Five Takeaways From The Chiefs Week One Victory
The Chiefs showed up to Arizona in the Desert and heated it up even more. There are five main takeaways from the week one game against the Cardinals.
The Chiefs started out the year with basically a new look at offense and defense. There were a lot of things to look out for. There were a lot of things to be hopeful about. It is now that we can put most of those things to bed as the Chiefs destroyed the Cardinals 44 to 21. There are five main takeaways from this week’s one game against the Cardinals.
The Road Back: How far will Chiefs go in 2022? – Powered By PickUp
Five Biggest Takeaways From The Chiefs Week One Victory
Tyreek Who?
The ones that followed the Kansas City Chiefs closely knew how potentially dangerous this new offense could be without former Wide Receiver Tyreek Hill. There was just more than the Chiefs could do on offense to spread the ball around. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes started his scorched Earth tour with a solid 360-yard, five-touchdown performance.
QB Mahomes threw the ball to ten different targets with nine of them getting receptions. The team’s top wideout was JuJu Smith-Schuster who caught the ball six times for 79 yards. However, he did have a fumble loss. The Chiefs showed today that they don’t need a superstar on the outside. They will do just fine with a more balanced approach.
Most games with 5 Pass TD since 2018 Patrick Mahomes 8 Tom Brady 3 Lamar Jackson 3 Russell Wilson 3 pic.twitter.com/kSVer6tzUs — NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) September 11, 2022
Rookies, Rookies Everywhere!
A big takeaway was that the team’s rookies came to play in Week One. We all knew there would be a lot of rookies suited up for the Chiefs this year. At first, it was just odd to accept especially for a Steve Spagnuolo-led defense. I had a few doubts about how fast these rookies were going to hit the ground running. Those doubts for the most part have been cleared up.
Rookie Running Back Isiah Pacheco ran for 62 yards on 12 carries, including a touchdown. Rookie wide receiver Skyy Moore caught one pass on one target for 30 yards. He was also solid returning kicks. Rookie Defensive Lineman George Karlaftis just wouldn’t stop trying to disrupt the game. He had a nice pass deflection and looked good shedding his blocks. The rest of the rookies looked solid as well.
Here is the first career touchdown for Pacheco! pic.twitter.com/ROgaBIstqN — Chiefs Hive (@chiefshive) September 11, 2022
The Best Tight End Is Still The Best Tight End
There always seems to be a conversation about who the best tight end in the league is. There was more of that talk leading up to the game. While San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle watched his team lose from the bench, the Chiefs had their tight end help win the game.
Travis Kelce may not block all that much but when he does he can do it well. There were several plays today where he made some key blocks down the field. If that wasn’t enough he caught eight balls on nine targets for 121 yards and a touchdown. It’s time to end this nonsense. Kelce is the best TE in the game until he retires, which I hope isn’t for a very long time.
Injuries
Another takeaway that isn’t the best to talk about is the injuries. There were some key injuries during the game that we need to discuss especially on a short week. Kansas City plays the Los Angeles Chargers in four days on a Thursday Night Primetime game. Kicker Harrison Butker landed on his plant foot weirdly during a kickoff. He went to the locker room as early reports stated it was swollen.
He came back out and it was clear he was favoring the foot that was heavily taped. He came back out and kicked a 54-yard field goal and some extra points. Emergency Kicker and Safety Justin Reid handled the kickoff duties after the injury.
Another concerning injury is starting Right Guard Trey Smith. He had a left ankle injury. QB Patrick Mahomes will get his left wrist looked at but it didn’t seem to really affect his performance. WR Justin Watson sustained a chest injury while CB Trent McDuffie strained his left hamstring per Head Coach Andy Reid.
Andy Reid said Justin Watson sustained a chest injury. He also said Trent McDuffie strained his left hamstring. The Chiefs will do test on Patrick Mahomes’ left wrist & Trey Smith’s left ankle. — Nate Taylor (@ByNateTaylor) September 11, 2022
The Running Game
The Chiefs used all of their active RBs today and they were all effective. RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire heard all the talk this offseason. He responded with two touchdown receptions and a solid six yard-per-carry average on the ground. RB Jerick McKinnon had 49 total scrimmage yards. I talked about RB Isiah Pacheco earlier but he also had a high YPC of 5.2. At the end of the day, the Chiefs had 128 net yards rushing for 4.7 Yards per rush while scoring a rush touchdown.
The Kansas City Chiefs won their first game on the road pretty convincingly against an injury-riddled team. This Thursday’s night game may play out a bit differently especially if we don’t hear good news about those injury takeaways that I talked about. I am going to be watching closely as I’m sure many of you are in the Chiefs Kingdom.
O/U: 4.5 TDs for Isiah Pacheco in ’22-23? – Powered By PickUp
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