The Kansas City Chiefs' winning ways often leaves Chiefs Kingdom drunk on the power of success, but losing to the Colts earlier this year served as a sobering reminder of the old "any given Sunday" adage. It's hard for a Chiefs fan not to wince when they remember that their guys lost to a football team that fired their head coach mid-season and replaced him with a high school coach. Another reminder of KC's fallibility came last week when they barely survived at Arrowhead against the Tennessee Titans, who were led by a rookie QB that is noticeably not ready for a starting role.
Another young quarterback brings his team to Kansas City today, and many say he has all the makings of a future MVP. For now, Jacksonville Jaguars centerpiece Trevor Lawrence is only middle-of-the-pack. Lawrence ranks 17th and 19th in Adjusted QBR and Passer Rating, respectively this year. His six interceptions matches Mahomes, but while Mahomes has thrown a league-leading 21 touchdown passes, Trevor has only 11.
The help of a legit run-game makes the Jags' offense formidable nonetheless. Only four guys in the league have more rushing yards than Travis Etienne Jr. right now. With him leading the way, Jacksonville ranks seventh league-wide in rushing yards per game. As we've mentioned here before though, KC's rushing defense isn't the punchline it used to be. The Chiefs allow the league's fifth-fewest rushing yards per game to their opponents. This has a lot to do with Patrick Mahomes leading the Chiefs offense to the highest points-per-game average in football, since Kansas City's opponents must often pass at a particularly high rate in hopes of catching up.
The Jags look like a remarkably average team on paper, and the Chiefs need wins against every average team left on their schedule in order to stay in the hunt for the AFC's #1 seed. I don't think Trap-Game Trevor overcomes the odds today, but I like the nickname because I'm pathetically in love with my own alliteration. I'm predicting a 31-17 win for KC.
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