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Chiefs, Bengals see-saw into new NFL realities

JOHN KRYK

One year ago this NFL weekend, everything was flipped.

The Kansas City Chiefs improved to 6-1, in first place in the AFC West, with quarterback Patrick Mahomes passing as efficiently as ever, with 16 touchdowns against only one interception, for a 109.8 passer rating.

The Cincinnati Bengals, meantime, dropped to 1-51, in last place in the AFC North, with quarterback Joe Burrow looking good for a rookie but throwing nine TDs against five interceptions, for an 89.4 passer rating.

The contrasts today, to all of the above, are nothing short of stunning.

First the Chiefs, then the Bengals …

Following their team-wide, 27-3 mutilation Sunday at the hands of the over-powering Tennessee Titans, Mahomes and the Chiefs appear to be falling apart.

The two-time defending AFC champs slumped to 3-4 on the season, tied in last place in the AFC West with Denver. They’ve now been outscored by foes on the season by 15 points.

And Mahomes’ 2021 struggles only worsened against a Titans defence that everybody had been chewing up. Mahomes was hurried on dropbacks nine times, sacked four times and committed two more turnovers (a pick and a lost fumble) as K.C. failed to score anything but a long third-quarter field goal.

The degree of the Chiefs’ woeful all-around performance at Tennessee was the surprise here, not the fact the Chiefs lost at all — as would have been the case in any of the previous three seasons.

Tennessee led 14-0 after one quarter, on 7-of-7 passing for 114 yards from Ryan Tannehill, compared to just 23 yards of total offence from Mahomes.

Tennessee led 27-0 at halftime.

So now, nearly halfway into the season, it must be said: The Chiefs are a porous mess on defence, a confused mess on offence.

Can head coach Andy Reid turn it all around? Big job. Even for him.

“We weren’t doing it offensively, and we weren’t finishing it defensively,” Reid said of Sunday’s face-slap. “We really need to get both sides playing well … I’m seeing things we hadn’t seen before, and we’ve just got to fix it. “It starts with me.” It appeared as though Mahomes might have been concussed late in the game, for the second time this calendar year (after being so injured against Cleveland in an AFC divisional playoff game in January) but Reid said Mahomes cleared concussion protocol, and the QB insisted afterward he was fine.

“When you get hit pretty hard, sometimes you just want to lay there — plus it was fourth down,” Mahomes said. “It was a disappointing day, and a disappointing way to end it.”

In contrast to his elite 16to-1 TD-to-INT ratio last year through Week 7, Mahomes has thrown two more touchdowns in 2021 (18) but a whopping eight more interceptions (nine), with three lost fumbles to boot. Eleven turnovers by Mahomes. And he’s been sacked 14 times.

Sunday arguably was the nadir of his career.

“You’re embarrassed. We just got spanked pretty good,” he said.

Conversely, the Bengals improved to 5-2 — effectively in first place in the AFC North, after blowing out the host Baltimore Ravens, 41-17.

Both teams are 5-2 but Cincinnati holds the head-tohead tiebreaker for now.

The score accurately reflected how emphatic a victory it was for the Bengals. Burrow and crew shredded the proud Ravens defence, making its front seven look tired and lumbersome, and its secondary confused and always a couple steps late.

That’s a tribute to both the talent of Cincinnati’s offensive players, and to the cleverness of the overall scheme designed by third-year head coach Zac Taylor.

Cincinnati’s possessions from mid-second quarter to mid-fourth ended thus: Touchdown, field goal, touchdown, touchdown, interception in Baltimore’s end zone, touchdown, touchdown.

It’s rare ever to see such a tightly packed sequence of scoring against any Ravens defence.

SPORTS

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2021-10-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

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