Arrowheadlines: Chris Jones should be in the running for defensive player of the year

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2022 NFL season, Week 10: What We Learned from Sunday’s games | NFL.com

Chris Jones needs to be in the Defensive Player Of the Year conversation. The DPOY debate has centered around Micah Parsons most of this season, with others — Nick Bosa, Matt Judon and Myles Garrett predominantly — also mentioned in the picture. But we really do need to add Jones to that list based on how he’s played lately. He entered Sunday’s game with 3.5 sacks and a forced fumble in his past three games, and Jones was the best defensive player on the field against the Jaguars. His half-sack on the opening drive prevented the Jaguars from scoring on that stolen possession. Then Jones took down Lawrence by himself on third-and-goal when the Jags were threatening to make it a one-score game. Those two plays helped keep the Jaguars from clawing their way into the game, and the Chiefs had five sacks total in the game.

NFL playoff picture tiers: Stacking all 32 teams’ chances to contend | ESPN

Tier 1: True Super Bowl contenders

Kansas City Chiefs (7-2)

FPI chances to make the playoffs: 99.8%

There’s no quarterback I’d rather have than Patrick Mahomes, and no offense I’d rather have than the Chiefs’ unit. The most important thing for a team to be good at is the passing game, and the Chiefs are No. 1 in expected points added (EPA) per dropback. — Walder

X factor moving forward: Pass rush. Kansas City is more productive here than last season, when it finished 29th in the league in sacks. The Chiefs have turned up their rush at key times, but they still are looking for more consistency. Pressure hasn’t been a steady presence for the Chiefs, who have struggled when they don’t blitz. And at time — like in a Week 6 loss to the Bills — even the blitz fails to get home. — Adam Teicher

NFL Week 10 grades: Tom Brady’s Buccaneers earn an ‘A-’ for win in Germany; Raiders get an ‘F’ for ugly loss | CBS Sports

B- Chiefs

The Chiefs (7-2) made a lot of mistakes in this game, but that didn’t matter, because they have Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs QB toyed with Jacksonville’s secondary, throwing for 331 yards and four touchdowns. That being said, the Chiefs probably won’t have much fun watching film from this game, considering they turned the ball over three times. The upside for the Chiefs is that with a Sunday night game coming up in Week 11 against the Chargers, this could have been a trap game, but they took care of business and didn’t let that happen.

NFL Week 10 Takeaways: Colts Win Over Raiders Epitomizes Upside Down 2022 Season | Bleacher Report

Chiefs Show Incredible Depth with Top-Scoring Offense; Odell Beckham Jr. Lurking?

Remember when some of us thought the Kansas City Chiefs offense would regress without Tyreek Hill? Fun times.

Going into Week 10, the Chiefs fielded the No. 1 scoring offense with the second-most yards. While Kansas City expectedly beat the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, a few unheralded offensive players shined in the victory.

Rookie seventh-rounder Isiah Pacheco led the Chiefs’ ground attack with 82 yards on 16 carries. Patrick Mahomes threw four touchdown passes, including one to second-year tight end Noah Gray and another to wideout Kadarius Toney, marking his first NFL score in his second game with the Chiefs.

Kansas City acquired Toney from the New York Giants on October 27. He could see an increase in his role if fellow wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster misses time with a concussion.

Defensive coordinators may be able to key in on All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce, but Mahomes has a bevy of pass-catching options, which makes it extremely difficult to slow the Chiefs down. Once Smith-Schuster and Mecole Hardman (abdomen) return, the Chiefs will have the league’s deepest pass-catching unit.

Oh, and by the way, free-agent wideout Odell Beckham Jr. has the Chiefs on his short list of potential teams to join, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter,

Chiefs DE Carlos Dunlap joins NFL’s QB-sack century club | 41 KSHB

Dunlap, who spent his first 11 NFL seasons with Cincinnati before a midseason trade to Seattle in 2020, joined the Chiefs during training camp.

The 13-year NFL veteran and two-time Pro Bowler arrived with 96 career sacks — and Dunlap made it clear he intended to get to the 100-sack milestone with Kansas City.

Entering Sunday’s 27-17 victory against the Jacksonville Jaguars with 99 1/2 career sacks, Dunlap hit the century mark with that early takedown of Trevor Lawrence.

“I feel lighter,” Dunlap said. “Being able to get that accomplished is a huge milestone and accomplishment. As a young player coming into the league, that was a goal — playing 10-plus years, getting 100 sacks to be in that elite category of the guys who have ever done it.”

Since sacks became an official stat in 1982, only 40 players have reached 100.

Kansas City Chiefs Superstar Patrick Mahomes Enhances MVP Chances | Forbes

It’s no secret that Mahomes could end up MVP. His value is amplified when one considers that he could earn his second regular-season award despite having a contract average of $45 million that ranks behind four other quarterbacks.

Further enhancing his MVP odds, the Chiefs currently own the No. 1 seed in the AFC, following the Buffalo Bills’ overtime loss to the Minnesota Vikings.

The last three years, the quarterback of a top-seeded team has earned MVP honors. It was Aaron Rodgers twice in a row and then Lamar Jackson before him.

Around the NFL

The best catch ever?

FL Week 10 overreactions and reality checks: Can Kirk Cousins reach the Super Bowl? Is Josh Allen regressing? | CBS Sports

Josh Allen has regressed this season

Overreaction or reality: Overreaction

Allen isn’t in his best stretch of football right now. In his last three games, Allen has seven giveaways with six interceptions — three in the red zone. In his first six games, Allen had just four interceptions and six giveaways.

Allen has completed 58.8% of his passes for 753 yards with three touchdowns to six interceptions over his last three games (67.2 rating). The Bills are 1-2 in those starts, relying on Allen’s play to bail them out of trouble.

Leading the league with 10 interceptions and having 13 giveaways, Allen isn’t his typical MVP self. While this is a bad stretch of football, the Bills quarterback hasn’t regressed. It’s too short of a stretch to make that declaration.

49ers vs. Chargers score, takeaways: San Francisco’s defense shuts down Justin Herbert, L.A. offense | CBS Sports

Why the Chargers lost

Los Angeles got off to a hot start, needing just seven plays to move 75 yards down the field to score a touchdown on the opening drive. However, they were never able to recreate that spark offensively for the rest of the game. Even when they were given a short field thanks to a Brandon Aiyuk fumble at the end of the first quarter, they couldn’t take full advantage of it. After getting the ball back at the San Francisco 32-yard line, they could only travel 3 yards on four plays and needed to settle for a field goal. L.A. had two other drives on the night that went as far as the 49ers’ 7-yard line and 20-yard line, respectfully. Both times they were held to a field goal. Those offensive issues were only highlighted even more in the second half where they punted three times, had a turnover on downs and threw an interception to end the day. That level of execution offensively simply won’t win you many games in the NFL.

Defensively, the Chargers did end up getting pushed around for 387 yards (208 in the second half), but Brandon Staley’s unit was able to make stops and did give the offense chances to hang in this game. They just couldn’t play a standard level of complementary football.

Derek Carr fights back tears at podium after Raiders lose to Colts | ESPN

Carr needed several pauses to collect himself as the Raiders quarterback addressed what went on in the course of the defeat that dropped Las Vegas’ record to 2-7 in a season that began with so much promise a year after going to the playoffs for just the second time since 2002.

“I love the Silver and Black and I’m going to give it everything I can every time I go out there,” Carr said. “And I can’t speak for everybody, for every man, what’s going on in their head, but I can tell you what’s going on in my head and I’m going to give it all that I can, every single time.”

Carr paused for 12 seconds before he was asked if there was a “disconnect” between himself and first-year coach and offensive playcaller Josh McDaniels.

“I don’t think so,” Carr said, through tears. “I love Josh. I love our coaches. They’ve had nothing but success. Way more success than I’ve ever had. And I’m sorry ...”

Rams head coach Sean McVay: Cooper Kupp’s ankle injury ‘didn’t look good’ | NFL.com

NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported Sunday night that it appears at first glance Kupp “may miss some time, but [the injury is] not catastrophic,” adding that he will still undergo further testing.

Kupp had jumped up to catch a throw from Rams backup quarterback John Wolford, and landed awkwardly, with his right ankle getting rolled up on. Kupp laid on the ground for a few minutes before being helped up, and Kupp hopped to the sideline bench without putting weight on it.

Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy laments OT penalties, not fourth-down call | ESPN

Facing fourth-and-3 from the Green Bay 35-yard line on the first possession of overtime Sunday, McCarthy passed on trying a 53-yard field goal into the wind, with Dak Prescott instead throwing incomplete. Six plays later, the Dallas Cowboys lost 31-28 to the Packers, falling to third place in the NFC East.

“We were right on the line for a field goal,” McCarthy said. “Hey, to be honest with you, I thought we needed to go for it. I mean I called it on second down, especially with the way the game was going. Big play, penalty. Big play, penalty. Big play, penalty. So our thing was just keep playing. We had good calls. I’m fine with the decision obviously on fourth-and-3. Just didn’t convert.”

Tom Brady was a fan on the Munich experience

Maybe not this play though

In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride

Chiefs adamant hit on JuJu Smith-Schuster deserved punishment

That’s when Kansas City’s sideline erupted. Head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes led the plea for the penalty to stand.

“As long as there is contact to the head, it doesn’t need to be in the game,” Reid told reporters after the final whistle. “It looked like there was contact to the head from where I was standing.”

“Obviously, I don’t think there was any ill intent from the player,” Mahomes noted to the press in his post-game media availability. “He was just trying to knock the ball loose. Obviously, there was some helmet-to-helmet contact. We want to get that out of the league as much as possible for player safety.”

5 things we learned in the Chiefs’ thumping of the Jaguars

1. Prince Tega Wanogho has earned a chance to be the starting right tackle

For the Chiefs, the tackle position has been an issue all season. Orlando Brown Jr. has not been living up to the payday he wants, while Andrew Wylie has looked like a guard who is doing his best to play tackle. So here’s the question that’s been lingering out there for a while: what about Prince Tega Wanogho?

Coming into Sunday, Wanogho’s Pro Football Focus grade of 81.3 was the highest for a Kansas City offensive tackle. Admittedly, that’s based on a very limited sample size — only 14 reps — but adding that to the fact that Jacksonville only managed to hit quarterback Patrick Mahomes four times on Sunday, you have to wonder if Wanogho might be the team’s best option on the right side — or at the least, he has earned his first career start against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 11.

A tweet to make you think

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