5 takeaways from Chiefs’ Week 6 win over Washington

Here is what our @TheJohnDillon is taking away from the #Chiefs’ comeback win over #Washington in Week 6:

A resounding win on the road over a middling Washington Football Team has the Kansas City Chiefs back to .500 on their season, and potentially back on track to make a run for playoff positioning. Patrick Mahomes had an up-and-down game, passing for almost 400 yards with two touchdowns, but he threw two interceptions in the first half. This game was an uncharacteristically solid outing for the Chiefs’ defense where they capitalized on opportunities to force turnovers that had eluded them in previous weeks.

Kansas City is by no means finished improving after a post-Super Bowl slump left them listless to start the season. There are plenty of facets in their game on both sides of the ball to iron out in the middle part of their schedule, but this Week 6 win feels particularly important for their chances moving forward. With 11 games left before the playoffs, here are our biggest takeaways from the Chiefs win over Washington.

Watch: Former Notre Dame captain’s first NFL interception comes off Patrick Mahomes

Game changing plays are nothing new for this former Notre Dame captain…

When the Notre Dame defense needed a big play in 2018 they often got it from safety Alohi Gilman.  Gilman was a captain in 2019 before being drafted in the spring of 2020 by the Los Angeles Chargers.

Sunday saw Gilman record his first career NFL interception and it came against one of the best in the game and helped the Chargers pull a significant week three upset.

Tied at 24 with under two minutes to play it seemed like Patrick Mahomes was about to lead the Chiefs on a game-winning drive, but it was instead Gilman who stepped up and got the ball back for the Chargers.

Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert would then lead a drive the was capped by a four-yard pass to former Clemson standout Mike Williams to put them up 30-24 late, which wound up being the final score.

Congrats to a fan favorite of both the Notre Dame and Navy families for his huge, game-changing play on Sunday.

Related:

Former Notre Dame players all over NFL rosters to start 2021 season

5 instant takeaways as Notre Dame puts it On Wisconsin

4 Chiefs players named to PFF’s top-50 players of 2021

All four #Chiefs players are within the top-20 and two are within the top-3 of PFF’s list.

Four Kansas City Chiefs players have been named to the Pro Football Focus list of the top-50 NFL players heading into the 2021 season. This is an analytics-based projection on what PFF believes to be the top players in the league during the upcoming year. They take a look at previous stats and grades and adjust based on circumstances related to this upcoming season.

All of the players from Kansas City who have been selected for the list are within the top-20, including two players among the three best players in football. They’re the only squad with that many players in the top-20. The Chiefs are tied with the Green Bay Packers for the most players in PFF’s top-50 with four. They’re also the only AFC team with four players in the top-50.

Here’s a look at the four Chiefs players named to the list, in descending order:

Chiefs GM Brett Veach provides injury update on Patrick Mahomes, Eric Fisher, Mitchell Schwartz

Some new injury information on Patrick Mahomes, Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz from Chiefs GM Brett Veach.

Kansas City Chiefs GM Brett Veach spoke to the media for the first time this offseason ahead of free agency and the 2021 NFL draft.

Veach has his work cut out for him this offseason, navigating another challenging year. The Chiefs have several players who are recovering from injuries this offseason. Rick Burkholder provided Veach with some notes on those and it seems to be optimistic that Patrick Mahomes, Mitchell Schwartz and even Eric Fisher will be available to start the 2021 NFL season.

However, there are varying levels of optimism for each of the players, with Mahomes expected to make the most expedient recovery.

“Just looking at my medical notes here, Pat (Mahomes) had his toe surgery on Feb. 10,” Veach said. “Talking to Rick (Burkholder) earlier last week, it’s a three-month recovery. So we’re hopeful, somewhere around that mandatory minicamp if we have [it]. Certainly, by training camp, he’ll be good to go and we’ll be smart with him.”

There was some recent chatter that Mahomes might not be ready by the start of the season, but Veach doesn’t seem to indicate that at all with this timeline. As he said, though, they’ll be smart with their franchise quarterback. If he needs extra time, they’ll be more than happy to give it to him.

Moving onto Schwartz, Veach provided some missing context on his injury. While Schwartz recently alerted fans that he was having surgery on his back,  it was never revealed what type of back injury he was dealing with or what type of surgery he was having.

“Mitch (Schwartz) just recently had his disk worked on,” Veach said. “We’re hopeful for him to return in training camp.”

The first two injury timelines Veach provided seem feasible, but the one provided for Fisher seems optimistic, if not miraculous. Fisher tore his Achilles against the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship Game. Typically an Achilles injury that late in the season would put the following season in doubt. The Chiefs, however, expect Fisher back to start the year.

“Looking at my notes right here, (he had) Achilles surgery on Jan. 29,” Veach said. “Based on Rick (Burkholder) and his medical staff, he projects a mid-August return. Now listen, how that works. Everything is different and everyone recovers differently, so I think with that injury and the time leading up to the season, Rick has here a mid-August return. You know how that works, that’s always to be determined until the player actually reports back to camp and goes through the offseason and you see where he is. But I think the mid-August timeline was put in the front of my notes here so I’ll defer to Rick (Burkholder) on that.”

Perhaps there is something more about this specific injury that we don’t know about, but this would be incredible news for Kansas City if Fisher were able to somehow be ready for the start of the season. All-in-all, the expectation seems to be that the three players are tracking to be on the field at training camp in some capacity.

“We’re hopeful that both of these guys will complete the rehab and be available for training camp and to start 2021 season,” Veach said of Schwartz and Fisher. “I’d probably say that Pat (Mahomes) is ahead of them, just because of that type of injury and probably a quicker recovery. But we’re hopeful to have all three ready to go by training camp.”

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Sean McDermott makes it clear: Time for ‘moral victories’ is over

McDermott promises the Bills will take their loss to the Chiefs hard.

Another week, another tough loss to a top-tier team on primetime for the Buffalo Bills.

Following last week’s loss to the Titans, the Bills dropped their second game of the season to the Kansas City Chiefs, 26-17. Granted, both were against good teams, one of which being the defending champs. But despite the talent across from his team over the course of their last two outings, Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott said after the game that a loss is a loss, period.

“The minute losing gets easy, it’s not a good deal,” McDermott said. “We take it hard. There are no moral victories. We have to be truthful with ourselves at what needs to be corrected.”

One of the more glaring issues this season has been the Bills defense. Something we are not use to under McDermott-led teams. Against the Chiefs, the run defense was gashed for 245-yards despite KC missing two of their starters along the offensive line. But was that by design?

“You have to pick your poison,” McDermott said.

He went on to explain how when you have an explosive offense and a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes, you have to decide if you’re going to focus on shutting down the pass, or the run, because doing both is not realistic.

In focusing on thwarting the pass, McDermott explained that the Bills, at least, were in the game at the end as compared to other teams who were getting blown out after getting thrown all over.

Mahomes was asked about this very philosophy after the game.

“If teams are going to play us like this, you’re going to see us running the football, and we have the guys to do it,” Mahomes said.

McDermott made clear that despite back-to-back losses, beating the best is still what this team strives to do.

“I think the competition out there is elite,” McDermott said. “This is high standard, high quality football. We’ve come up short in these last two games and we’ll go back to the drawing board.”

While the Bills get a break from playing a top-ranked opponent when they head to New Jersey to face the 0-6 Jets next Sunday, their schedule still has its fair share of tough matchups remaining with games vs. the likes of the Seahawks and Steelers, just to name a few.

At the end of the day though, the Bills are 4-2 and in first place in the AFC East. While there is plenty that needs to be corrected on both sides of the ball, the season is far from over… even if after the last two games, it feels like it is.

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Bills won’t let one game define them

Entering Tuesday night, the Bills were 4-0 and being touted as one of the best teams in the league. As is often the case in the NFL, things changed quickly.

Entering Tuesday, the Bills were 4-0 and being touted as one of the best teams in the league. As is often the case in the NFL, things changed quickly.

After suffering a brutal 42-16 loss at the hands of the Tennessee Titans, the Bills must refocus and regroup without allowing any sort of ripple effect to form. They don’t want this ugly loss to snowball and preventing that was exactly what was on quarterback Josh Allen’s mind immediately following the game.

“It is what it is,” Allen said. “We’re not going to let this game define us. You can’t win them all… we’re not going to make this a bigger thing than it needs to be.”

Allen, as has often been the case when the team faces adversity during his tenure as the team’s starting quarterback, took a bulk of the blame.

“We got punched in the mouth and didn’t respond like we should have… I didn’t play well enough for our team to win tonight,” Allen said.

Bills safety Micah Hyde had a similar view from his vantage point on defense as well.

“This isn’t going to define our season,” Hyde said. “When a loss like this happens, you have to look at yourself in the mirror. I have 100% confidence in the team…we’re not going to go undefeated now. Cool, on to next week.”

Towards the end of the game, the CBS cameras caught Allen walking down the sideline shaking the hands of all of his teammates, encouraging them in the toughest moment the team has had to face thus far this season, which showcased the young QB’s growth as this team’s leader.

Talks of Allen being an MVP candidate will now soften, at least for the time being, and the Bills will likely revert back to an underdog role, which they have embraced in the past, but the team has no time to feel sorry for itself.

“We’re 4-1 and we have the defending Super Bowl champs coming to our house next week,” Allen said. “We have to defend our dirt.”

The Bills indeed have another big challenge on deck with Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs coming to Orchard Park on Monday. The team must take the words of Allen and Hyde to heart and not let one bad loss define them immediately and put their minds… onto the next one.

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Las prohibiciones que incluye el nuevo contrato de Mahomes

El día de ayer Patrick Mahommes y los Kansas City Chiefs sacudieron al mundo deportivo tras anunciar la extensión de contrato con el quarterback que llevó al equipo a ganar el Super Bowl, a cambio de una jugosa paga de más de $500 millones. Pero, el …

El día de ayer Patrick Mahommes y los Kansas City Chiefs sacudieron al mundo deportivo tras anunciar la extensión de contrato con el quarterback que llevó al equipo a ganar el Super Bowl, a cambio de una jugosa paga de más de $500 millones.

Pero, el acuerdo no está libre de responsabilidades. El joven de 24 años ha compartido algunas de las cláusulas que inluye el nuevo contrato, y hay varias prohibiciones. Prácticamente no puede hacer ninguna actividad física que no sea futbol americano.

“Creo que aún no tengo permitido jugar basquetbol, estoy seguro que tampoco podré practicar beisbol. Sé que hay muchas actividades (en el contrato), desde subirme a un jet ski hasta lo que te puedas imaginar, leí todas, son demasiadas. Prácticamente toda actividad física que puedes hacer”, dijo Mahomes en conversación con la estación radiofónica 610 Sports Radio.

Después de firmar el acuerdo más caro en la historia del deporte, los Chiefs definitivamente tienen razones (más de 500 millones de ellas) para asgurar que su nuevo jugador estrella esté sano y no ponga en riesgo su salud física.

“Probablemente me quedaré practicando futbol americano y jugando videojuegos por un buen rato”, dijo Mahomes en tono de boroma.

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Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes’ contract prohibits non-football sports activities

Randy Reid won’t be selling Patrick Mahomes any Jet Ski’s anytime soon.

Randy Reid won’t be selling Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes any Jet Ski’s following his $503 million dollar contract extension. Mahomes certainly won’t be playing any pickup basketball games at any Overland Park recreation centers either.

After signing a contract extension that keeps him in Kansas City for the next dozen years, Mahomes won’t be allowed to do a number of different sports activities due to certain terms in his contracts.

“I still don’t think I’m allowed to play basketball,” Mahomes said to 610 Sports’ Carrington Harrington on Tuesday afternoon. “I’m sure baseball is not going to be allowed as well. I know there’s a lot of them. They have like everything from jet skiing to — I don’t know what all the things are. I read a lot of them. It’s pretty much every physical activity you could possibly do.”

This is pretty commonplace for any big contract extension in the NFL, protecting teams from any non-football injuries that could cost the player their career. I’m sure, that the contract is not as prohibitive as it might sound. It’d appear that golfing isn’t one of the physical activities that Mahomes is banned from because he’s set to play in the American Century Championship golf tournament later this week.

At the same time, Mahomes has a plan to keep himself out of trouble when it comes to potentially violating those terms of his contract.

“I’ll probably be sticking with football and video games for now,” Mahomes said.

That sounds like a good plan, Pat.

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Patrick Mahomes’ Top 10 Plays from the 2019 season

Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs had a magical season in 2019 that culminated in a Super Bowl victory over the 49ers.

Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs had a magical season in 2019 that culminated in a Super Bowl victory over the San Francisco 49ers.

Find the top 10 plays from the 2019 season for Mahomes below:

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