The Kansas City Chiefs didn’t play their best football game against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, but the game counts in the win column. Even with rosters as lopsided as they were heading into the game, winning matters, and style points are irrelevant.
To their credit, the Miami Dolphins balled out on Sunday. However, after an opening touchdown drive that lasted nearly ten minutes, the Kansas City Chiefs defense gave up just three points the remainder of the game.
Offensively, Patrick Mahomes was nearly perfect in the game, completing 20 of 24 passes for 246 yards and a pair of touchdowns – one to Kenneth Walker in the second quarter and Travis Kelce in the fourth quarter.
Walker didn’t break the one-hundred-yard barrier, thanks in large part to the Dolphins’ front seven and poor blocking by the Chiefs. This was not the best performance by the offensive line, and they all had their struggles – including rookie left tackle Khalil Benson. After two brilliant starts, he showed us he’s human.
At some point, Josh Simmons will return to the starting lineup, and then we’re going to see the true power of the offensive line after the BYE Week when the Chiefs schedule turns into high-octane jet fuel.
That’s why the win over the Dolphins was big for Kansas City. They move to 3-0 and are tied with the Las Vegas Raiders, whom they play Sunday in Sin City, atop the AFC West standings.
How the Raiders are 3-0 doesn’t matter, nor should we question it’s a fluke. They are riding high and are going to put forth one heck of an effort against Kansas City. The Chiefs will need to play much better than they did against Miami, but they’ve also never lost a game at Allegiant Stadium – that usually has a large contingent of Chiefs fans in the building.
Head Coach Andy Reid admitted his team won ugly, and if they look at the film, he’ll see some teaching moments. I can assure you, if they remotely took the Dolphins lightly, that won’t be the case against the Raiders on Sunday.
I think this team once again is learning how to win close games. As I mentioned in my column last week, you have to find ways to outduel your opponent, and sometimes it’s easy to win, while other times you need to lean on your experience.
The Chiefs are a young team, and winning ugly after a blowout and an overtime game becomes a teaching moment: when these types of games happen, they can rely on experience.
The veterans on this team made the plays when they needed to, reaching back and finding another gear after it wasn’t there for parts of the game. Yet, there was never a doubt the Dolphins would win this game. Kansas City scored late, and the defense shut down Miami for most of the second half.
I can understand the fan apprehension, but the Chiefs aren’t going to play great every time they hit the field. Can they be more consistent? Absolutely they can; that’s why you generally have a week between games to iron out the mistakes and learn from them.
The Chiefs, Bills, and Raiders are the only undefeated teams left in the AFC. If you dug deep enough, all three of these teams could have lost two of those games, but they didn’t. The line between winning and losing is razor-thin, and the AFC unbeaten teams made the plays when the game was in doubt.
So, let’s not get caught up in how the Chiefs win; as long as we can see a steady improvement from the high of pounding the Broncos into submission on opening night, wins over the Colts and Dolphins have the same meaning – a win should never be disrespected.
