TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 D3
professional footballASSOCIATED PRESSPatrick Mahomes didn’t mind
taking a back seat to rookie Clyde
E dwards-Helaire and the Kansas
City Chiefs’ running attack.
With the Buffalo Bills working
hard to limit deep throws by
Mahomes, he k ept handing off
the ball and Kansas City won,
26-17, on Monday night in Or-
chard Park, N.Y., in a game that
was originally scheduled for last
Thursday.
“We want to go down and
throw these long touchdowns,”
Mahomes said. “But if teams are
going to play us like this, we’ve
got to show we can run the
football.”
Led by Edwards-Helaire’s 161
rushing yards, the Chiefs fin-
ished with 245 — the most since
M ahomes took over as the starter
in 2017. Kansas City’s 46 rushing
attempts were also its most in
eight years under Coach Andy
Reid, and that was with newly
signed Le’Veon Bell waiting to
make his debut after signing
with the Chiefs on Thursday.
Mahomes finished 21 for 26
for 225 yards with two touch-
downs, both to tight end Travis
Kelce. His first touchdown was
the 90th of his career in his 37th
game, breaking the NFL record
for the fewest games to 90 TD
passes. Hall of Famer Dan Mari-
no had held the mark at 40
games.
The Chiefs are 5-1 for the third
time in f our seasons, and t hey
bounced back from a 4 0-32 loss
to the Las Vegas Raiders on
Oct. 11.
Buffalo (4-2) lost its second
straight game. The Bills fell,
4 2-16, at Tennessee on Tuesday, a
game that was moved because of
a novel coronavirus outbreak on
the Titans. That led to the Kansas
City-Buffalo game being pushed
back as well. The Chiefs, who
were originally scheduled to play
three games in 11 days, wound up
having two more days of rest
than the Bills.
The game was played in an
empty stadium because of state
coronavirus regulations.
Buffalo’s defense sold out to
prevent Mahomes from going
deep but proved vulnerable
against the run.
“We felt we did well limiting
them from taking it off the top,
but the run game’s just another
part of their game, and they
executed it well,” safety Micah
Hyde said.
The Bills were undone by
allowing the Chiefs to convert
nine of 14 third-down chances,
two of them on a 12-play, 75-yard
drive that ended on Harrison
Butker’s 30-yard field goal with
1:56 remaining.
During that drive, Buffalo’sJustin Zimmer stripped the ball
from Edwards-Helaire at the
Kansas City 30. The play was
ruled a fumble on the field, but
that was overturned after replays
showed Edwards-Helaire’s knee
was down.
Two plays later on third and 11,
Mahomes scrambled out of trou-
ble and hit Byron Pringle for 37
yards. Mahomes then ate up
more clock with a nine-yard
scamper on third and seven.
“Frustrating, just because we
feel like as a defense we’ve got to
find a way to get our offense back
on the field,” Hyde said. “We had
to get a stop, and we didn’t.”
Buffalo’s run defense had its
worst outing since giving up 273
yards in a loss to New England
on Dec. 23, 2018.
The Bills’ Josh Allen finished
14 for 27 for 122 yards with
touchdown passes to Stefon
Diggs and Cole Beasley.
Chiefs tackle Mitchell
Schwartz, who started his 134th
straight game, did not return
after the first series because of a
back injury. He has the longest
active streak among offensive
linemen.
Kansas City w ide receiver
Sammy Watkins did not play
after hurting his hamstring last
week.
l CARDINALS 38, COW-
BOYS 10: Kyler Murray account-
ed for three touchdowns in his
first game back home as a pro,
and Ezekiel Elliott set up the first
two Arizona touchdowns with
fumbles as the Cardinals beat
Dallas in Arlington, T ex.
Murray, the speedy quarter-
back who won three high school
championships and a Big 12 title
at the home of the Cowboys,
improved to 7-0 as a starter at
AT&T Stadium, throwing for two
scores despite a rough start a nd
rushing for 74 yards and a touch-
down.
It was the “Monday Night
Football” debut for Murray, a star
in high school football-obsessed
Texas while playing in the Dallas
suburbs, and Kliff Kingsbury,
who also had a happy first trip to
his native Texas as an NFL coach.
Fired after six seasons at Texas
Tech in 2018 without any win-
ning records in Big 12 games,
Kingsbury was hired by Arizona
soon after and has the Cardinals
(4-2) tied for second place in the
NFC West.
Andy Dalton had the rest of
Dallas’s four turnovers with two
interceptions in his first start for
the Cowboys in place of the
injured D ak Prescott.
Elliott’s miscues led to the
fifth straight game in which the
Cowboys (2-4) trailed by at least
two touchdowns.
The two-time rushing cham-
pion was benched briefly after he
lost a second fumble in a game
for the first time in his career. He
already has five fumbles (four
lost), which is just one shy of his
career high for an entire season.NFL ROUNDUPGround game guidesKansas City to a victoryCHIEFS 26,
BILLS 17Philadelphia, but it was another
victorious performance that left
questions after they nearly
allowed the Eagles to steal a win
late.
Don’t count out the 49ers yet.
It has been a nightmare season
for the defending NFC
champions. San Francisco lost
defensive end Nick Bosa, who
may be its most important player.
A high-ankle sprain knocked out
quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo
for 2^1 / 2 games and compromised
him in another. Injuries have
diminished almost every other
part of the 49ers’ roster, too.
Entering Sunday night at 2-3,
they seemed headed for a season
defined by rotten luck and a
hellish Super Bowl hangover.
But Kyle Shanahan’s ability to
build an offensive game plan is
second to none. The 49ers may
have lost too much high-end
talent to be considered a Super
Bowl threat, but they won’t be
easy to dethrone in the NFC, as
their 24-16 victory over the Los
Angeles Rams showed.
Garoppolo is not fully
recovered from his injury, but he
played a wonderfully efficient
game, completing 23 of 33 passes
for 268 yards and three
touchdowns with no
interceptions. A t 3-3, the 49ers
have plenty of work to do, but
they’re not going away quietly.
[email protected]Newton was spectacular for the
first three weeks, but after the
layoff, the Patriots’ offense
frequently bogged in the same
manner as last year. Newton
repeatedly held the ball too long
as plodding skill position players
failed to get separation
downfield. He took four sacks
and threw two interceptions.
The Steelers are separating
themselves in the AFC North.
The Cleveland Browns’ string of
impressive performances and
their 4-1 record turned their
meeting with the undefeated
Steelers into a showdown, the
kind of anticipated game
Cleveland rarely plays in. The
Steelers made quick work of
serving notice that the Browns
may be improved but are not on
Pittsburgh’s level.
The Steelers thumped the
upstart Browns, 38-7, to run their
record to 5-0. Browns
quarterback Baker Mayfield may
have been compromised by a rib
injury, and he left early after
absorbing vicious hits. But the
performance cemented that, for
all of Cleveland’s improvement
under first-year coach Kevin
Stefanski, the Browns still occupy
a secondary tier in the division.
They have now lost to the Steelers
and the Baltimore Ravens by a
combined score of 76-13.
The Ravens improved to 5-1
with a 30-28 victory overtook the lead again, lost it again,
stopped a two-point conversion
attempt that would have iced the
game, scored a touchdown with
four seconds left to force
overtime and let Derrick Henry
take control on the first
possession to win.
So it was a typical Titans game:
They made mistakes, their
offense was incredible, and they
ultimately found a way to win by
bullying their opponent. Henry
ran for 212 yards, 94 of which
came on one touchdown run, and
caught two passes for another 52.
He scored the game-winning
touchdown on a direct snap as a
wildcat quarterback.
Through six weeks, which have
included more than 20 positive
coronavirus tests by players and
staffers, the Titans have validated
their march to the AFC
championship game last season.
The Patriots have a fight on
their hands. After a punchless
1 8-12 loss to the Denver Broncos
dropped them to 2-3, the New
England Patriots are under .500
in October for the first time since
2002 , the year after their f irst
Super Bowl title. They are
suddenly facing a significant
challenge in trying to make the
playoffs in Year 1 post-Tom Brady.
Because of his positive
coronavirus test and related
postponements, Cam Newton
had not played since Sept. 27.The dominant
o n-field story line
of the 2020 NFL
season, for most
every team aside
from the New York
Jets, remains the supremacy of
offense. Scoring had erupted over
the past several years owing to a
combination of rule changes,
schematic innovation and
strategic advancement. The
conditions of football in a
pandemic — limited crowd noise,
fewer full-contact preseason
practices — have only
exacerbated the impossibility for
defenses.
Sunday was not an outlier for
this season, but it was
emblematic of how NFL football
is played in 2020. If you don’t
score, you don’t win. Of 12 games
Sunday, the winning team scored
at least 30 points in seven. Teams
entered Week 6 averaging 25.7
points per game, the record by
more than two points. On Sunday,
teams scored an average of 22.9
points per game, even with the
Jets’ contribution of zero.
For defenses to have a chance,
they can find an example in the
marquee game of the day and
Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive
coordinator Todd Bowles’s group.
The Green Bay Packers shredded
Tampa Bay on their first two
drives, but on the third, safety
Jamel Dean picked off Aaron
Rodgers and returned it for a
touchdown. The Bucs never
looked back in a 38-10 victory.
Pick-sixes are not necessarily a
sustainable solution, but Dean’s
play is instructive. Offenses are
too good for defenses to win
conventionally. Defenses must
make their own big plays, either
by taking the ball away or getting
sacks to halt drives.
They could also have the good
fortune of playing the Jets. Here
is what to know:
The Titans are a powerhouse.
A handful of teams can stake a
claim as the best in the league.
One of them, as much as many in
the league would hate to admit
after their questionable
adherence to novel coronavirus
protocols, is the Tennessee
Titans.
The Titans improved to 5-0
after a wild, 42-36 overtime
victory over the Houston Texans,
placing them among the
Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle
Seahawks as the league’s final
undefeated teams. The Titans
built a 21-7 lead in the second
quarter, watched it disappear,
Titans, Steelers rise in the AFC as the Patriots tumble
On the
NFL
ADAM
KILGORE
WADE PAYNE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Titans running back Derrick Henry racked up 264 total yards and two touchdowns against the Texans.everybody, and that’s what it
was.”
Brady needs to be allowed to
pick and choose his moments. He
has to function more as a
complement, but he can still be a
star while doing so. Arians is
beginning to figure out the ideal
mix there. The Bucs can still get
more out of their running game.
Everything is coming together,
including the health of their
receiving corps. After penalties
and undisciplined football got
the best of them against Chicago,
they responded by not being
charged with a single penalty
against Green Bay for just the
second time in franchise history.
“I can’t say that I’ve ever been
in a ballgame with no penalties,”
the 68-year-old Arians said.
During two decades in New
England, Brady experienced
plenty of moments in which
Boston-area teams fed off one
another and turned the region
into Titletown, U.S.A. So Tampa’s
hot streak in sports must feel
familiar. Perhaps he has been the
good-luck charm. He signed with
the Bucs near the start of the
nation’s long, difficult battle with
the coronavirus. For Tampa, he
was the first major victory.
Since his arrival in March, it
seems the city can’t lose. Include
the entire region of central
Florida, and it goes down as the
epicenter of sports during this
time. The NBA retreated to
Disney World, near Orlando, to
finish its season. The WNBA
hosted its campaign at IMG
Academy in Bradenton. Throw in
the Lightning, the Rays and the
NFL’s greatest active legend
joining the Bucs, and you can’t
even think about sports without
focusing on central Florida.
And Tampa is still scheduled to
host Super Bowl LV. At the
unlikely new epicenter of sports
drama, the crazy dream of Brady
and the Bucs headlining the party
is gaining legitimacy.
[email protected]For more by Jerry Brewer, visit
washingtonpost.com/brewer.moment. Whether it was a
mistake or just a silly controversy,
the freak occurrence took away
from the bigger picture: Overall,
Brady has been really good this
season. His statistical
productivity is close to his prime
numbers. His remaining talent
flickers from time to time, and
instead of being asked to cover all
of his team’s warts, he needs his
team to pick him up on occasion.
The beatdown of Green Bay
provided an example. Brady was
solid and careful with the
football, completing 17 of 27
passes for 166 yards and throwing
for two touchdowns without an
interception. Ronald Jones II
rushed for 113 yards, Gronk went
Gronk for the first time this
season, and the defense owned
the day. That’s far more
encouraging than winning
because Brady threw for 369
yards and five touchdowns. He
did that against the Los Angeles
Chargers two weeks ago, but if
Tampa Bay expects that regularly,
it is not a formula for consistent
success, not at this point in
Brady’s career.
“First and foremost, it was a
great team win,” Jones said.
“Coach said it was going to takecontender in the NFL, and a
truncated offseason made that all
the more impossible. Tampa Bay
had to commit to a process. A
3 4-23 season-opening loss to New
Orleans reinforced the notion.
Now, you see a team that keeps
learning from the season’s hard
lessons. You see a team that keeps
developing while managing the
scrutiny that comes with the
spotlight Brady provides. To
become a legitimate Super Bowl
contender, a squad must be able
to grind and evolve, and during
the learning process, you want to
see flashes of excellence that start
to last longer as the year
progresses. Undoubtedly, this
was the first great spike of Tampa
Bay’s season. A championship
run will require several more.
“Certainly, there are things we
can do better than we did,” Brady
said. “And we’re going to keep
working at it.”
Just a week ago, Brady was
dealing with humiliation. In the
closing moments of a loss to
Chicago, he seemed to lose track
of the downs, looking stunned
after an errant fourth-down pass.
Brady, Arians and the team
denied a gaffe. Still, he was
mocked for having an old mancivic pride as it pursues its first
MLB title.
But the city isn’t done thriving,
it seems. Six games into the
season, Brady and the Bucs are
improving at a good pace. What
matters most is how they’re doing
it: The entire team is growing
together. Brady is playing well,
not carrying everyone else. The
Bucs’ weaknesses are
diminishing. Their balance on
offense and defense is emerging.
Their methods seem sustainable.
While they aren’t yet as
formidable as other contenders,
they have significant potential,
and they are showing the
competence to reach that ceiling.
On Sunday, Tampa Bay
improved to 4-2 after its most
impressive victory of the season,
a 38-10 hammering of previously
unbeaten Green Bay. The
Buccaneers’ defense proved that
Aaron Rodgers and the Packers
aren’t unstoppable. They forced
Rodgers into his first two
interceptions of the season, with
Jamel Dean returning one for a
touchdown. Rodgers had thrown
13 touchdown passes and posted
a 128.4 passer rating in his first
four games, but against Tampa
Bay, he was 16 for 35 for 160 yards
and didn’t throw for a score. And
an offense that entered the game
averaging a league-best 38 points
— an offense that hadn’t scored
fewer than 30 points in any game
— faltered.
This was the kind of
performance that many assumed
we would see from the Bucs as
soon as the season began. But it
was going to take time. Brady
came south toting six
championship rings from New
England and determined to show
he can still play at 43. His new
team had a productive collection
of offensive weapons and an
accomplished offensive mind in
Coach Bruce Arians. Rob
Gronkowski even came roaring
out of retirement to join his
quarterback. Nevertheless,
there’s no such thing as an instant
BREWER FROM D1
JERRY BREWER
As Tampa Bay teams shine, Brady’s Bucs fit right in
MARK LOMOGLIO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Lightning won the Stanley Cup, the Rays are in the World
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