The Joe Burrow led Cincinnati Bengals ended Patrick Mahomes‘ undefeated winning streak through November and December.
There were many different reasons for the 27-24 loss for Kansas City. Those reasons were highlighted by poor tackling, a fumble, and poor third down execution.
Third time’s the charm was the mindset heading into Sunday’s match against the defending AFC Champions. However, the Chiefs did not make nearly enough plays in order to come through with the win.
This is a team loss. Joe Burrow and Samaje Perine were the stars of the show. Burrow had a three touchdown game, two passing and one rushing. Burrow continued to take advantage of the Chiefs pass rush as the Chiefs struggled to get home leaving Burrow with huge running lanes.
Perine has 21 carries and 106 yards. He was constantly getting the Bengals in short yardage situations that allowed the Bengals to try and push that ball down the field. Add the late fourth quarter Travis Kelce fumble and that is a recipe for disaster.
Andy Reid highlighted the importance of not making a lot of mistakes against a good team.
“You can’t turn the ball over against a good team and you surely can’t miss a field goal”, Reid said. “But there is a lot of things between that we could have done better.”
Another major reason for the Chiefs losing is the lack of quality tackles. Players on all three levels of the defense struggled to get Bengals skill position players down in the open field and on top of that they allowed players to fall forward for extra yards. This played a major role keeping the Bengal in short yardage situations.
Reid noted the team struggles with tackling.
“I did not think we tackled as well as we had been. We can do a better job. That’s something we’ll look at.” Reid said.
Nick Botlton’s first comments were about the poor tackling on the day.
“We gotta be a little bit better at tackling overall as a whole. I feel like we did not tackle very well today,” Bolton said.
The defensive side of the ball was not the only reason the Chiefs walked away with a loss
Certain areas of the line continue to struggle. While the Chiefs were able to run the ball effectively, Patrick Mahomes was under duress the entire game.
The pressure occurred no matter what kind of coverage the Bengals were showing. The Bengals were able to get pressure even when they were only sending three pass rushers.
When they sent three passer rushers they dropped seven into courage and left one of their linebackers in as a quarterback spy on Mahomes. This was effective in taking away Mahomes’ ability to go into the scramble drill and take over the game when it mattered most. He was not able to break off the runs like he had in the Tennessee Titans game.
Out of all of the chaos, the running backs had a great game. Isiah Pacheco and Jerick McKinnon totaled 117 rushing yards.
Inevitably, there were good takeaways from this game too. However, it is important to see what went wrong when analyzing a loss.
The Chiefs will take on the Broncos next week. While Denver is last in the AFC West the defense is one of the best in the league. The Chiefs margin of error for next week is much wider but they will still need to play top notch in order to move the ball and score touchdowns.
