Kansas City Chiefs: Good, Bad, Ugly vs Chargers in week 1 of 2018
The Kansas City Chiefs won their first game of the 2018 season, making it nine straight victories against the Los Angeles Chargers. The Chiefs are 1-0, but not everything was positive this week. Let’s take a look at the good, bad, and ugly.
Season openers are important in the NFL, but for the Kansas City Chiefs, this season opener was different than the last half decade. It was the first time since 2012 that a quarterback other than Alex Smith was leading the Chiefs offense.
That’s right, Patrick Mahomes is finally the man in Kansas City and he showed off big time. We’ll get to Mahomes in a bit, but first, more on the victory.
The game was close until the third quarter where the Chiefs got ahead by double digit points and never let the Chargers get closer than 11 points. We all know that no lead is safe (fans of the Chiefs should know this, considering a 28 point lead once wasn’t good enough), so it was good to at least see the Chiefs win this by ten points.
Without further ado, let’s get to the first Good, Bad, and Ugly edition of 2018!
GOOD: TYREEK HILL
Tyreek Hill had himself a day in Los Angeles and was responsible for getting the Chiefs off to a quick start. The Chargers went three and out on their first possession and were forced to punt the ball away. Apparently teams STILL haven’t learned not to punt to Hill, as he then took the punt return 91 yards to the house for a touchdown.
After the Chargers made it a 7-3 game, the Chiefs offense took the field again. On just the fifth play of the drive, Patrick Mahomes connected with Hill on a 58-yard strike down the field for a touchdown. It was 14-0 in favor of Kansas City before the Chargers could even blink.
Hill ended his day with seven receptions for 169 yards and three total touchdowns. Two of the touchdowns came through the air and the other was the special teams one referenced earlier.
The Chargers had no answer for Hill and they had a pretty solid defense last year, so that’s reassuring to see Hill burn a good unit. Let’s see how well he does next week in Pittsburgh.