Arrowheadlines: Patrick Mahomes and Malik Willis broke an unusual record on Sunday night

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Somebody better get Patrick Mahomes some ice for his shoulder

Chiefs vs. Titans score, takeaways: Patrick Mahomes uses his legs to force overtime, lifts K.C. past Tennessee | CBS Sports

Why the Chiefs won

The Chiefs desperately needed some semblance of a running game and they simply weren’t getting it from their stable of backs as Isiah Pacheco, Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Jerick McKinnon combined for just 14 rushing yards on 12 carries. Because of that inefficiency on the ground, Tennessee was willing to sit back in coverage and bottling things up in the secondary. So, Patrick Mahomes had to take matter into his own hands legs. He not only rushed for a team-high 63 yards, but those gains on the ground were the difference between the Chiefs winning and losing this game.

On the fourth-quarter touchdown drive alone, Mahomes had three notable scrambles that converted a third-and-17, scored the game-tying touchdown, and the two-point conversion. While those rushes will garner most of the headlines, Mahomes also used his legs to extend plays and set up throws down the field. In overtime, he rolled out on a third-and-inches play and completed a jaw-dropping 27-yard pass to Noah Gray that put them deep into Tennessee territory to set up the go-ahead field goal.

Defensively, the Chiefs did a strong job slowing down Tennessee’s biggest weapon on offense: Derrick Henry. After a first half where he rushed for 92 yards and two touchdowns, K.C. held Henry to 23 yards rushing on eight carries over the course of the second half and overtime.

NFL Week 9 grades: Buccaneers get ‘D+’ despite Tom Brady’s late-game magic vs. Rams; surging Seahawks earn ‘A’ | CBS Sports

B - Chiefs

The Chiefs were able to avoid an upset on Sunday night, but It took a career day from Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes turned up his magic in the fourth quarter and it’s a good thing he did, because he provided nearly every yard of offense for the Chiefs in this game (Only 14 of Kansas City’s 499 total yards didn’t involve Mahomes). Mahomes threw a career-high 68 passes, which was just two off the NFL single-game record. He also threw for 446 yards, which was the third-highest total of his career. Mahomes added a career-high 63 yards on the ground, including 14 that came on a TD with just 2:56 left (He also scored the game-tying two-point conversion). Mahomes didn’t have his best night, but he was at his best when he had to be and that’s why Kansas City won. Mahomes completed passes to 11 different receivers, including Travis Kelce and JuJu Smith-Schuster, who both caught 10 passes. It was a huge win for a Chiefs team that’s now tied with the Bills for the best record in the AFC.

Derrick Henry knows that the Titans’ defense played their part

Henry keeps rewriting Titans history in loss to Kansas City | Washington Post

“We didn’t execute,” Henry said. “They played better than we did in the second half.”

Henry was held to 22 yards on seven carries in the second half. Willis was 2 of 9 for minus-2 yards through the air. And the Titans had 38 yards total offense and one first down over the final 30 minutes of regulation.

“There are no moral victories,” Vrabel said. “We came here to win. That’s all we were thinking about doing. Yeah, there’s more that I could do, more that the coaches could do and the players.”

NFL stats and records, Week 9: Buccaneers QB Tom Brady passes Peyton Manning on path to 100,000 yards | NFL.com

6) Patrick Mahomes makes another second-half comeback in historic game

Mahomes had 446 pass yards and a touchdown, along with 63 rush yards and a touchdown in the Chiefs’ 20-17 overtime win over the Titans. Mahomes is the first player in the Super Bowl era to record at least 400 yards and a touchdown passing and 60 yards and a touchdown rushing in the same game.

Mahomes won his fifth consecutive game when trailing at halftime, which is the second such win streak of his career. Peyton Manning is the only other player with two such streaks in his career since QB starts began to be tracked in 1950.

Around the NFL

Tom Brady hits 100K passing yards, leads Bucs to last-minute win | ESPN

Ten days ago, Brady was nearly inconsolable in the Bucs’ locker room after falling to the Baltimore Ravens 27-22 in prime time. The next day, he and Gisele Bundchen finalized their divorce after 13 years of marriage. But on Sunday, Brady got to recapture a piece of the magic that has come to define his remarkable 23-year career. And more importantly, he got to feel joy again. So did his coaches and teammates.

“That was awesome,” said Brady, who had not beaten the Rams in three tries as a Buccaneer until Sunday. “That was f---in’ awesome.”

Brady’s 15-yard pass to running back Leonard Fournette in the second quarter was a history-maker, as he became the first NFL quarterback to eclipse 100,000 career passing yards in the regular season and postseason combined. But it was what Brady did with 44 seconds left against the defending Super Bowl champions that showed why at the age of 45 he continues to defy both age and logic and that helped a downtrodden team snap a three-game losing streak.

Bills’ Josh Allen on loss to Jets: It’s tough to win when ‘your quarterback plays like (expletive)’ | NFL.com

Josh Allen’s no good, very bad day resulted in an upset loss for the Bills, who watched their AFC East lead shrink to a half-game.

Allen was the first to admit his failures against the Jets in the immediate aftermath.

“It’s tough to win in this league. We were playing a good team here, (and) your quarterback plays like s---,” Allen said. “Made some bad decisions tonight, really cost our team. A lot to learn from, a lot to grow from, but that’s not the standard we hold ourselves to. That’s not the ball that we play.”

Allen’s performance began as usual, driving the Bills into scoring range before an uncharacteristically ugly interception ended the opening possession. It seemed to be a mistake Allen would overcome, throwing for 143 yards and a 14-10 lead at halftime.

Should Packers start figuring out life after Aaron Rodgers? | Fox Sports

There were a lot of questionable decisions on his part throughout the game against the Lions, who ranked dead-last in total defense coming into the game. Detroit was giving up an average of 154.9 rushing yards per game (third-most in the league) and 266.4 passing yards per game (sixth-most in the league).

And yet, Green Bay couldn’t muster any offensive momentum.

“Had some s----y throws for sure,” said Rodgers in his first words after the game.

The Packers tried early, going for it on fourth down on their first offensive series of the game. They didn’t convert, continuing their season-long fourth-down woes — they have the worst conversion rate in the NFL at 18.18%.

Even after that, Green Bay and Rodgers himself still tried to have some fun in an effort to “Marie Kondo” their season and “spark some joy” with a playcall in which Bakhtiari released into a route and was open in the end zone. Rodgers lobbed it up, perhaps too gingerly, and instead of Bakhtiari being the big-man catalyst for a team turnaround, the ball was intercepted by none other than rookie defensive end Aidan Hutchinson.

Bears’ Justin Fields sets regular-season rushing mark for QB | ESPN

Justin Fields continued to make his case as the top quarterback from the 2021 draft class after reaching historic heights during Chicago’s 35-32 loss to the Miami Dolphins.

The Bears quarterback set multiple NFL and franchise records on Sunday. His 178 rushing yards are the most by a quarterback in a regular-season game in the Super Bowl era, surpassing the previous high set by former Falcons quarterback Michael Vick (173) in 2002.

Fields was 3 yards shy of breaking the all-time record, which ex-San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick (181 yards) reached in the 2012 divisional playoffs.

Script flips from agony to ecstasy for Chargers in triumph over Falcons | NFL.com

And who could forget Halloween night 2011, when with the score tied and a minute to play in Arrowhead Stadium, quarterback Philip Rivers shockingly lost a fumbled snap at the Kansas City 15-yard line, eliminating a chance for a game-winning field goal and allowing the Chiefs the opportunity to prevail in overtime, 23-20, before a national Monday night audience.

For the briefest of moments in Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Sunday, it appeared the Chargers would add a new chapter to their dubious lore. Already in position for a game-winning field goal with less than a minute to play, running back Austin Ekeler fumbled at the Atlanta 20-yard line and Falcons defensive lineman Ta’Quon Graham scooped up the ball before sprinting unobstructed down the Los Angeles sideline. He was at the 25, the 30, the 35, and …

Inexplicably, and without being touched, Graham lost the football. The Chargers recovered at the Atlanta 43 and, after a 22-yard completion from Justin Herbert to Joshua Palmer, newly signed kicker Cameron Dicker earned a game ball with a 37-yard field goal as time expired.

In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride

6 winners and 4 losers from the Chiefs’ win over the Titans

Cornerback Trent McDuffie: The highly-anticipated return of the rookie first-round pick was pretty much flawless. McDuffie and the rest of the young secondary held the Titans’ wide receivers without a single catch, so you didn’t hear the cornerbacks’ names called much. McDuffie also made one of the better coverage plays you’ll ever see when he knocked a pass away from tight end Austin Hooper. By turning his head around and playing the ball, McDuffie proved it is actually possible to break up a pass without getting a pass interference call. At the end of regulation, McDuffie was also spotted with perfect coverage on Cody Hollister, showing he can be that sticky-in-coverage No. 1 cornerback that we hoped he could be when Kansas City moved up in the draft to get him.

Wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster: When things got rough, Mahomes’ go-to-guy was the Chiefs’ No. 1 wideout. Yes, tight end Travis Kelce is still that guy — but when the defense was taking him away, Smith-Schuster feasted on the inside. Making tough catch after tough catch on so many key third downs, Smith-Schuster’s 10 catches for 88 yards might go overlooked — but his contributions absolutely shouldn’t be.

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