Overcoming Chargers can only mean good things for young Chiefs roster

In the aftermath of the emotional roller coaster known as the Kansas City Chiefs’ win over the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 2, I find myself chewing on several thoughts. As I try to string them together, however, I realize there’s a throughline connecting most of them: how much it’s helpful for such a young team.

Before the season, it felt like I was saying the same quote time and again—whether on a podcast with Sterling Holmes or in our Slack channel with writers, or posting on Twitter. Anywhere someone would listen, I would spin some variation of the following: these Chiefs are going to be a different team in January than they are in September.

At the time, I believed the 2022 regular season schedule would reflect a gradual climb—albeit not a linear one. Just like the old yodeling climber on The Price is Right—does anyone remember that old game?)—I thought the Chiefs would slowly and steadily showcase the sort of improvement hoped for by the fan base, but that it would come at the expense of hard-to-watch losses with such a tough schedule.

The Chiefs didn’t play like a winner and yet they came away with the “w” anyway. That’s a tough pill for everyone else to swallow and a good sign for KC.

These Chiefs are still bound to take their lumps at times, and the schedule still holds plenty of tough competitors ahead, but even with a 2-0 record, we’re seeing a young team learn some important lessons on the fly, and Thursday night’s win over the Chargers is an ideal example.

For a young prospect like Jaylen Watson, who will forever hear “seventh-round” attached to any description of him, he learned that a short memory can help him overcome being regularly picked on by a masterful quarterback. After all, it only takes one opportunistic play to turn the tide of a game.

For a second-round safety like Bryan Cook, Week 2 was a tough one—one he will likely want to put behind him rather quickly—with two unnecessary roughness penalties when given only a handful of snaps in the first place. Yet Chiefs coaches will undoubtedly work with him in needed areas and he was able to make those errors without costing the team an important game in the divisional standings.

The same can be said of entire units. The front seven allowed too many heroics from Justin Herbert and yet they also put it together at the right time and learned they can overcome even an elite quarterback. The linebacking corps can feel good about the way they handled Austin Ekeler, for the most part. The young secondary can hopefully find ways on film to see how Mike Williams dominated without costing them a win.

The same can be said of special teams units. Tommy Townsend gave punting units a lot to work with, and that sort of in-game practice featured some real lessons learned when trying to claw for field position in such a close game.

To be clear, the Chiefs looked off from the beginning and there’s a lot of work to do to right the ship in some problem areas. The offense was out of sync. The wide receiving room did little to help Mahomes. The play calling was oddly conservative and failed to allow the team’s strengths to, well, be strong. The pass rush was non-existent for most of the game, and the secondary got torched for multiple big gains.

Each of these areas, however, presents the positional coaches and players with specific issues—areas upon which they can improve even as the team continues to win. That these Chiefs have so much room to grow and yet can still put away a team like the Chargers is the sunny side up of such an emotional game. The Chiefs didn’t play like a winner and yet they came away with the “w” anyway. That’s a tough pill for everyone else to swallow and a good sign for Kansas City going forward.