The Chiefs left Miami Gardens with a clean record and a messy game.
Kansas City beat the Dolphins 24-10 on Sunday in the same building where Patrick Mahomes won his first Super Bowl, and the box score won’t tell the full story. The Chiefs are 3-0, but this one came with a few warning lights blinking on both sides of the ball.
Start with the offense, because that part still looks loaded. Mahomes appeared healthy until he took a hit in his own end zone that drew a roughing-the-passer flag.
Afterward, he winced and reached for his back. Even so, he opened the day by completing his first 11 passes, with only a fluke interception - though it came on a bad throw - stopping the run.
He also hit another downfield throw to start the game, then finished 20 of 24, the third-highest completion percentage of his career.
The ground game added more juice. Kenneth Walker ripped off two more explosive runs and at one point literally ran out of his shoe.
Kansas City averaged 6.8 yards per play, a number it only matched in one game all last season. The Chiefs also got into the red zone early and often, advancing at least inside the 15-yard line on five of their first eight drives.
The problem was possession. The offense kept putting itself in position, but it couldn’t stay on the field enough.
That turned the spotlight onto a defense that did not have a clean afternoon, even if the scoreboard says 10 points allowed. Miami’s first six drives all reached Kansas City territory, including every possession in the first half.
The opener was especially rough: the Dolphins converted four third downs - from 4, 18, 8 and 9 yards out - and used more than nine minutes. De’Von Achane left on that first drive with a knee injury and never returned, but Miami kept moving anyway.
The Chiefs also got a favorable break when a fumble bounce went their way, and a fourth-down stop helped keep the damage in check. Still, the Dolphins converted 8 of their first 14 third-down chances. Against a team that may not be the best offense Kansas City sees all year, that’s a problem.
And the pass rush? It never showed up.
Malik Willis had been sacked nine times over the first two weeks, but the Chiefs never touched him Sunday. That was a sharp turn after last week’s explanation that the lack of pressure had come from not creating enough third-and-long situations.
This time, Kansas City got those spots. It just couldn’t finish them.
The Chiefs invested heavily in the defensive line this offseason, and the opener made it look like a win. Since then, not so much.
There was one more familiar face carrying the offense. The Dolphins seemed willing to leave Travis Kelce open, and he made them pay.
Kelce opened with a 48-yard catch, giving him two receptions this year longer than any he had all last season. Twenty-seven of those yards came after the catch.
Through two weeks, he had been leading the NFL in yards after the catch, not just tight ends, but all players.
And on the back end of the game, Kelce closed the door with an 11-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. For a player who has only one more game as a 36-year-old, the production keeps showing up in ways that are hard to ignore.
The final note: Kansas City was a huge favorite, and that doesn’t always mean an automatic win. The Chiefs have been at least a 10 1/2-point favorite 23 times with Mahomes at quarterback, and they’ve lost three of those games.
That group includes Christmas Day against the Raiders in the 2023 season, the Raiders upset in 2020 as a double-digit underdog, and the Colts win over Kansas City in 2019. In each of those seasons, the Chiefs still reached the Super Bowl.
So yes, the Chiefs won. They also gave themselves plenty to clean up.
In Other News...
Former Chiefs LB Leo Chenal In Frightening Injury Situation
Leo Chenals exit from the Commanders Week 3 game against the Seahawks brought a sobering pause to a matchup that had already been demanding physically. The former Chiefs linebacker, now in Washington after four seasons in Kansas City, suffered a neck injury and was taken off the field on a stretcher, turning immediate attention away from the scoreboard and toward his health.
Commanders coach Dan Quinn later said Chenal has feeling in his extremities and is undergoing further testing at the hospital, which offered at least some initial relief after a frightening scene. For Chiefs fans who watched Chenal develop into a reliable piece of their defense, the update is hard to process, and it leaves Washington waiting for more clarity on a player they invested in with a three-year deal. [Read more 🡒]
Chiefs Broadcast Had An Awkward Taylor Swift Moment Sunday
Taylor Swift had a perfectly good reason to miss the Chiefs-Dolphins game Sunday, since she was in Los Angeles at the MTV Video Music Awards for the debut of her Agent Zero video. Back in Kansas City, Travis Kelce still gave the home crowd something to celebrate, finding the end zone in a game that, for plenty of viewers, had one eye on the field and another on the broadcasts reaction shots.
The awkward part came on the CBS telecast, where the crew briefly went looking for Swift at the stadium without realizing she was halfway across the country. For Chiefs fans, it was a small but familiar reminder of how much attention follows the Kelce-Swift orbit, even on nights when the biggest pop star in the picture is nowhere near the building. [Read more 🡒]
Chiefs Just Got Dragged Into Another Officiating Firestorm
The latest Chiefs game has once again put the officials under a microscope, this time after a play in which a Kansas City defender grabbed and pulled at Malik Willis helmet while bringing him down, yet no penalty was flagged. The no-call quickly became a flashpoint, with fans across social media zeroing in on what they saw as a clear miss and another example of how every close call involving Kansas City seems to draw instant scrutiny.
For the Chiefs, it is the kind of controversy that has started to follow them even when the football itself is only part of the conversation. Any play like this feeds a larger debate around perceived officiating favoritism, and the reaction was immediate enough to ensure the clip would keep circulating well after the game ended. Whether the league or officials address it directly is one thing, but the bigger issue is that these moments now arrive with built-in suspicion attached. [Read more 🡒]