Around the AFC West, Week 9: Chiefs complete sweep of Broncos

Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs are coming off their seventh win of the season against the Denver Broncos. While this wasn’t necessarily a pretty win, the Chiefs showed that they had grit. When a team was able to shut down Tyreek Hill, it just opened the door for Sammy Watkins to have a great game. Watkins finished with 8 receptions for 107 yards and 2 touchdowns. Patrick Mahomes had a ho-hum kind of day (kidding) finishing with 303 passing yards and 4 touchdowns. With that, Mahomes has thrown 26 passing TD in his first nine career games, the most in the Super Bowl era. And that is just one of the many records he is breaking.

Despite that historic outing, the most impressive play came on a fourth and 1. None other than Kareem Hunt – who, let’s be honest, we didn’t expect to top last week’s hurdle – did just that. Hunt caught a shovel pass from Mahomes and went hurdling again, this time for a touchdown. Shameless plug for the site, but go buy the t-shirt.

Breeland Speaks recorded his first career solo sack and Dee Ford forced a fumble. Kendall Fuller intercepted Case Keenum on a flea flicker. Those turnovers really assisted the offense when they were struggling. Overall, the Chiefs swept the Broncos again and remained in first place in the AFC and the AFC West.

This game did not come without a price. Tyreek Hill tweaked his groin after a long catch early in the game. He didn’t leave until the fourth quarter, so that will be something to watch this week. Anthony Hitchens took a helmet to the ribs and appeared to be in severe pain on the field. After the game, however, Andy Reid said it looked like it was progressing well and was not as bad as originally thought.

Lastly, Frank Zombo left with a hamstring. Reid said this was most concerning. No news yet, as we head into Week 9 on the status of Eric Berry, Justin Houston or Dan Sorenson, but given that no major moves were made by the Chiefs at the trade deadline, I am cautiously optimistic that we will see all three within the next month.

Next week, the Chiefs travel to Cleveland to take on Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns. To say that there has been discord in Cleveland would be an understatement. The Browns just fired head coach Hue Jackson and offensive coordinator (and former Chiefs’ head coach) Todd Haley. This puts Gregg Williams as interim head coach. We all remember what he did down in New Orleans. Let’s hope the Chiefs’ banged-up offensive line can offer good protection to Mahomes to avoid any big bounty payoffs to the Browns’ defense.

This is also a rematch of Mahomes-Mayfield. In 2016, Oklahoma and Texas Tech combined for 1,708 yards of total offense. Mahomes had seven total touchdowns and 819 yards of offense while Mayfield put up a measly seven passing touchdowns and 545 yards. Mayfield won that matchup 66-59. I expect this to be a high scoring game with a highly motivated Browns team and a high scoring, nearly impossible to stop Chiefs offense. Game time is 12:00 p.m.

Thanks again for reading, and as always, check back next week as we reflect on Week 9 and look ahead to Week 10.