Chiefs squeak by Panthers
The Kansas City Chiefs (10-1) defeat the Carolina Panthers (3-8) in Charlotte, 30-27 after a big day from Noah Gray.
The Kansas City Chiefs (10-1) opened the games as 11.5-point favorites, but it took a kick from undrafted rookie Spencer Shrader to seal a 3-point, 30-27 victory in a come-from-behind attempt by the Carolina Panthers (3-8) in front of a visiting crowd that had a ton of red in it. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the offense hummed better than they have all season, but all of the issues of the defense came to a head against Carolina in a game where they had to grit their way to capture their 10th win of the season in week 12.
The Panthers came in confident, winners of two straight, had an extra week to prepare, and it showed. The Chiefs got off to an explosive start, leading 20-6 at one point and 27-16 with over 12 minutes to go in the fourth quarter. But for the third week in a row, the Kansas City defense allowed the opposition to either attempt the game-winning field goal, score the winning touchdown or score a touchdown to tie the game with around two minutes or less to go. Former first-overall pick quarterback Bryce Young hung in there, delivering his best game of the season after getting benched earlier in the year to give Kansas City the scare.
“I thought (Young) played his tail off,” Mahomes said. “He throws a really good football. You know, it's funny. I think Texas Tech was the first one to offer when he was in eighth grade, and I was at Texas Tech, so I remember watching his highlight tapes then and knew he was going to be a great player. Obviously, went to Bama and was the first draft pick but I think it's been cool to see him bounce back these last few weeks and play some great football cuz I know he has it. I've seen it for a long time, and he gave us a scare today, man cuz he played his tail off.”
Kansas City’s offense came out like gangbusters, but two straight fourth-quarter punts gave the Panthers the ball with just more than three minutes to go, down eight. Five plays and 49 yards later, Carolina punched it in and converted the two-pointer to tie up the back-to-back champs after a couple of costly pass interference penalties and leaving a couple of Panthers receivers wide open.
With one minute and 46 seconds to go, Mahomes and the offense got the ball back with an opportunity to avoid overtime with a team they were heavily favored against. A tie of a career-high 33-yard scramble by Mahomes put the Chiefs in field goal position. Another 10-yard pass to running back Kareem Hunt placed them at Carolina 13 to give Shrader a chip shot with two seconds left to earn the win in regulation and the rookie out of Notre Dame smoked it right down the middle.
“I thought we did a great job moving the football,” Mahomes said. “Like you said, you got to execute high at a higher efficiency in the Red Zone, but I mean, that defense is a good defense. They've played hard the entire year they have a great defensive coordinator, a lot of great players that I've went up against in other places. I thought we did a good job of executing the offense, moving the ball but like I said, just in that second half, especially in that fourth quarter, we got to be better. Just putting the game away and not giving them chances but we were able to do it there at the end.”
The ball game started off with all of the momentum in favor of Kansas City. Running back Samaje Perine returned the opening kickoff 56 yards to put the offense in scoring position from the get-go. Three plays later, Mahomes found tight end Noah Gray wide-open for his first touchdown of the day. Mahomes spread the ball around, completing balls to nine different Chiefs receivers. The two tight ends led the way, with Gray hauling in four catches, 66 yards and two touchdowns, while Kelce finished with six catches for 62 yards. This was the second straight week the fourth-year tight end out of Duke found the endzone two times. He thanked Mahomes preparation for the second TD.
“Pat gave me the answer to the test there,” Gray said. “He told me what coverage it was pre- snap and that's just the blessing you have of playing with a quarterback like that. The offensive line did a great job blocking that up and the receivers did a great job running the routes to pop me open, so it's really just a group effort right there on that touchdown.”
Rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy was involved to the tune of four catches and 46 yards. Veteran DeAndre Hopkins was clutch in key moments, moving the chains at times while tallying five catches, 35 yards and a touchdown. Mahomes ended up completing 27 passes on his way to a 72-completion percentage, 269 yards, three touchdowns and zero interceptions. Other than the pressure that was applied on him, he made it look easy on his way to a season-high 120.2 quarterback rating.
“Offensively the guys they started fast, and they had made a point of that,” head coach Andy Reid said. “(Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy) had made that a huge emphasis this week and the guys followed with it and did some nice things there, but we got to keep building on it.”
The run game was extremely efficient, too. Hunt racked up 68 yards on just 16 carries while also securing three catches for 19 yards. Wide receivers Mecole Hardman and Worthy, and running backs Carson Steele and Perine all tallied carries, but it was the juice from Mahomes that gave them such a great day on the ground. Mahomes finished with 60 yards on the ground on just five carries. As a team, Kansas City rushed for their second-most in a game this season, finishing with 165 yards on the ground.
The lone issue with the Chiefs' offense was their inability to protect Mahomes after he was sacked for a season-high five times, against a front that is not as talented as they have seen in the past. Kansas City only punted twice today, but a sack of Mahomes stalled both drives. As a team, they committed 10 penalties for 91 yards, many of which were also committed by the offensive line. The Chiefs recently signed 2021 Pro Bowl left tackle D.J. Humphries, so it will be interesting to see how much of a leash current left tackle Wanya Morris will be given.
Despite the play of the O-Line, there was so much to like about the Chiefs offense today. It felt like they understood how to deploy their plethora of weapons for the first time. Carolina has one of the worst defenses in football, so the upcoming matchups against the Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Chargers will be more telling, but it was a good sign. They were eight of 13 on third downs and outgained Carolina by nearly 60 yards.
The defense, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired. They allowed Young to be comfortable all afternoon on his way to a season-high, 263 yards. Cornerbacks Nazeeh Johnson and Chamarri Conner were picked on and a few others were called for defensive pass interference in some key moments. The defensive backfield allowed four different receivers to tally 49 or more receiving yards, including six catches, 81 yards and a touchdown from journeyman David Moore. Moore came into the matchup with 13 catches and 121 yards on the season.
Defensive end Mike Danna came up with a sack, while linebacker Nick Bolton and cornerback Trent McDuffie split another, but that was pretty much it as far as the pressure went. The unit was the epitome of bend-but-don’t-break for much of the day. They allowed Carolina to march down to the red zone six times. Luckily, they forced four field goals on those trips before allowing two touchdowns in the second half of the game. Reid does not seem terribly worried about the lack of pressure yet, even though they are currently tied for 26th in the league in sacks.
“Those are things we can keep working on and we'll get better with that as we go here,” Reid said. “We've always been good at that, and we've just got to keep grinding it out here.”
They allowed Carolina to dictate the second half by running a 15-play, nearly nine-minute drive to begin the second half to make it a 20-16 ballgame. With the hopeful return of defensive end Charles Omenihu coming soon, the Chiefs have plenty to clean up over the next six weeks. They did contain a pretty good rushing attack to just 85 yards rushing, only allowing 65 from running backs, however.
Kansas City came out of the game healthy, which is good because they are now set to face their division rival, the Raiders on just five days rest. While not confirmed, the impending returns of running back Isiah Pacheco and Omenihu are expected for the Black Friday matchup. Kickoff is at Arrowhead at 2 p.m. CDT.
