Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Sam McDowell of the Kansas City Star talks about whether the Chiefs are weaker than past years

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Matthew Coller talks with Sam McDowell of the Kansas City Star about what makes Patrick Mahomes's bad game against the Jets so unique and why the Chiefs are more normal than previous seasons where their offense was untouchable. Plus, how will their defense handle Justin Jefferson and how things are different now that KC is titletown Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everybody, welcome into another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here and joining me on the show. And I'm not being hyperbolic. One of America's best sports reporters, Sam McDowell, a columnist for the Kansas City Star. I mean that, Sam. I follow your work closely and you just do a tremendous job. I really look up to the way that you write and i am excited to talk to you about the kansas city chiefs what is going on man yeah i appreciate that if you could follow me around and give me that intro every day that'd be great well i only read the chief stuff i don't know what you write about the kansas city royals though that's got to be a a pretty rough ride i the other day. I don't mean to get off on a tangent here.

As the Twins are in the playoffs winning playoff games, they won like 50 games and brought their manager back. And so I'm like, oh, okay. I guess that's kind of what you're dealing with there. It's like the exact polar opposites of the world's greatest football team and the world's worst baseball team. That's got to be weird. Yeah, I mean, yesterday we, so Tuesday morning,

there was a post-season press conference and I was just kind of thinking about the irony of the fact that post-season baseball for the Royals means literally after the season is over, we're having a press conference talking about the season. It's not post-season baseball, eight straight years now of losing seasons and they tie the the franchise record for the worst uh season ever so yeah it's a little bit different than covering the team that just won the super bowl yeah uh our guy alec lewis came from there covering uh you know the royals for the athletic and then he moved here eventually he'll cover a team that wins so he's going from like the worst franchise to a franchise that's stuck in the middle and then next maybe he'll return to cover the chiefs or something

for the athletic i want to ask you this and i want to get into all this you know with the way kansas city has played and how somehow they made you know zach wilson look decent the other day what's it like to cover super bowl tell us a tale because i haven't i from i'm from buffalo and then moved to minnesota there's no championships in my background what what is that like when a team that went through what minnesota has dealt with forever just always like second best always just good to get into playoffs but never enough and when they finally got over the hump to greatness what was that like? Yeah, I mean, for from purely from a media perspective, it is the absolute busiest week of the year, but just enjoyable as heck. I mean, there's very, very little sleep,

but you're working on all stuff that feels like a big deal because the game is such a big deal. And look, Kansas City was a football town before this team started winning Super Bowls. But we've reached a place where, you know, readers want to consume everything there is to consume about this team. And so, I mean, journalistically, you don't root for the local teams, but it certainly helps business when the local teams are interesting and um the quarterback is obviously the most interesting but the fans here care about who's gonna be the 53rd guy on the roster and so that's what the super bowl i think has really elevated in terms of like media perspective of coverage but you from the from the get-go at the super bowl are introduced to just how big of a freaking deal it is. And that's on media night when, I mean, there's tons and tons of you there. And it's like, well, you know, we're not in this

Arrowhead Stadium's practice facility as one of the smallest media rooms in the league. And there's only about 40 of us that can cram in there on any given day. And, you know, to go into Miami, Marlins Park or where the Phoenix Suns play in downtown Phoenix, you're pretty quickly introduced to, all right, yeah, we're not in the same place that we've been covering this team all year. And there's a lot more eyeballs on this team than you probably have any sort of grasp on because you're so in the moment throughout the season i was lucky enough to cover a super bowl night uh when the super bowl was in minnesota and you're walking around and like uh the guy who's on curb your enthusiasm walks by and like wait what what oh how did these people get in here uh and it's absolute madness so you have like these scrums around players where it's a bunch of people and one person is asking and this did happen uh happen, Jason McCourty or Devin McCourty. Well, I'm not sure which one, but they're asking him like to rate Tom Brady's attractiveness on a one to 10 scale.

And then the next person is asking about like cover one robber. And you're just like, what is going on here it's it's very crazy but i guess i mean even from a city perspective of just you know part of the identity of vikings fans and i really see these two teams as the afc nfc reflection of each other until just recently uh it's part of their identity that they have not won and i know kansas city way back in the day of course against the vikings but it just such a long time of getting close and you know losing at the worst possible moment having great teams and just not being able to get over that hump it has to be weird because people are like constantly in a state of being upset here about the team because of that and whenever anything goes wrong they're like no

this is us again and and what's it like when that goes away i feel like that's got to be that's got to be the strange part yeah i actually sit on i mean it was it was such a long streak that i'm not sure it has completely gone away i mean the chiefs went 20 some years without a playoff win um and even more at home because when they broke that streak it was in Houston and they lost eight straight home playoff games in just the weirdest way possible and you saw a fan base that had started to brace itself for the worst imaginable to happen and I still trace back to the year that they won the Super Bowl for the first time with Patrick Mahomes, and they were down 24 to nothing to Houston. And that was the game that you were like,

man, I thought this guy was beyond that. And I guess he's just going to fit into the narrative that's been Kansas City Chiefs playoff history for the past three decades. And then single-handedly, he wheeled them back and scored 50-some points. And I mean, heck, the Chiefs won that game by three possessions.

And to me that was the turning point for the organization to where, all right, this guy really is different than anything else they've had before. And I realize we should have had plenty of evidence before that. But at some point in the psyche of Chiefs fans, I think that the history of what they had been through had to take over until they were proven otherwise They were proven otherwise. So I remember where I was for that game. I was in the San Jose airport returning home after the Vikings had just lost to San Francisco.

And I was thinking about how it just all of a sudden they're different. Kansas City and Minnesota, because when the Vikings got down to the 49ers, it was over and none of us thought they were coming back at that point. And when Kansas city gets down 24, it's not over and it's never over as long as you have my homes. Now your perspective on, on my homes, you know, is really interesting because from the outside world, he's just invincible, but also at the same time i feel like as a as a if

you're covering someone every day you see all the different parts of who they are and it's hard not to think that though with him i mean they break his ankle and he still finds a way to run for a first down in the super bowl they get him down 24 it there is a will to this player to win the football game no matter what happens including against the jets the other night where he's playing like the worst game of his life and yet still finds a way when it's third and whatever to run for a first down to make some sort of play there's very few guys i mean it's it's really like it's farve without farves baggage and idiotic interceptions or something. I have no idea how to contextualize it.

I don't know if I've ever seen anything quite like it. Yeah, you know, it's interesting timing that we're having this conversation because I'm back home after a Patrick Mahomes press conference, and I asked him about his two interceptions in New York. And for the longest time with Patrick Mahomes, we asked him about all the crazy stuff he did that went well. That has become so routine that now when he has a game like he had Sunday in New York, that's the anomaly.

And so that's what I'm like most interested in is, you know, I talked to the third string quarterback today for 10 minutes about what Patrick Mahomes was like in the film room. Cause I was like, you know, he doesn't have that many of these games how does he respond when when he does have these games and and post game in New York I had conversations with about 10 people that said what was he like on the sidelines what was he like at halftime and I I do think the peak that peak behind the curtain which is those guys said that he, you know, Donovan Smith, the left tackle told me at one point, he basically went up and down the sideline after his first interception and

wanted to make sure everybody knew it was his fault because I mean, frankly, this offense hasn't played as well as we've seen in the past. I think he wants everyone to think like, Hey, I've got to play better too. And that was his message today, but it just shows just the difference in where the bar is now compared to where the bar was before he got here is that he's done it so consistently. And that's probably the one thing that's not talked about enough. Cause I think his peak is talked about plenty,

but it's the fact that he's able to get to his peak as regularly and as frequently as he does, that sort of gets lost in that shuffle to where when we don't see his peak, it's just like, well, what's going on with them? There were conversations on Sunday night about is his arm. Okay. And it's like, well, the guy is allowed to have an off day. Literally everybody else in football does in fact end on this point, but one of the other offensive linemen nicholas allegretti told me when mahomes was taking blame for this at halftime he's like

you know we've got 10 other guys on offense they screw up a lot it's okay if you screw up every once in a while too which i want to get to because they're screwing up more often than we've seen the supporting cast for patrick mahomes screw up but just to stay with this point uh one time I charted yeah ESPN's QBR and PFF grades for Mahomes versus like Kirk Cousins a number of other quarterbacks and I was trying to come up with sort of a baseball equality start like if you score over a 60 with QBR and over an 80 with PFF like how often does that happen and with kirk it's like 10 times a year which is really good that's a quality player with mahomes out of 17 games it's like 14 it it is just remarkable how night in and night out and that's

kind of like with basketball the greatest players almost anybody in the the NBA can score 30 points in a game, but to do it time and time and time again without losing the efficiency is just mind blowing. And the other thing about him that's been shocking since day one is just his personality. Like there's that video from the first Super Bowl on the sideline of him basically calling his own play, you know, where he throws the ball, the Tyree kill. I just feel like he's the perfect intersection of everything that you want from a character of a quarterback with also the physical talent that has overcome any of the other things that might be shortcomings, like an erratic play style in college footwork that everybody wanted to talk

about in the draft spear and everything else that, that his, that his character has kind of pushed him forward to where he is now because it's it's remarkable how he's handled also the absurd amount of fame that goes along with being a multi-super bowl winner i actually think matt that you just hit on what scouts whiffed on ahead of the draft i mean yes this guy was taken 10th overall and you know revisionist history has well Sean Payton was going to take him at 11 or the Cardinals were going to take him afterwards I do wonder where he would have gone had the Chiefs not taken him obviously the Chiefs had some intel that they needed to move up to 10

but 10 for a guy of that stature you think why didn't this guy go number one at least in the top five and I think it's what you just hit on they whiffed on the personality part it's not like they thought this guy had a troubling personality it's that they didn't understand the competitive desire and I actually use this in a column last week as an example so he was asked about the Jets cornerbacks going into the week which because DJ Reed and Sauce Gardner probably as good of a cornerback duo in the league as there is. And he first thing out of his mouth was he goes, well, D.J. Reed got a pick six on me in college. And so I was like, you know, I mean, seven years ago now, six years ago. No, it was his junior year. So seven years ago now. And I said so I didn't ask that original

question, but of course, piqued my interest. And I said, what do you remember about that play? It was every detail of that play that he remembered. And you talk to people from his childhood and when, when things didn't go, you know, they'll, his last ever NFL or high school football game on the bus, right home, he's texting the basketball coach because their season has already started and said, Hey, we play a game tomorrow. Can I get in the lineup tomorrow? He is just so driven by the things that go wrong. And I understand that a draft process is more a lot of looking at film. It is talking to the people that know him. But when you tap into that part

of him, you see that he's pretty frequently motivated by failure more than he is the success. And I think that's a major part of why he's become who he has become at the NFL level. Make Little Caesars, the official pizza sponsor of the NFL, part of your game day. Order online during our Pizza Pizza pregame one hour before NFL games and get ready for some football and fun. Choose your favorite Little Caesars pizza or pick the toppings you crave. Either way, you win.

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that term and i don't know if that's like a real thing or if it's just but kirk cousins is the same exact way i think i don't know if it's a difference between negative or positive but his recall on plays even after they just happened or 15 years ago is astounding and i remember reading this like in bruce arian's book about peyton manning where he could just recall everything so well and i think that's a hugely underrated part i was i was amazed because now we know the answer so you got to go back and look for what was it that caused this when he did the gruden camp sit down most of those guys even your andrew lux even like your top top picks were pretty intimidated by John Gruden. And he sort of diffused Gruden with his personality pretty, pretty calmly.

And they had like a normal discussion, which is weird with John Gruden. And I just thought like, there's a relatability about this guy. And then, you know, people watch the Netflix documentary. You and I both know how, like how that's put together. And it's's you know to make all the guys look good mariotta couldn't make himself look good in that no matter what but i think there's something there to that as well like i that when you're talking about being a leader that even if you're a part owner in another you know sports team in town that you have so much

money and so much fame but yet to be the guy in the locker room that it doesn't seem like it's that way. There just seems to be part of that as his personality. Yeah. I mean, there's certainly, you know, it's, it stands out, I think to your teammates when you're the guy that raises your hand first, you know, Patrick Mullins actually said after the last week's game that nobody was pointing fingers except for all of his teammates said he came to the locker room and said, I'm going to stop BSing in this game.

And it's like, well, he was pointing fingers basically at himself. But I think what it leads to is you don't make the same mistake twice very often. You know, before his first season as a full time NFL starter, they played a preseason game against the Falcons and they were leading by the time he got pulled. He played almost half the game. Maybe he did play the entire first half. But the Chiefs offense didn't play very well. Nobody remembers that part. They remember a play where Patrick Williams threw the ball 59 yards in the air.

It was longer than anyone had thrown, completed a pass as far as the air yards, any pass during the previous season. And so I asked him this preseason, because he'd made another play as a rookie, even though it was Alex Smith still starting that year, that a lot of people remember too. And I said, which one is your favorite, most memorable play from the preseason? And he said, actually, it was an interception I threw in that Falcons game. And I said, why, why that play? And he said, well, because he had, it was, it was just a go route basically to Sammy Watkins. And he was told if Sammy Watkins cuts in, he was on the right, his right side is Sammy Watkins cuts inside the

cornerback. Don't throw it to him because the safety is going to come down and pick that off. He's got to get outside the cornerback gets Gets inside the cornerback, he still throws, it gets intercepted. So that play happens in the Super Bowl that same year and a half later. So we're talking 16 months later. Andy Reid has called that play for the first time in 16 months. Sammy Watkins again cuts inside the cornerback, and Mahomes is flashing back to this. Well, last time when he did this, I threw an interception. He throws it over his right shoulder,

and that is the play where he beats Richard Sherman down the sideline late in the fourth quarter that sets up their go-ahead touchdown. And so it's not just like a cool anecdote that these guys remember this sort of thing. You mentioned Cousins as well. Like they apply this stuff in games. And he applied it at the biggest, to that point, in the biggest moment of his life to help him win, again, at that point, the biggest game of his life. See, this is where I am journalistically jealous because these things become lore, right? Like they happen in games and the intellect of these players

or however you want to talk about it is so high to play in the NFL for a lot of players. And so when they win, they want to tell you about it. And when they don't, they don't want to talk too much about it. But that's super interesting. And I think it really is this intersection of so many different skills to create in a lab this quarterback. However, as we get into this game, Vikings and Chiefs, U.S. Bank Stadium, it's not just that Mahomes has looked a little bit human this year.

It's that the Chiefs have. And that's not to say they're not good because they're definitely good. And when you can win a game where the other team has played better for a lot of the game and still find a way to win, it probably means that you're good. But when I look at their receivers, it's just this is different even from having sure they have anything here and I don't know how much a quarterback can do to elevate them to a great great offense I think you could be good without good wide receivers but I don't know if you could be great and to me unless some of these guys develop and we just haven't seen a whole lot from someone like Sky Moore you know we saw all the drops against the Lions and so forth I don't know that they're as scary as they would have been even just last year. Yeah, so there's some complications going on.

First of all, I mean, the Chiefs are still third in the NFL in yards. And again, like almost all of today's press conference with both Andy Reid and Patrick Holmes was about offensive struggles. And that's the gist of the questions that i asked too the wide receivers i was one of the guys that said i don't think the wide receivers are going to be a problem you mentioned juju smith schuster he averaged 40 yards per game in his last 11 games in kansas city um they lost mccall hardman the chiefs were 11 and one without mccall hardman last year those were the two guys i lost and they did spend a second round pick on rashi rice um cadareous tony you thought could get better in year two the problem is what you mentioned is

with a guy like sky more now it's been a year and a half that he's been with the with the chiefs and so the next steps have to happen at some point travis kelsey is also turning 34 this month and so he's their number one wide receiver he lines up off the line of scrimmage on 60 percent of his snaps at least outside the tackles and so I think at some point yeah I mean Travis Kelsey is going to cease to be the the best tight in the league and therefore you're going to rely on these other guys to catch up and that's what they're going to have to do is they're going to have to catch up and what teams are doing against them I'm interested to see if Minnesota does this because Brian Flores does not typically do this. But they've been running tons of zone against them because what the Chiefs do against zone is they basically give their wide receivers options.

They don't just say, go run to this spot. They say, stop here if it's a zone. Keep progressing on this because they like to run what they call good-versus-all plays. It's only good-versus-all if the wide receiver recognizes what it is. And what teams are basically banking on is that the Chiefs' inexperience will prevent the quarterback and wide receiver from being on the same page. And to me, it's disappointing that Sky Moore hasn't yet gotten to that next level because now he's had adequate time. I do think Rashi Rice is the problem solver eventually, but I think that allows the Chiefs to have some reason to believe that week 18 will look different than week four

because they are operating with a really young group, and I don't think their problem is talent. I do think it is being on the same page with the quarterback and you can't cheat time on that it's going to actually take the time and look I mean Travis Kelsey said it took him a year and a half to be able to run his own stuff with Patrick Mahomes and if it took that guy a year and a half to be able to know what Patrick Mahomes was seen on a play it's going to take some of these other receivers, you know, that and then some. Yeah, it will be very interesting to see how Brian Flores approaches this,

because I think that everybody knows that if you blitz Patrick Mahomes, if you don't get home, which most of the time you don't, like then it's just all sorts of problems and you have a one-on-one coverage everywhere and you can make plays out of structure what the Vikings have been doing interestingly is kind of blitzing but also playing a lot of two deep safeties and trying to keep things in front of them which is why opposing teams in the last three games have an 80 completion percentage but also it's been a lot of short stuff and Justin Herbert has you really, really did that to them.

But even Bryce Young had some completions on quick and short passes that had some success against this defense while the Vikings were playing so aggressively. Also, I'm not so sure that you have to play aggressively in a blitzing style when Jawan Taylor plays for the other team. Oh, wait, I'm getting word that he has been flagged eight times since we've been talking. So that's going to be tough. I've never seen a player get penalized this much,

and the Vikings had a guard a few years ago who couldn't stop jumping offside or false starting. But that seems to be the center of the issue here, and with the Vikings getting Marcus Davenport back to pair with Daniil Hunter, I think if there's one advantage the Vikings have on defense, and it's the only one, it's that their edge rushers are a lot better than Kansas City's tackles. How does Kansas City solve this problem? Well, I do think it's the quick stuff.

And you actually saw that last week in New York was, first of all, Patrick Williams from our buddy at Sumer Sports, they put out data on his scramble percentage, and he is almost doubling his career norms in the amount of times he's scrambling. But it's actually twofold. I think most people would look at that and say, well, the offensive line is really struggling. It's a combination if he's not finding guys open downfield, so he's taking off with his legs.

So what the Chiefs did in New York is the second-to-last drive after they'd had a few not go their way, they threw a bunch of shortstop. Patrick Mahomes completed seven straight passes, and I didn't check the air yards on the pass, but the longest completion was like 10 yards. And so they just eventually said, let's just get it in the wide receiver's hands. And I mentioned Rashi Rice. That's where he's really good, once he catches the ball if he does catch it he's he's had a problem with drops he did in college he's had a problem with drops during his NFL career but he's really good after the catch because he's sort of this bowling ball I seek out contact kind of receiver so to me I think it sets up well for the Chiefs if the lessons they learned from last

week are something they're ready to apply this week. And look, for three years now, teams have been begging Patrick Mahomes not to go deep. And if another team, if you say that they're also playing, I knew they were doing a lot of blitzing because I checked those numbers, but I didn't know that they were still playing too high so frequently while they were blitzing. That'd be a really good combination for the adjustments the Chiefs have made, but it's a mental thing for them. They don't always like to apply those adjustments.

I mean, I think both of Patrick Holmes' interceptions last week were just playing I'm bored with not being able to throw the ball where I want to throw it. Yeah, and last week it was a little different from the too high stuff. That was a lot against Herbert. Last week against Bryce Young, they brought Harrison Smith to the line of scrimmage on like 70% of plays because they had no belief that Bryce Young could beat them deep.

Obviously, they're going to feel differently about Patrick Mahomes. So I'm expecting that they play a little bit more like they did against Herbert. And the reality of that game was when I went back and watched, it was just Justin Herbert played incredible football, which we know that Patrick Mahomes is capable of, but his Keenan Allen is Travis Kelsey in this case. And how do opposing teams on a week to week-week basis when you watch them try to take away kelsey and why are they never truly able to do it i'm stunned that there's not more double teams um you know he does get chipped a lot at the line of course but i'm just stunned that they don't

stick with more double teams there was a game in patrick holmes rookie year in the afc championship game when the patriots beat him. And Bill Belichick shut him out for the first half. Now, the Chiefs scored 31 in the second half. But in that first half, they just said, well, Travis Kelsey's not beating us. You're going to have to make somebody else beat us. And like I said, the Chiefs had to have a regroup at halftime before they finally solved it. I'm stunned that there aren't more teams that are doing that.

I will say looking up the numbers as far as how teams do against wide receiver ones, wide receiver twos, threes, and then tight ends, like the Vikings defend tight ends it seems like pretty well, at least in the first opening month. And on the flip side, I'm sure we'll get to that, but Matt, the Chiefs have defended ones twos and threes really well they have not defended the tight end well at all and so that's that's i think both tight end matchups are interesting for that reason because if the vikings are able to take away at

least a little bit of the chiefs tight end where do they go and then how much can the chiefs do to slow down you know i think the best tight end that they've faced so far this year. Yeah, and I think from the Vikings' perspective, that's probably personnel-based because the only good tight end they went up against was Dallas Goddard, and the Eagles ran for 260 yards that day. So they really didn't need to throw the tight end very often. But it's kind of been the case that outside of Carolina,

whatever works for the opposing offense they're able to do against the vikings defense and so this has certainly shootout potential if the vikings can perform offensively and it's been it's been very rocky for them even though you know kirk cousins numbers are extremely good there's been this quarter this half where it's up, where it's down, which has kind of been a staple of him, but maybe more to the extreme yet, whenever they need it, they have the universe's greatest wide receiver. And as you mentioned, TJ Hawkinson has not gotten off to a great, great start, but is a tremendous weapon for them.

And surprisingly, the offensive line outside of one guard position has been a major plus which means more opportunities for kirk cousins in clean pockets so the matchup to me where this all can change is chris jones versus the vikings interior offensive line this is the biggest mismatch in my mind on the entire field is chris jones back to being like freaky scary chris jones after missing the first couple of weeks here or the of training camp i mean those those weeks of training camp yeah i mean i think chris jones made the argument for why none of us need to travel an hour and a half north to saint joseph every every preseason uh to cover training camp um i was

stunned at how how good he was in jackville his first game. Now he played less against the Bears. They got it off to a big lead. I think they saw it as an opportunity to rest him. He did have a sack against the Jets on a Hail Mary play. I thought he was still less effective in that game. And the Jets offensive line is one he also should probably take advantage of. But Chris Jones is like the entirety of the Chiefs defensive line production. Even there are other guys that get, you know, some sacks. George Karloff is a second-year guy. Mike Dana, end of his rookie year deal this year.

But there are guys that feed off of Chris Jones getting double teamed out of every play. So even when Chris isn't effective, he still is allowing everyone else to play one-on-one and Steve Spagnuolo loves to blitz and he loves to do it in a different way cornerbacks blitz a lot for the Chiefs off the edge Trent McDuffie, LeJarrius Sneed so I think you'll see quite a bit of that this weekend and but you mentioned that wide receiver I mean I think every team in the nfl that faces justin jefferson's going to be saying hey we're playing the best wide receiver we played

this year but it really stands out with the groups that the chiefs have played like this is far and away the best guy that the chiefs best combination i should say that the chiefs will face because they did face garrett wilson a week ago with zach wilson thrown to him right so you've got a capable quarterback and that talent at wide receiver. The Chiefs have left their cornerbacks on an island a lot this year. And I don't think that's a guy you can, you know, have LeJarrius Snead just guard one-on-one so frequently. Folks, this fall season is an unbelievable time for sports.

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I've seen teams try to do everything and anything against Justin Jefferson and nothing works, nothing. I mean, the only time that a team slowed him down really effectively was when the turf at Lambeau field was really slippery and Jair Alexander could get him at the line of scrimmage because he didn't have the right cleats on. Like that's what it takes for Justin Jefferson to not have dominant days, which I think is also speaks to Kevin O'Connell's ability to draw up opportunities for him. But the thing that's going on with the Vikings, at least that as of this moment, and this could change this weekend, is that it's still the Justin Jefferson offense,

and it's not Justin Jefferson and friends, like they kind of drew it up. The running game improved for the Vikings the last two weeks. We'll see how that goes. Those are spotty from week to week. But it has really not been a complete effort, which I think if there's an opportunity for kansas city to take advantage it's can you survive the big punches from justin jefferson and force somebody else to be the answer

for the vikings you know patrick malmes actually had a really good compliment about justin jefferson today he said um that he's deceptively physical because the the way he catches the ball. He'll put his body anywhere to try and be – to stave off a defender or just put himself in the best position to make a catch. And so just a lot of guys don't want to have that kind of contact at the point of the catch. But with the Chiefs, you know, teams have gotten them in the past few years with a run, and we haven't seen that as much this year. And so I think, you know, if the Vikings do struggle to run the ball,

that's why the Chiefs' defense has been really good for the first opening month of the season, is they've sort of solved their Achilles heel. But one of the reasons they've done that is Trent McDuffie, his second-year cornerback, is playing at a Pro Bowl level through the first month. He's actually Pro Football Focus's highest-rated cornerback through the opening month. LeJarius pro football focus is highest rated cornerback through the opening month.

The Jerry Sneed's always been a very adequate. He's either a really good number two or, you know, a borderline number one cornerback. And so their cornerbacks are winning and they're getting more numbers in the run game because of it. I do think Nick Bolton will come back this week in Minnesota to play in Minnesota. He's missed the past couple of weeks there, you know, the second leading tackler in the NFL last year.

But I wonder if the Chiefs – Steve Spagnuolo usually has too much pride than to send extra bodies at a star wide receiver. He infamously got beat by Jamar Chase two times in three weeks because he left him single covered a lot. And I just don't think this is a guy you can let do that, especially with what you mentioned that they've struggled to get other parts of their, their offense going.

But it's just not really his style to double team a number one wide out. So I think that's probably the most intriguing part of that Vikings offense chiefs defense matchup. I could tell you that they're going to need to, it can't take one. I mean, truly I wrote a piece, a couple of,

I guess it was last week about Jefferson's fearlessness, that there is nowhere you can put the football where he won't go up and get it. Like we talk about over the middle and how, when we were growing up, you could just murder the wide receiver, but it's still scary to go full speed at 20 miles an hour over the middle and how when we were growing up, you could just murder the wide receiver. But it's still scary to go full speed at 20 miles an hour over the middle knowing you could get popped. He does not care.

And Kirk was talking today about how he can throw it into spaces knowing that Jefferson has body control. And if you look at what he did on his touchdown last week, that he can alter his body and he will go to places that other people can't to catch the football the one guy cannot handle that it doesn't really matter who it's been i i haven't seen anyone outside of that game of jair alexander shut him down there was a weird jeff akuta game against the vikings uh in week two last year but i think they committed like eight penalties in order to do that. So maybe that's, that's part of the strategy. As far as this game goes in the meaning to the Kansas city chiefs, another week, not that way for the Vikings though, for the Vikings at one in three, two of the next three weeks, they're playing Kansas city and San Francisco.

They need to upset one of those teams to get to the softer part of their schedule. I don't think there's any sort of, well, this team wants it more, Sam. That's why they'll win. But, you know, kind of a dynamic there that's worth noting, that the Vikings are super desperate in this game. And I don't know how they're feeling in Kansas City. Maybe they're mad at themselves for not winning good enough or something. What's the state?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, first of all, we fight over who's writing about the quarterback almost every game. But this particular game, I am interested to see just how the quarterback responds to the worst we've seen him play, I think, since that AFC championship game that he faltered in the second half against the Bengals. I hadn't seen a game like that from Patrick Mahomes, and I thought since then,

which is, what, a year and a half ago. I mean, he's played 20-some games since then, and so I'm always really interested in the mental aspects of the game for the reasons we talked about earlier. I think we know what this quarterback can do. How does he play when things aren't going well? I think there's a reason he comes back end game so frequently that he's got a better than 500 record when he falls behind double digits. He's pretty mentally resilient. But this was a full game that didn't look great.

And he basically lost his fastball and decided, well, I'm going to throw the curveball and just use my legs to go win the game, which was how they milked the clock to the final drive to seal that win against the Jets. But he's bouncing back from, you know, like I said, when I talked to the third string quarterback for a reason, which is I'm guessing that film session wasn't a lot of fun for him. But the history says that this guy plays his best coming off his very worst and I think most teams you'd say well this guy's slumping this is the time to get him most players most teams and I just think this guy can sometimes be the opposite and so that's certainly I think the

most intriguing part again the quarterback's always the most intriguing part of this team but I think there's extra reason for that to be the case sunday gosh that's really something i mean that is really something the guy has one mediocre game still wins i mean kirk did the same thing last week didn't play well against carolina and we all kind of went like okay well you know there's one that you know there's one that he didn't play well and it's ironic that the Vikings are one and three and they won the one where he didn't play well and lost the ones where he did I guess the QB wins people at least for today can have that one but so I assume that you're expecting Kansas City to win you must always expect Kansas City to win right yeah I mean the the tough part is always picking them against the spread every week more than actually picking the wins and losses.

Even when you do the schedule before the season, you feel like, well, you can't pick them. They're not going to go 17-0, right? I think 14-3 is kind of the ceiling that any team in this day and age can probably go. And you're sort of picking, like, where are the three losses in this schedule? They're favored in every game before the season started. Their closest line was actually one in New York. That was when Aaron Rodgers was supposed to play

that game. That line winds up being eight and a half. So yeah, I mean, it's tough on any individual basis, the cliche one game at a time, to think that the Chiefs are going to lose. I do think more so, as what you said, Matt, is that I do think there's that the Chiefs are going to lose. I do think more so is what you said, Matt, is that I do think there's reason to believe it's going to be high scoring. I think there's reason to believe that, look, I mean, whether or not this Chiefs defense is real is so far been opponent driven. And this will be the best offense that they've seen since, since week one against the Lions. They haven't played, you know,

the Jaguars offense is struggling. The Jaguars' offense is struggling. The Bears' offense is terrible. The Jets' offense is terrible. It'll be their first test in a month to see where their defense is at. And the Jaguars were like a couple of toes away from a few more touchdowns in that game as well. All right, last thing for you, Sam. So you grew up in Kansas City city and uh that must have been

around the 90s it's kind of my era of growing up in football you want to talk about some 90s kansas city chiefs what a great history i mean the the montana the kimball anders the marcus allen and then you get a second sort of run there with the trent green era you said you were talking to the number three quarterback that had to to be Damon Heward, right? Maybe Brody Croyle mixed in. Who was your favorite growing up, Kansas City Chiefs? You know, those teams were just so different than what this team is. And I don't mean just in terms of success.

I mean, those teams had the best defenses in football, and it was can the offense get to 20. And so, you know, I mean mean you mentioned those players you mentioned but like i i remember watching a lot of steve bono games and a lot of elvis gerbach games and they were just great in the regular season defense carried them and you know they'd lose by missing field goals in the playoffs so they lose by you know three or four points in the playoffs but um, you know, there was no player I thought was more exciting to watch than Derek Thomas. I mean, they were on the number one. He was on the number one defense. And, you know, I mean, it was cool to see Derek Thomas was back on the football news this week because Khalil Mack was one sack shy of tying his seven sack in one game record. But man, the guy just, I've always thought that an edge rusher coming around the edge to get a quarterback is a pretty exciting NFL play because they're, they move too well and

bend too well for their size. And Derek Thomas, I think was one of the origins of that. I think Derek Thomas was kind of like our Lawrence Taylor, where somebody who, when he would sack the quarterback, it wasn't just that he got there and he took them down. It was a different look to it. Like you're saying, it wasn't, it's like Randy Moss didn't just catch passes. He caught them in a way. And the thing for derrick thomas getting sacks i also love neil smith on

the other side so you had the the nose thing on neil smith and he was on one side derrick thomas on the other got james hasty back there i mean there those teams were really something and i remember like one of my early memories was them beating houston in the playoffs with joe montana there was a i think it was monday night football game montana versus elway montana leads the game-winning drive and still to this day though isn't it funny they still don't have receivers like tyreek hill pops in you know okay here there but for the even back then they didn't have good wide receivers they were they were constantly running that old pro set with the two backs and then just throwing these little checkdowns

and maybe completing an eight-yard pass. And they got DeBerg, Bono, Gerbach, all to the playoffs just running that stuff. It was crazy. Yeah, and then like you mentioned, I mean, when you get to the Trent Green era, they have the number one offense in the league. I mean, their offensive line was as good as the offensive

line there's probably been in football history. I mean, there's Hall of Famers galore on that offensive line. And so Priest Holmes is scoring 30 touchdowns in a season. You know, Trent Green breaks a lot of franchise passing records. But even then, you're missing the number one wide receiver still. You know, Tony Gonzalez is basically the number one wide receiver in those years. But I think a lot of people that probably grew up in that era would talk about Dante Hall being one of their very favorite players to watch. One of the truly magnificent special teams players I think could be a local town's favorite player on a team.

You know, Dante Holland and Devin Hester are probably on a short list. But still, until this guy got here, everything was pretty consistent once it got to the playoffs, which were home or yarn home games, sometimes yarn buys in the playoffs. But the victories don't come with it until number 15 gets here. Will Shields and Willie Rofe combination. Oh, my God. Brian Waters, Ed Gard, and then John Tate was a first-round pick. I mean, their offensive line was, like I said,

about as stout as an NFL team has had. Yeah, a really, really fun history for that team. So I, they're, they're one I get excited about talking about, you know, what, what they've gone through to get here at this point and all the fun players along the way. So Sam McDowell, this has been fantastic. People can follow you at Sam McDowell 11 on Twitter and your pin tweet, by the way, people should go check this out. You talk to people who intercepted Patrick Mahomes in high school for a story at the Superbowl. One of my favorite stories of last

year. So go to your Twitter page, check that out. And, uh, I will see you this weekend, man. Excited to have you up here. It's going to be great. You're like 50 degrees. Yeah, I will say I am looking forward to it because, um, I have heard like terrific things across. It's funny. You talked to so many beat writers in this business, and there's a lot of good conversation about that stadium in Minnesota. And, you know, I mean, NFC opponent, so you consider you're probably only going to get up there every eight years or so. So I am looking forward to just seeing the venue, I feel like, as much as anything.

Not that it won't be great to see you in person, but really the stadium. The stadium has to top the list, right? All right. Fair enough. They have ice cream at halftime and everything. So you'll have a good time, but I'm excited to have you up. We'll see you soon. And thanks for all the time and really appreciate it. Absolutely. Enjoyed it.