Kansas City Chiefs: 10 likes and 10 dislikes from Week 14 vs New England

10 Dislikes

1. The Worry

With the Kansas City Chiefs defense playing lights out, and Harrison Butker striking gold every time his right foot connects with the pigskin, the thing that has me worried the most is Mahomes’ hand. Dude’s been banged up this season. He doesn’t look 100% back from his kneecap injury, and now there’s his hand. Even a small fracture could sideline him for the season, and, no offense to Matt Moore, that would be it for the Chiefs in 2019.

2. Blind Zebras

Holy Lord, were the refs bad on Sunday–both ways. A couple of joke-penalties against the Chiefs include Austin Reiter‘s “blindside” block and Kelce’s non-existent offensive pass interference. And while the Patriots took the brunt of the refs’ incompetence, I don’t take a whole lot of pleasure in that.

I’d rather have a competent set of referees than these guys. Games shouldn’t be decided by refs. Maybe this game wasn’t, but it was awfully close.

3. The First Defensive Drive

Twice on the Patriots opening offensive series, they were forced into third-and-long by the Chiefs. And twice the Patriots converted by throwing long and allowing the Chiefs to shoot themselves in the foot. Two defensive pass interference penalties kept the Patriots rolling, and New England capitalized.

4. Trickery, Part II

This was embarrassing:

5. Penalties

A week after getting called for zero penalties for just the third time in franchise history, the Chiefs were called for 10 penalties for 136 yards, three of which resulted in Patriots first-downs. And that’s with New England declining a glut of penalties, like Mahomes’ face-mask against Kyle Van Noy.