The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 17-9 on Sunday, at EverBank Stadium. It was the Chiefs' third victory against the Jaguars in ten months, thanks to two touchdown passes from Patrick Mahomes, including one to star returnee Travis Kelce.
Story Of The Game:
Mahomes completed 29 of his 41 attempts for 305 yards. To increase KC's advantage to 14-6, he found Kelce all by himself in the end zone.
To celebrate, Kelce punted the ball into the stands after missing the first game due to a hyperextended knee. In total, he caught four passes for 26 yards from nine targets.
While Kelce caught four catches, Isiah Pacheco carried the ball 12 times for 70 yards. And after a somewhat nightmare-like Week 1, Skyy Moore recovered and led Kansas City with 70 receiving yards and a touchdown on three catches. While Kadarius Toney, who had a lot of drops in the first game, finished with 35 yards after successfully collecting all five of his receptions.
But Kansas City's victory was not very clear-cut not by a long stretch and it wasn't all plain sailing for the Chiefs who struggled offensively for a large portion of the game and committed numerous mistakes and errors. Right tackle Jawaan Taylor was responsible for five of the Chiefs' 12 penalties, totalling 94 yards. And ended up getting benched for a drive. Three turnovers were made by Kansas City in the first half as well, but they managed to pull off a win despite their sloppy start.
Also, some good news for the Chiefs on defence was defensive tackle Chris Jones, Jones put in a player-of-the-game performance as he started his first game of the season. Jones who watched on from a suite at Arrowhead Stadium as KC lost the season opener to the Detroit Lions last week, returned to the line-up after a holdout that lasted through the preseason and into Week 1 was the big news of the day. Last Thursday, Jones and the Chiefs reached a new agreement on a one-year contract.
The four-time All-Pro returned without any symptoms of rust. Jones led the Kansas City defence with 1.5 sacks, two quarterback hits, a pass deflection, and a tackle for loss. Together, the Chiefs only managed to lose 271 yards of Jaguars offence on 4.2 yards per play thanks to four sacks on Jags quarterback Trevor Lawrence.
With the win, the Chiefs avoided becoming the first Super Bowl champions to start 0-2 since Denver in 1999.
As for the Jaguars, well they barely showed up in their home debut, despite insisting all week that they owed the Chiefs for a defeat in the AFC playoff divisional round in January.
The club coached by coach Doug Pederson got off to a poor start once more, failing to capitalise on two of its three errors, and had trouble shielding quarterback Lawrence.
The Jaguars had chances to defeat the reigning Super Bowl champions. But the Jaguars had trouble becoming effective offensively. Jacksonville went 0 for 3 in the red zone, went 3 of 12 on third downs, and failed to score a touchdown. Travis Etienne ran for 40 yards on 12 attempts while Lawrence completed 22 of his 41 throws for 216 yards. The Jaguars' premier wide receiver, Christian Kirk, caught 11 catches for 110 yards. In contrast, Calvin Ridley only caught two receptions for a total of 32 yards. While Lawrence, routinely overthrew his receivers and lacked good judgment.
In Week 3, Kansas City, which is now 1-1, will host the Chicago Bears. While the Houston Texans will visit the 1-1 Jaguars on Sunday.