Six forced turnovers propel Chiefs to victory, Mahomes leaves with injury scare

The Kansas City Chiefs (13-1) defeat the Cleveland Browns (3-11) in Cleveland, 21-7 after the defense causes six turnovers on 14 possessions.

Heading into the matchup against Jameis Winston against Jameis Winston and the Cleveland Browns (3-11), Chiefs Kingdom knew some opportunities were going to be had. The former Heisman Trophy winner has a reputation for being errant with the football and came in throwing six picks in his last three games. He also threw for six touchdowns and 709 yards in his previous two games, so you were not sure which Jameis experience you would get.

Well, the Kansas City Chiefs’ (13-1) defense made plenty of plays and bad Jameis was present. The defense came into the day, ranking as one of the worst in the league in turnover differential at minus-four and managed to flip that into a plus-two by the end of the day, making way for a 21-7 victory. Between the defense and the special teams Kansas City forced a whopping six turnovers and put Browns coach Kevin Stefanski in a position where he had to bench Winston. While the offense still managed to make the game a somewhat ugly win, all three phases of the game did their part to seal the defending champs' 13th win of the season, their first in a long time that was higher than a one-score game.

“Everybody kind of got a piece of the pie,” head coach Andy Reid said. “Offense scored a couple different times and defense did some great things, and then special teams had some great things so, we just got to keep going and keep getting better as we go here. That's the important thing and the most important thing is you win the game, right? I'm not apologizing to anybody for that.”

Chiefs’ all-pro cornerback Trent McDuffie has famously built a reputation as being one of the NFL’s best young cornerbacks while simultaneously not having registered an interception yet deep into his third season. McDuffie, however, forced the fifth turnover of the day, picking off Winston in the endzone, which ultimately led to his benching after throwing his third interception of the day. McDuffie ended the day with three pass defenses, four tackles and a tackle for a loss to go along with his first career interception.

“Coming into this week I think everybody knew we had a good shot at getting some turnovers and man, right place, right time,” McDuffie said … “Funny thing is, for whatever reason, I somehow glanced up at the jumbo-tron because it was a scramble drill and just saw him launch it. I was like that's to my side, so let me just turn around and catch the ball.”

The Chiefs began both halves with a turnover. They managed to jump out to a seven-point lead immediately after safety Christian Roland-Wallace punched the ball out on a punt return, which running back Samaje Perine recovered. Three plays later quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw a ball short right for JuJu Smith-Schuster for a touchdown. After the half, linebacker Nick Bolton ripped the ball out of running back Nick Chubb’s hands as he was coming down with it, which wound up moving their lead to 21-0 after wide receiver Xavier Worthy ran in a 21-yard touchdown off a Mahomes backward pass. Both of their touchdowns off the turnovers were on short fields.

Other than the McDuffie interceptions and the turnovers to begin each half, safety Bryan Cook jumped up for one and brought it down in the endzone on a deep pass as well. On the very next play following the Worthy touchdown, linebacker Leo Chenal punched the ball out of Chubb’s hands, making way for linebacker Drue Tranquill to recover. The sixth and final turnover came from rookie safety Jaden Hicks, who picked off Dorian Thompson-Robinson and returned it 47 yards before a couple of Carson Wentz kneel-downs to ice the game.

“That was a big emphasis, you know, we need turnovers,” McDuffie said. “We need to start getting this ball back to the offense … I think that's a big confidence boost for the defense and also, I think it just happened at the right time. It allows us to really just sit back and be like OK, we know we can do this’ now and let's just keep rolling.”

Overall, the defense was aided by the turnovers they forced but played really well even aside from that. The Browns were only four of 12 on third downs, never entered the red zone and tallied just 266 total yards. Kansas City could have easily had a seventh turnover after defensive end Charles Omenihu had a nice speed rush off the outside and strip-sacked Winston, but Winston recovered it. The unit posted a total of five sacks, including two from defensive end George Karlaftis, another from Tershawn Wharton and with Tranquill and Bolton splitting the other. It was an impressive performance for a struggling defensive line that went up against an offensive line that has three all-pros on it.

The defensive backs did allow wide receiver Jerry Jeudy to rack up 11 catches for 108 yards, but he never hurt them deep. The defensive backs posted a season-high nine pass breakups and did not allow a single other Browns receiver to go over 30 yards. Winston and Thompson-Robinson combined for 164 yards passing. The rush defense was good as well, other than the 62-yard touchdown run by Jerome Ford. Other than that run, Ford mustered just 22 carries, while Chubb went for 41.

It is a good thing the Chiefs’ defense came to play Sunday afternoon because the offense needed all the help they could get after they had one of their worst performances of the season. Matt Araiza punted the ball nine times; they had to kick a field goal inside the Browns’ 10, and they had a failed fourth down conversion. They only mustered 14 points off of those six turnovers, leaving only seven points scored on drives that did not come from turnovers.

“I just (have to do a) better job of going through my progressions and trusting the offense,” Mahomes said. “Getting the ball out of my hands and letting guys make plays. My nature is to try to make the big play happen and sometimes defenses stop that and then when it's not there, go for the underneath stuff and keep it moving. It’s something I have to get better on as the season kind of ends here as we go into the playoffs.”

The poor performances were encapsulated by Mahomes exiting the game after an apparent ankle injury, although he was not sacked at all today. The injury occurred when he was hit off a pressure in which he threw the ball away midway through the fourth quarter on a third down. There is no doubt, he was hit high and low, and it looked pretty brutal. It was on the heels of his least efficient day of the season after only completing 50 percent of his passes. He finished 19 of 38, with 159 yards, two touchdowns and zero interceptions. His second touchdown pass was to tight end Noah Gray. After already surpassing his career-high in sacks taken, Mahomes was not sacked today but was still hit 12 times. Reid had said after the game that his QB-one did at least avoid a worst-case scenario it seems.

“Well, it's not broken,” Reid said. “That's what I can tell (you) … I'm going to just see how it goes. It'll literally be day-to-day as we as we go forward. I don't know how much swelling he has or any of that or what will come from now till whenever.”

“He probably could have gone back in. He wanted to fight about it but we've got good support there behind him with Carson (Wentz) and it was good to get him a few reps in there too and let our guys hear that snap count in case he has to go.”

The Chiefs’ leading receiver was Worthy after he was targeted a team-high 11 times, finishing with six catches for 46 yards. Worthy also received three carries for 30 yards and a touchdown. Hopkins and Kelce were the Chiefs' next two leading receivers but only tallied a combined nine catches for 63 yards on 14 targets. What should not go understated is that all-pro left guard Joe Thuney was kicked out to left tackle this week, leaving Mike Caliendo to fill in at left guard and while future Hall of Fame Browns defensive end Myles Garrett did hit the quarterback three times, he did not tally a single sack.

“(Joe) Thuney asked to play left tackle,” Reid said. “(He) hadn't done that since college, got out there and really battled and did a nice job against one of the best defensive ends in the game right now. He battled his heart out. Then, (Mike) Caliendo, what a great experience that is for him to get out and get a full game in. That's going to help him down the road and us down the road so, I appreciate it.”

It was not as if the Chiefs abandoned the run game either after they rushed it nearly as many times as they dropped back. They did mysteriously pass the ball 12 out of 15 plays during a stretch of the third quarter where they had either a 21 or 14-point lead throughout the entirety and included a stretch of eight straight incompletions by Mahomes. Isiah Pacheco and Kareem Hunt had their carries split evenly at 13 carries a piece. Hunt led the way with 45 yards, while Pacheco rushed for just 32. They each caught one pass for a combined 19 yards as well.

“I've got to take care of business on my end for the third quarter of just giving our guys things that they can work with,” Reid said. “I wasn't able to do that and so I've got to take care of that part.”

At this point, all eyes are on Mahomes and his right ankle after Wentz had to finish the game for him. On the broadcast, it appeared to be a conversion between offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, Mahomes and Wentz that gave me the feeling that if the Chiefs had to have it, Mahomes might not have exited the game. Safety Chamarri Conner was also forced out with a concussion. With it being unknown right now if Mahomes will suit up against the Houston Texans (9-5), the star quarterback thinks he will know a lot more by tomorrow. Wentz finished the game two for two for 20 yards.

“I mean, it's hard to say (what the severity of the injury is) right now,” Mahomes said. “Obviously, there’s still adrenaline rolling and usually it's kind of the day after when you kind of get a good sense of it but I feel like I could have finished the game in different circumstances. But I thought the smart decision, I think we talked about, was to put Carson (Wentz) in and he's played a lot of football, and he finished the game well.”

“You know what you have to do to get back and I think that's the most important thing. Now we just get back to the rehab part, the treatment part and try to get yourself ready on a short week against a good football team.”

This was the first leg of a stretch where Kansas City would have to play three games in 11 days. Next, the Chiefs have the Texans at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium for a Saturday noon game on December 21st. With the Buffalo Bills handling the game against the Detroit Lions, the Chiefs will have to win against the Texans to keep their two-game lead for the AFC’s one seed with two weeks to go after that matchup.