Patrick Mahomes is going to need to ice his arm for a whole week after last night’s game. The Kansas City Chiefs staved off a late scare from the Tennessee Titans as Patrick Mahomes threw 68 passes attempts in the Chiefs 20-17 overtime win.
You can’t get a more polar opposite performances between the two offenses than what we saw with the Chiefs and the Titans. The Chiefs relied solely on the arm of Patrick Mahomes, while the Tennessee Titans put themselves on Derrick Henry’s back and had him carry them all night long.
In fact, the Tennessee Titans offense had a grand total of 5 completed passes and their leading receiver (Chigoziem Okonkwo) had an even more impressive total of 2 catches for 48 yards. Reversely, the leading rusher from Kansas City was…Patrick Mahomes as he had 6 rushes for 60 yards. As for their running backs, it was Isiah Pancheco who had the highest rushing totals with 5 CAR for 5 yards.
Yup, the leading Kansas City running back had exactly 1 yard/carry.
Anyway, the reason why the Kansas City offense was so one dimensional was down to the fact that the Titans defense came into that game with a fantastic gameplan: force Patrick Mahomes to beat them with his arm only.
Lead by a fantastic defensive frontline of Jeffrey Simmons, Teair Tart, DeMarcus Walker, and Denico Autry, the Titans stifled the Chiefs rushing attack in its tracks as they held KC to only 77 yards, with 60 of those coming from impromptu scrambles by Mahomes.
Now, I must admit that the Chiefs made it pretty easy for the Titans to stop them as they barley ran the ball, even when they took a 9-0 lead, but it was still impressive how dominate the Titans D-line was.
Not a single KC rusher had more than 1.3 rushing yards/carry. How often do you see that?
As for the Titans, the reason why their offense was painfully lopsided (well, more than usual) was because Ryan Tannehill, their starting quarterback, was ruled out just prior to the game. So, in stepped the Titans 2022 3rd-round draft pick, Malik Willis, to lead the Titans to a victory in a raucous Arrowhead Field.
Was it an impossible task? Yes. Was it still impressive that he nearly managed it? Absolutely.
Well, saying that Malik Willis almost won this game is kind of misleading as he went 5/16, 80 yards, 0 TDs passing and only ran 8 times for 40 yards. Actually, it’s very misleading as the Titans strapped their hopes of winning on King Henry’s back, which was nearly a winning idea.
Derrick Henry proved that he’s back to his MVP caliber form as he rushed 17 times for 115 yard and 2 TDs and bullied KC defenders on every carry, which just shows how important he really is to the Titans entire gameplan.
Without Henry, this team would probably go .500 and struggle to get into the playoffs. With him, they are one of the most dangerous teams in the AFC as they showed last night as they held an improbably 17-9 lead with 10 minutes to go in the 4th Quarter.
Despite Patrick Mahomes heroics all throughout the game as he ended up finishing 43/68, 446 yards, 1 TD, and 1 INT, the Chiefs couldn’t break through the Titans defense for the first 50 minutes.
Mike Vrabel and Shane Bowen, the Titans’ defensive coordinator, played a ‘bend but don’t break’ defense that successfully kept Mahomes out of the endzone (mostly) up until that point, forcing KC to either try risky 4th Down conversions for Harrison Butker field goals.
Yet, as Mahomes has done plenty of times in his young career, he led the Chiefs 93 yards in a 7-minute drive that forced him to pull out all of his tricks. First, he converted a huge 3rd and 17 at midfield by rushing for the 1st down, and then he rushed into the endzone on a 3rd and 9 to get the Chiefs within a two-point conversion from tying.
Then, after two attempts ending in a defensive penalty, Mahomes rushed again for the conversion to tie the game and send it to overtime. Mahomes really is the best quarterback in the league as even when a team expertly takes away all of his passing options, the guy manages to overcome that by rushing for however many yards he needs in order to keep drives alive.
I’ve never seen a quarterback do that so often, while also being an elite passer of the football too. He’s special.
Nevertheless, the Chiefs continued their scoring momentum by taking the ball down the field and setting up Harrison Butker for what ended up being the game-winning field goal as the KC defense stuffed Malik Willis and the Titans offense on their ensuing drive.
Whew, what a game. It really wasn’t that much of a watch as each offense was way too one dimensional, but at least Patrick Mahomes greatness made up for it.
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