The Kansas City Chiefs pulled out a much tougher-than-expected road victory over the New York Jets on Sunday Night Football by a final score of 23-20. Andy Reid's 250th career victory was anything but easy after the Jets took momentum after a safety in the second quarter breathed new life into them after being down 17-0. Kansas City's defense was able to weather the unexpected storm of Zach Wilson putting together two and half quarters of the best football he has played as a professional, and the offense closed the game out after holding on to possession of the football for the last seven and half minutes of the game.
Despite the hand-wringing and fake outrage created by meme generators and national sports media reaction farmers, both teams benefitted from some questionable decisions by the referees. Chiefs Kingdom ought to be used to that by now, as every call in favor of the Chiefs is magnified, and every call against them is conveniently ignored. That is the kind of treatment to expect when you have been on top of the mountain as long as the Chiefs have been. Success breeds haters, and hoo boy, do the Chiefs have some haters.
But enough about loser talk. Let's get to this week's Chiefs stock watch.
Stock is Down: Jawaan Taylor
Jawaan Taylor's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year continued with his abysmal performance on Sunday night. According to Pro Football Focus, he had the lowest rating out of every Chief who played a snap with a grade of only 40.9, which is good for just above "very poor," and anyone who watched the tape would undoubtedly agree.
I understand that Taylor has been picked on since Cris Collinsworth lost his mind in the season-opener against Detroit because Taylor was lining up like nearly every other tackle in the league, but it seems now like he is squarely in his own head. Taylor was the one who was called for that questionable face masking call that led to the safety that fueled the Jets to compete. Taylor was also called for a hold in the fourth quarter on that final drive on a third and 12 that Mahomes picked up on the ground, which forced the third-and-22 that Mahomes picked up anyway.
If Mahomes had not pulled that rabbit out of his hat, then the Chiefs would have gone three-and-out after the Zach Wilson fumble at midfield, and this game may have turned out very differently. Lucky for us, that was not the case. However, Taylor will need to get his game straightened out because we will not be playing the Jets in the playoffs, and playoff teams punish mistakes like that.