James Jr. said.
That’s an understatement. The Chargers took an astonishing 24 penalties in the last two weeks, which has to leave the fan base wondering if they’ve gone back to their “Chargering” ways.
“We need to get the bleeding stopped on the penalties, the self-inflicted wounds, and I know we’re capable of doing that,” Harbaugh said. “I know we’re a good football team in those areas, and we’re not good at it right now.”
That’s an empty-calories quote if ever there was one, and the Chiefs need to capitalize. It’s especially important given the surprising rise of the Denver Broncos, who are fielding a formidable defense that harassed Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts in the fourth quarter to hand the Eages their first loss. The Denver offense still looks somewhat suspect, but it’s time for the Chiefs to join the party at the top of the division with the Chargers struggling.