We look inside the numbers of the Chiefs’ Week 8 victory over the Jets.
The Kansas City Chiefs made winning look easy this week when they defeated the New York Jets by a final score of 35 to 9. By not giving up a single touchdown and finding time to put in the second strings, the Chiefs handled their business in impressive fashion for the third week in a row.
When examining the stat sheet, it becomes clear that, despite being the current second seed in the AFC and one of the top teams in the league overall, the Chiefs are still a team that is growing and learning every week. Let’s take a deep dive into the numbers from Sunday’s win and see what we can learn about the Chiefs for the second half of the season.
416 yards, 5 TDs
Starting with the obvious stat lines, Patrick Mahomes went off on the Jets for 416 yards passing and 5 touchdowns through the air. This came alongside zero interceptions and zero sacks, which equated to a 144.4 passer rating.
This is of course Mahomes’ best performance of the season, but also is only the third time in his career that he has reached (or surpassed) 5 touchdowns in a single game, and the first time since the 2018 season. It is also the only time he has done so without taking a sack and the second time he has done so without throwing an interception.
This is also only the third time that Mahomes has thrown for more than 400 yards in his career, and it was the first time doing so since Week 2 of the 2019 season against the (at the time) Oakland Raiders.
Mahomes hit four different receivers for touchdowns throughout Sunday’s win over the Jets (Mecole Hardman, Tyreek Hill twice, Travis Kelce, Demarcus Robinson), and despite his recent tendency to run more, he stayed in the backfield and did not scramble a single time. His accuracy was just below 75% (31/42, or 73.8%) but he hit the necessary passes, going 7/9 on third downs for 112 yards and 1 touchdown..
7-13
After going an abysmal 0-8 on third down attempts last week, the Chiefs bounced back with a 7-for-13 third down conversion rate this Sunday.
This, of course, largely has to do with how well Mahomes was playing, especially on third down. As a matter of fact, until Mahomes was pulled from the game in the fourth, the Chiefs’ five down conversions had all come as results of Mahomes passes. After he was pulled, Chad Henne had a pass for a first down to Mecole Hardman and Darwin Thompson got in on the action for a two-yard first down.
As a matter of fact, of the Chiefs 25 first downs, 21 came as a result of a pass, and only three came as a result of a running play. To break that down further, only one rushing first down happened with Mahomes on the field. Of the 21 passing firsts, Mahomes was responsible for 19, putting one in the hands of Le’Veon Bell, one in the hands of Darrel Wiliams, three in the hands of Mecole Hardman (who also grabbed one from Henne), three in the hands of Tyreek Hill, four in the hands of Demarcus Robinson, and a stunning seven in the hands of Travis Kelce.
The team also went 1-3 on fourth downs in this game, with the only conversion coming as a result of a fake punt that saw Tommy Townsend hit Byron Pringle for the first down.
8 catches, 109 yards, 1 touchdown
Celebrating National Tight Ends day a week late, Travis Kelce went off for 109 yards and a touchdown on eight catches. Averaging a whopping 13.6 yards per reception, all of Kelce’s catches were first downs except for one.
Kelce was already having a great year, coming into the game with 501 yards and 5 touchdowns already (which would have put him on pace for 1,145 yards and 11 touchdowns), but after a dominant performance like he had Sunday, he is now on pace for 1220 yards and 12 touchdowns.
Kelce is reminding teams that he is a real mismatch this season. In a year where George Kittle and Rob Gronkowski have struggled, been injured, or looked inconsistent, it may finally be the effort that cements him as the uncontested best tight end in the league.
3.9 yards
The Chiefs held the Jets to only 3.9 yards per play.
As much as the Jets seemed to have given the Chiefs trouble early in the game, Sam Darnold only had 133 (net 128) yards passing, and their leading running back, Frank Gore, only had 30 yards rushing. The Jets’ leading receiver, Denzel Mims, only had 42 yards receiving, while the next highest, Braxton Berrios, only had 34 (only 8 catches and 11 targets, meaning he aveaged 4.3 yards per catch or 3.1 per target).
As impressive as that maybe, the most impressive stat however is the zero touchdowns that all of these players had.
This is the first time this season that the Chiefs have kept their opponents completely out of the end zone. However the Chiefs took it a step further by also never allowing the Jets to even enter the red zone. Sure, it was the Jets and take that as you will, but they made the Chiefs defense look elite.
7 for 61
We have been talking about Chiefs’ penalty issues almost all season, so it should come as no surprise that this stat is being highlighted. The Chiefs committed 7 penalties for 61 yards.
After only committing one penalty last week for 15 yards, the Chiefs went right back to the high penalty totals that had been bringing them down in prior weeks. The Chiefs would have had much higher third down conversion rate if almost every third down had not been extended and made more difficult by penalty yards. The Chiefs possibly would have also scored another few points if it had not been for a false start penalty as well.
This is unacceptable discipline for a Super Bowl championship team that is currently second in the AFC and needs to be cleaned up before the playoffs come around and those penalties potentially have much larger consequences.