Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs are off to one of the hottest and most explosive starts that any quarterback and team could have. Before his game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, where he seemed human, Mahomes had 1,200 yards and 14 touchdowns with zero interceptions. He was on pace to pass for over 5,000 yards and over 50 touchdown passes. While most teams had them written in for a Super Bowl, Mahomes faced a top defense in the league, dropping his completion percentage almost 5 percent, recording zero touchdowns and two interceptions. However, he did pass for over 300 yards and led his team to a 30-14 victory because his defense showed up to play.
After seeing this display of normalcy, I do not believe that the Chiefs will not win the Super Bowl. While some will consider that statement blasphemous, it has nothing to do with Mahomes and the Chief being the best offense in the league. To simply put it, they are not the most complete team in the NFL; it has been seen repeatedly in history that defense is just as important, if not more important when it comes to winning the big games.
Two examples of defense overcoming offense can be seen in both Super Bowl XLVIII and 50. Super Bowl XLVIII was a blow out win where the No.1 ranked, Legion of Boom defense of the Seattle Seahawks, took on Peyton Manning and the No. 1 ranked offense being the Denver Broncos. The defense dominated Manning all night where they recorded two interceptions, two fumbles, as well as only allowing 280 yards passing and 27 yards rushing. Another example is the way the Broncos dominated the Carolina Panthers. Von Miller and company held Cam Newton to 256 passing yards and 45 rushing yards, while recording four sacks, one interception and a defensive touchdown.
With that in mind, it needs to be understood that the Chiefs’ defense is the worst in the NFL. Coming in at No. 32 they surrender a staggering 461 yards a game, 61 yards more than the next team. They are last in allowing yards after the catch with 297 yards per game, meaning that they have issues tackling after allowing receivers to catch the football. They are the only team to surrender more than 300 passing yards a game at 343, all while surrendering 25.8 points per game putting them in 20th place for that category; this puts a lot of pressure on Mahomes to play at his absolute best almost every game. Besides the game against the Jaguars, where I believe the defense was a fluke, Mahomes has never beat a team by more than 10 points all while averaging 35 points per game. To score 35 points a game, even for Mahomes, is a hard task in the National Football League, which means if he has “human-like” games the defense needs to show up as they did in Jacksonville. However, evidence shows that the defense probably will not be there to back him up based on the stats. One example was the close game in Denver, where the Broncos should have won the game if it not been for Case Keenum missing a wide-open Demaryius Thomas running down the sideline for a game-winning touchdown. The Chiefs’ defense got lucky, and with a QB like Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady that throw will be completed every time.
With all this being said, the Chiefs are still one of the best teams in the NFL with the best offense and they will win a lot of games. However, when it comes to the playoffs and when they start playing better teams, if the defense doesn’t help Mahomes, the Chiefs could be in trouble. A preview of this might be against Brady and the New England Patriots on Sunday, Oct. 14 at 8:30 p.m. That should be a great shootout game that will test the Chiefs’ defense. As of right now after five weeks of football, I don’t think the Super Bowl will feature the Chiefs, but instead will be a great game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Patriots.
