The Kansas City Chiefs are setting themselves up for a third straight Super Bowl run. Their dramatic last-second win over the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday night brought their record to 12-1. The win also locked up a ninth straight AFC West title and with the Buffalo Bills losing this week, the Chiefs are comfortably in the driver's seat for home-field advantage in the AFC.
The question isn't if the Chiefs are Super Bowl contenders, it's what can keep them from pulling off an unprecedented third straight championship. On offense, one of those potential downfalls has been the pass protection and that continued to be the case on Sunday night despite the debut of D.J. Humphries at left tackle. The play of both Wanya Morris and Kingsley Suamataia had been bad enough that it was easy to scapegoat them as the sole issue of what was wrong with Kansas City's protection. However, as we saw in Humphries' debut, the problem is bigger than just the left tackle.
Just last week I looked at what Humphries might be able to offer as an upgrade at left tackle. So let's take a second and look at the play of Humphries in his first game in Kansas City—which was also his first game for anyone since his knee injury last December. Unfortunately, we have to start with the fact that Humphries didn't finish the game. He left with a hamstring injury late in the game. As I'm writing this we don't know the extent of the injury. We'll hope it's not serious enough to put the playoffs in danger, but it could mean he's out for the next week or two.
The Chiefs have struggled to protect Patrick Mahomes this season. While D.J. Humphries' debut showed potential, there is still a lot of work to do.
Humphries did play most of the game, however, and his debut on the field had mixed results. Injury aside, he did show some potential. While there were a few bad plays, overall he looked like an improvement over what the Chiefs had been getting from Morris and Suamataia. That having been said, he got beat quickly off the edge on a couple of plays, one resulting in a sack. Those kinds of quick losses that instantly blow up a play were the biggest problem for K.C.'s other left tackles throughout the season.
Those are the losses that Humphries has to improve on in order for Mahomes to trust him in the pocket. While there were also snaps where Humphries looked more capable than anyone the Chiefs have had at left tackle this season, the question now becomes how long it will take Humphries to get back to where he was on Sunday, let alone improve on that performance.
Humphries showed the potential to shore up K.C.'s left tackle play to at least a mediocre level by the time the playoffs roll around if he's healthy. That may not sound like much to some, but that would be a big enough improvement to make a real difference in the Chiefs' passing game. The more concerning issue coming out of this game may be that it was clear that the left tackle position wasn't the only problem the Chiefs had in pass protection.
Patrick Mahomes was sacked 3 times on the night, but even more concerning were the double-digit quarterback hits. Mahomes was on his back all night long and those pressures weren't just coming from over the left tackle. They were coming from all over. The Chiefs' entire offensive line didn't handle stunts well at all. The Chargers were able to get shots on Mahomes on plays where KC had more than enough guys in protection, but a defender running a stunt didn't get passed off to the next blocker.
I think there are also discussions to be had about the fact that teams aren't afraid to blitz because K.C.'s receivers don't get open fast enough for Mahomes to make them pay for having fewer players in coverage. There's also a discussion to be had about why Andy Reid isn't calling more run plays to help take some of the heat off the passing game. The bottom line is that even if Humphries hadn't gotten hurt, there would still be a lot of protection issues to fix. If he misses time that only makes the situation that much more difficult.
Let's just hope that Humphries is ready to go when the playoffs start and that the offense as a whole has a better plan to protect Mahomes than they did against the Chargers. The Chiefs have had more ugly wins than any 12-1 team in NFL history, but none of that will matter if they can iron things out for their playoff run. This win gave them a little breathing room and helped them take another big step toward securing a first-round bye. It just didn't take the big step in improving their pass protection like we all had hoped it would.