Chiefs vs. Jets: Game and score predictions

In the Kansas City Chiefs 43-16 victory over the Denver Broncos in Week 7, you might say that Byron Pringle’s 102-yard kickoff return for a touchdown — and Daniel Sorenson’s 50-yard pick-six — kind of messed up our predictions. Without those, the Arrowhead Pride staff’s aggregate prediction of a 30.5-16.9 victory might have been very close to the mark.

Or... you could just say that our combined prediction wasn’t very good!

Almost all of our writers at least predicted a substantial Chiefs victory — as did most of our readers. 93% of them called for a Chiefs win — and 50% predicted a blowout.

So let’s see how the staff — and our readers — think the Week 8 game between the 6-1 Chiefs and the 0-7 New York Jets will go down.

Tom Childs (@tomchilds56)

This is going to get real U-G-L-Y real quick for the Jets. I genuinely think Andy Reid will be looking to get his backups in as early as possible. This will be made possible when the Chiefs come out all guns blazing on both offense and defense. I expect to see defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo blitz Sam Darnold over and over again. Knowing that the Jets won’t be able to hold up in a shootout, he will be looking for the Jets quarterback to make multiple mistakes. I’d be interesting to see how much of a workload Le’Veon Bell gets — but seeing as the Chiefs are likely to only have him for this year, why not make the most of him and give Edwards-Helaire some snaps off? Chiefs 41, Jets 10

John Dixon (@Arrowheadphones)

By all rights, this game should be a big blowout — but I can’t bring myself to predict one. Instead, I think the Chiefs will quickly get a mutli-score lead and then shift into low gear — which will be a perfect setup for Le’Veon Bell to have a big game against his former team. Just as in the Week 7 game, I think we’ll see some reserve Chiefs players in the fourth quarter — and maybe some garbage-time New York scoring, too. The Chiefs will win convincingly, but I don’t see them quite covering the 19.5-point spread. Chiefs 31, Jets 13

Ron Kopp Jr. (@Ron_Kopp)

The Chiefs have a history of not blowing the doors off of inferior opponents — and I believe that trend continues in Week 8 against the Jets; Andy Reid is cognizant of what he’s putting on film and how other teams are watching the Chiefs. He will rely on his supremely-talented players to simply be better than the players across from them — and they will be. Le’Veon Bell gets a bigger workload in his revenge game, and the Chiefs coast to a comfortable win. Chiefs 30, Jets 14

Matt Lane (@ChiefinCarolina)

This game - on paper - should be even more lopsided than the spread is plus some more. The New York Jets are coming off of a half of football in which they had a net total of four yards, and that’s pretty indicative of their season. When the Chiefs have the ball, the only real concern will be dealing with Quinnen Williams up the middle of the offensive line. As long as that’s handled, it’s going to be more like a practice. This is a game that Patrick Mahomes should be able to pad the stats a little bit and push his name back towards the top of the MVP race. When the Jets have the ball, the Chiefs defense should have the advantage at every level. Steve Spagnuolo should be able to tee off with his pressure schemes on this offensive line and Sam Darnold’s propensity to feel ghost pressure. The Chiefs start off hot in this one and finish this one by halftime, Chiefs 41, Jets 17

Matt Stagner (@stagdsp)

The Le’Veon Bell revenge game should be epic — an absolute clash of the Titans. But seriously, folks, this is one of those games that the Chiefs should dominate. Then again, we’ve seen this team tend to play to its competition, so it’s also reasonable to expect that the Chiefs will bring their B or C-level game. I do think Bell will be motivated and will get plenty of opportunities, likely getting into the end zone at least once. The defense can build on last week’s performance and force some turnovers. Expect another big-lead-early, coast-after-that game. Chiefs 42, Jets 24

Craig Stout (@barleyhop)

The Jets are not a particularly talented team, and Adam Gase is struggling to get them motivated to play hard on a week-to-week basis. Against the Chiefs, they’re expected to be without their two best wideouts in what projects to be a pass-heavy game script. The Chiefs jump out to a big lead early, capitalizing on some miscommunications between Sam Darnold and his wideouts to stifle the Jets and win big. Chiefs 38, Jets 13

Kent Swanson (@kent_swanson)

This game is an opportunity for the Chiefs to continue building toward playing their best ball in January. They're playing themselves this week - because the Jets aren't providing much resistance. I expect a clean, productive day on both sides of the ball. The offense generates several explosive pass plays and the Chiefs are up big when Chad Henne takes over. Chiefs 38, Jets 17

Pete Sweeney (@pgsween)

It is an extremely difficult task to predict exactly how games may go in the NFL (as evidenced by my 38-point margin of error, which you can see in the chart below), but on Sunday, I think what everyone is figuring will happen will indeed happen. In limited action against the Broncos, running back Le’Veon Bell showed he could still play at a rather high level, and I think Andy Reid and the Chiefs — though they would never say it — will allow him to share that fact with the Jets. Count me down for Sunday being the Chiefs’ Bell Game, in which he records more than 100 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns as Kansas City just barely misses covering what is a 20-point spread. Chiefs 34, Jets 17

Ties in the standings are broken with prediction points error — how much each prediction misses the actual point spread and the number of points scored by each team.

For the Week 7 game against the Broncos, Matt Stagner’s call for a 38-17 Chiefs win came closest to the mark with just 12 points of error, moving him very close to Ron Kopp in the standings. Matt Lane’s 34-17 prediction was second-best with 20 points of error. Everyone else expected a Chiefs victory by 10 to 15 points — except for Craig Stout, who predicted a 28-24 win. John Dixon moves into a tie with Craig at the top of the standings — and the difference between the top five has become very small.