It's a beautiful autumn day in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and the 2-1 Kansas City Chiefs are ready to maintain their new-gained momentum. After handling the Chicago Bears with no stress last week, KC faces another dysfunctional franchise with bummed out fans tonight when they square up with the 1-2 New York Jets. Zach Wilson's struggles and Patrick Mahomes' success are well-documented topics at this point, but the continued legitimacy of KC's defense is a whole new story.
This season's Chiefs defense is the best Mahomes has ever been paired with, and so far, it's not even close. Only the Browns, Bills and Cowboys have allowed fewer points per game than KC's average of 13.3. Pro Football Focus just proclaimed that Trent McDuffie is the most effective cornerback in the league right now. Chris Jones looks like he should skip training camp every season. Missing Nick Bolton, who's emerging as a truly elite linebacker, would typically be a big deal, but not this week. Nobody in Chiefs Kingdom fears that Zach Wilson will carve KC up by exploiting this weakness. There are probably more people wondering if he'll benched.
Bears QB Justin Fields now has the league's worst QBR after the Chiefs defense held him to under 100 passing yards and a 50% completion percentage last week. Zach Wilson is the owner of the second-worst QBR among all qualified quarterbacks. While the Chiefs now rank fifth league-wide in total yards and points per game, their opponent tonight ranks dead-last in both of those categories. Jets fans looking to spin this into something positive could argue that their team has only faced great defenses, those being the Bills, Cowboys and Patriots. Unfortunately for Jets fans, that trend continues tonight at MetLife Stadium.
So, what could possibly make this game close? I often find myself talking about penalties and turnovers when the Chiefs face a struggling opponent because they should be the only things that could threatens KC's chances at success against subpar competition. The Chiefs drew three penalties for 25 yards last week, which was much cleaner than Week 2's 12 penalties for 94 yards in Jacksonville. While only four teams in football have turned the ball over more times than KC's six total giveaways, it's worth noting that two of those turnovers came from Blaine Gabbert garbage-time interceptions. KC and New York both have four takeaways total this year, and New York's overall differential is one better than KC's -2. Avoiding numerous costly mistakes and sticking to the same offensive game-plan that's been dominating for half a decade now should be enough to ensure success for the Chiefs tonight.
The Jets defense should be motivated though, and KC could have understandable psychological struggles with treating this game with the same importance as the Super Bowl. That could be enough to make this game closer and uglier than fans in Chiefs Kingdom would like. I'm predicting a 27-13 victory and a whole lot more Taylor Swift coverage whenever the broadcast crew gets bored. There, I said Taylor Swift. Does this please you, Search Engine Optimization robots? Taylor Swift? Taylor Swift.
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