Five most exciting games on 2019 Kansas City Chiefs’ schedule

Chicago Bears (Away) – 12/22 @ 7:20 PM Central

The last time the Chiefs played the Bears in the regular season schedule, I was at the game, and it was one of the most disheartening losses in the regular season I can remember. That might sound crazy, but think of this. In that game, the Chiefs’ all time leading rusher Jamaal Charles went down with a non-contact injury that would cost him the rest of the season and more,  as he would never return to form. Even more, the Chiefs basically lost the game on a fumble turned touchdown pass by the uninspiring Jay Cutler. He wasn’t a quarterback who was supposed to make those kind of plays.

Finally, the Chiefs’ were on a three game skid. Expectations for that season were high and the team started with one win in the first four games of their schedule. They were supposed to beat the Bears. They couldn’t get that done and most fans began to lose hope. Luckily, that Chiefs’ team had not lost hope and, after one more loss, reeled off a run to remember.

Once again, I don’t anticipate a similar contest between these two teams in 2019. Like the Chiefs, the Bears are an ascending franchise with high expectations. The most intriguing matchup in this game is not Mahomes and Mitchell Trubisky but rather head coach Andy Reid versus his protege Matt Nagy. This will be the first time that both have faced each other in the regular season.

This matchup of head coaches will pit one of the league’s best offenses against one of the league’s best defenses. While the Bears have experienced some attrition in this area, they still have a ton of talent on defense and this will be a stiff challenge for Reid and Mahomes. Given this game is so late in the season and the likelihood that each team will be competing for the top-seed and home field advantage in their respective conferences, this will be an extremely important game to win.

The Bears currently lead the all-time series with the Chiefs with 7 wins and 5 losses. Given CG Technology has the Bears as a 1-point favorite, in reality this game is a toss up at Soldier Field.

Conclusion

This will be quite a season for the franchise. Not only are the expectations the highest they’ve been in recent memory, with good reason, but the team also has a tantalizing schedule with a number of exciting matchups from start to finish.

We didn’t even mention the rematch between Mahomes and the Baltimore defense. After Mahomes heroically dragged the team back from the jaws of defeat in what ended up being an extremely important game, one if we had lost would likely have landed us the two-seed, how will Baltimore respond? Will John Harbaugh and company, one of the few groups who was able to slow down the Chiefs’ offense in 2018, have something new up their sleeve to defend Mahomes? Or will Mahomes ascend even further up the Mount Olympus of current NFL quarterbacks and leave no doubt that he is the best in the league?

This list also didn’t include what has become somewhat of a darling story for the media, that of the competition between the quarterbacks in the 2017 draft class. Namely, the competition between Mahomes and the quarterback picked just two spots after him. How will year 3 of the Deshaun Watson story with the Houston Texans compare to year three of Mahomes’ tale? What’s probably more important, who will out duel who in 2019’s crucial matchup at Arrowhead?

Simply put, the Chiefs and their fans have an exciting 2019 schedule ahead of them. It seems as though September will never come, but in truth, it will be here in the blink of an eye.