Chiefs vs. Bengals: Four positive takeaways from a frustrating game

Chiefs continue to beat themselves

Look, we should say up front that the Cincinnati Bengals are a very good team. They are well-coached and have as much talent on offense as any team in the NFL. They are the defending AFC champions and deserve plenty of respect on that end. I mean, how many teams can say they’ve taken care of the Chiefs like they have in the last couple of years? Only one.
That said, even the Bengals themselves know that every game so far has been very close and each one has featured the Chiefs beating themselves. In last year’s games, it required a complete offensive meltdown to beat the Chiefs after going down easily in the first half. The Bengals showed up stronger early in this game, but the Chiefs rose up to meet them—until they didn’t.

From questionable officiating to a gift of a fumble from Travis Kelce, the Chiefs had little margin at all to play with against the Bengals and Cincy did what good teams do: they took advantage. On defense, the pass rush could never finish, linebackers took poor angles, and everyone was missing tackles.

In other words, even after three straight losses to the Bengals, I’d still bet on the Chiefs to win the next time (and the time after that). It’s just not nearly as one-sided as three consecutive losses might indicate to someone reading the results.