Bengals vs. Chiefs final score: Alex Smith, Patrick Mahomes look sharp in 30-12 win

The Kansas City Chiefs quarterbacks and running backs looked sharp in Saturday night’s 30-12 preseason win over the Cincinnati Bengals. Oh, and Demetrius Harris caught two touchdowns!

Find full game stats here.

Here’s what we learned from the Chiefs win...

Alex Smith and the first team offense look sharp, again

Once again, the Chiefs first team offense looked strong. They scored a touchdown on their opening drive last week and they almost did this week but settled for a field goal. The second drive Alex took them down for a touchdown and then he was done.

Alex went 8/9 for 83 yards and a touchdown. Not much to say here — Alex looked really sharp. The first team offense looked on point. All good things. This is encouraging.

The Patrick Mahomes hype continues

He came in in the second quarter and scored a touchdown on his opening drive going 4/5 for 35 yards. He had a 16-yard touchdown scramble that was called back and ruled a 13-yard run just short of the touchdown.

His final numbers: 10/14 for 88 yards and two touchdowns.

He had a number of outstanding throws. Several throws to De’Anthony Thomas stand out. One was a cannon to DAT up the middle for a first down. The second one was him flicking his wrist and quickly getting the ball out to DAT, who broke a tackle and picked up yards. The third one was DAT’s touchdown.

The best throw of the night was one where he was scrambling to his right and while on the run he threw an absolute dart on the money to Gavin Escobar, who was drilled but hung onto the ball. Twitter lit up after that. It was one of those throws that really makes you wonder what the potential is here.

Play of the game

Rollin’ with Mahomes.

Lots of work for RB Kareem Hunt and CJ Spiller

Last week, Spencer Ware had 18 plays while Hunt had one. This week, Hunt had seven touches for 36 yards on the first drive alone while Ware had just one rush before coming out. Hunt ended up with 11 touches for 62 yards on two drives -- three catches for 23 yards and eight rushes for 40 yards, including a 25-yard run. This tells me the running back battle is for real. Hunt looked like he belonged.

One other note, Hunt did come up limping after one play. He had his ankle taped after that. Guessing that’s not serious.

As for Spiller, the headline this offseason was that he had that twitch back and on his first carry it appeared he did. He took a handoff to the right and added a little burst to pick up the first down around the edge. He had another good looking screen that went for 16 yards. Spiller ended up with 27 yards rushing.

(Adding this late but Charcandrick West ended up with over 100 yards. More to come on him!)

Demetrius Harris has ... good hands?

Harris gets some crap from Chiefs fans because of drops. He’s a former basketball player (obligatory mention) so maybe he’s just not a natural pass catcher. However, Harris is making us re-think the way we view him.

He got two touchdown passes on Saturday night - one from Alex and one from Mahomes. He had two catches in the game where he was well covered and still made the catch. If this is real, it could be important because the Chiefs play a lot of two tight end sets.

The Chiefs can’t rely on Phillip Gaines

You know how I’ve said that Mahomes has “it”? He just looks and feels like an NFL quarterback? Gaines does not have that same it factor at cornerback. There was just no ... um, explosion? I think that’s the word I’m looking for. The Bengals repeatedly went at him and were pretty successful.

The Chiefs do have a number of bodies at cornerback but Terrance Mitchell is currently out so Gaines played more with the first team in this game. It’s just the preseason but the Chiefs can’t rely on him if this is the performance they’ll get. Frustrating.