The Washington Post - USA (2021-11-22)

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 D5

nfl Week 11

BY JOHN WAWROW

orchard park, n.y. — Coach

Frank Reich and the Indianapolis

Colts discovered an easy fix to

their problems holding fourth-

quarter leads: Keep feeding Jona-

than Taylor the ball.

The second-year running back

set a franchise record by scoring

five times and took over the NFL

lead in both rushing yards and

touchdowns, in a 41-15 rout of the

unraveling Buffalo Bills on Sun-

day.

“When J.T. turns on the jets,

he’s gone,” tight end Mo Alie-Cox

said of Taylor, who scored on runs

of one, two, three and 10 yards

and a 23-yard reception. “Like the

one play at the goal line: I’m

blocking, and I just turn my head,

and I just see him flying through

the air like a superhero.”

All that was missing was a cape

for Taylor, who scored three times

in the first half as Indianapolis

built a 24-7 lead and finished with

a season-best 185 yards rushing.

The Colts have won five of six to

get back into the AFC playoff race.

Taylor helped ease the concerns of

a team that had squandered three

fourth-quarter leads this season.

“It meant a lot. I mean, that’s

something that we’re going to

have to do if we want to get to

where we want to go at the end of

the year,” Taylor said. “We’re going

to have to be able to put games

away in the fourth quarter. We’re

going to have to put points up.”

Taylor became the NFL’s first

player to score five touchdowns in

a game since New Orleans’s Alvin

Kamara had six rushing in a 52-33

win over Minnesota last Christ-

mas Day, and Taylor was the first

to do so against Buffalo.

The Bills ceded their lead atop

the AFC East, falling a half-game

behind — guess who? — New

England, which Buffalo will play

twice over the next five weeks.

Buffalo has dropped three of five

and hasn’t won consecutive

games since a 4-0 run ended with

a 34-31 loss at Tennessee on

Oct. 18.

Buffalo was undone by four

turnovers, with the first three

leading to Colts touchdowns.

“We’re a really good football

team when we don’t bite our-

selves in the butt. What we put on

the field today is not who we are,”

said Bills quarterback Josh Allen,

who threw two touchdown pass-

es, both to Stefon Diggs, and two

interceptions. “We need to do a

better job on all fronts. There’s no

way around it, but at the same

time, it’s not panic mode.”

If not now, then perhaps soon.

Buffalo has a short week before

traveling to play New Orleans on

Thursday night.

The win was emotional for

Reich, who has plenty of memo-

ries — good and bad — at Buffalo.

Last season ended for the Colts

with a 27-24 loss to the Bills in a

wild-card playoff game. Indian-

apolis’s 41 points Sunday

matched the Bills’ total in a 41-38

wild-card win over the Houston

Oilers 29 years ago — with Reich

at quarterback leading a rally

from a 32-point deficit, the big-

gest comeback in NFL history.

— Associated Press

Taylor sets Colts mark with five TDs

COLTS 41,

BILLS 15

REED HOFFMANN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire (25) was productive in his return from an injury Sunday, and after a slow start to the season, the Chiefs have won four straight and suddenly look alive as contenders.

BY DAVE SKRETTA

kansas city, mo. — The Kansas
City Chiefs had played so horren-
dously on defense earlier this sea-
son that the Dallas Cowboys and
their top-ranked offense might
have been confident they could
keep things rolling Sunday night.
Chris Jones and the rest of the
Chiefs made an emphatic state-
ment to the contrary.
Jones piled up 3.5 sacks while
forcing a fumble and recovering
one, and Charvarius Ward and
L’Jarius Sneed picked off Cowboys
quarterback Dak Prescott at cru-
cial points in the game, helping
the AFC West-leading Chiefs roll
to a 19-9 victory inside noticeably
raucous Arrowhead Stadium.

“We had a few rough weeks. We

had a lot of guys injured. It wasn’t

clicking,” Jones acknowledged.

“But when you take everything

into consideration, we were still

able to compete. And to have ev-

eryone back and build that chem-

istry, I think it’s a huge part of our

success right now.”

The defense helped bail out Pat-

rick Mahomes, who had 260 yards

passing with an interception and a

fumble. Clyde Edwards-Helaire

added 63 yards rushing and a

touchdown for the Chiefs in his

return from injured reserve.

“This entire season, there’s

been a lot of ups and downs for

everybody,” said Mahomes, whose

team is nevertheless 4-0 against

the NFC East and riding a four-

game winning streak into its bye.

“We’ve had games where we put

up a lot of points and played good

and games we haven’t and we still

found a way to get a win.”

Prescott was held to 216 yards

passing and two interceptions for

the Cowboys, though he was miss-

ing a whole lot of help.

Left tackle Tyron Smith missed

his third straight game with an

ankle injury. Amari Cooper tested

positive for the coronavirus on Fri-

day, and fellow wide receiver

CeeDee Lamb suffered a concus-

sion just before halftime. Running

back Ezekiel Elliott appeared to

tweak his ankle early on and fin-

ished with nine carries for 32 yards.

“We had a healthy 48 players

ready to play,” Cowboys Coach

Mike McCarthy said. “We had a

number of guys that couldn’t play

in the game. That’s the NFL. That’s

the course of a season.”

Micah Parsons was the biggest

bright spot for the Cowboys, forc-

ing a fumble and getting two more

sacks. The NFL’s highest-scoring

offense was held to 5 for 15 on third

down and 276 yards in all.

“I’m never discouraged but

pissed off, yeah, for sure,” Prescott

said. “Especially when you have an

opportunity to come out and play

against a team that’s been in the

Super Bowl the last two years, and

we had a chance to show what

we’re capable of. But this is a resil-

ient team that’s going to continue

to fight and get better, I can tell

you that.”

The Chiefs did the exact same

thing after a rough first seven

weeks that left them 3-4 and in last

place in the AFC West. They have

eliminated many of the turnovers

and penalties that hamstrung their

offense, and a defense that was his-

torically inept in September and

October has turned into a ferocious,

ball-hawking bunch in November.

Just ask Prescott, who spent a

good part of Sunday running

from it.

Mahomes followed up a

4 06-yard, five-touchdown per-

formance against the Raiders by

dicing up the Cowboys in the first

half. He led Kansas City on an

8 6-yard march that ended with

Travis Kelce taking a direct snap for

a touchdown, then led a 65-yard

drive a few minutes later that end-

ed with Edwards-Helaire’s short

touchdown run.

“Every week is a big-time chal-

lenge, and I’m talking about wins

and losses, these ups and downs.

Teams are favored, and they get

beat. It’s crazy,” Chiefs Coach Andy

Reid said. “We just have to keep

our nose to it and bear down and

take each game as it comes.

— Associated Press

Defense helps Kansas City complete a sweep of NFC East

CHIEFS 19,

COWBOYS 9

Reigning AFC champion

looking dangerous again

BY DAVE CAMPBELL

minneapolis — Much to Coach
Mike Zimmer’s consternation,
the Minnesota Vikings have
made quite the habit of these
white-knuckle, high-stress fin-
ishes.
All that experience must be
paying off. They deftly followed
the winning formula for beating
Green Bay by making sure Aaron
Rodgers was on the sideline —
and not on the field — at the end.
Greg Joseph made a 29-yard
field goal as time expired to give
the Vikings a 34-31 victory over
the Packers in a classic back-and-
forth game with their division
rivals and longtime nemeses.
“You know how they say, ‘Sun-
day is fun day?’ It’s not, at all,” an
exhausted Zimmer said after the
game was decided on the final
snap for a sixth time in 10 games.
The Vikings have won three of
those and lost three.
Minnesota is the only team in
the NFL this year to hold a lead of
seven or more points in every
game, and all but one of its games
have been decided by one score.

Kirk Cousins passed for 341 yards

and three touchdowns to help

the Vikings stay a step ahead of

Rodgers for most of the after-

noon.

“Hopefully going forward we

can kind of find our way to put

the forks in teams, put them

away when we have to, but we’re

still trying to learn how to do

that,” cornerback Patrick Peter-

son said. “I think continuing to

have these situations will contin-

ue to get us better.”

Rodgers threw four touch-

down passes, all on Green Bay’s

final four full possessions, ex-

cluding a kneel-down to end the

first half. All of those drives

covered 74 yards or more.

Rodgers finished 23 for 33 for

a season-high 385 yards for the

Packers. He was unable to prac-

tice much this week because of a

toe injury.

“It’s very, very painful. I got

stepped on in the first half, and

that kind of activated all the

symptoms that I was having,”

Rodgers said. “It’s going to be

another painful week next week,

and then hopefully I can get

healed up during the bye.”

Justin Jefferson had eight re-

ceptions for 169 yards and two

scores for the Vikings, including

a third-down catch against rook-

ie Eric Stokes that Cousins deliv-

ered for a 23-yard touchdown

while being decked on a blitz by

Darnell Savage. Dalvin Cook ran

in the two-point conversion to

make up for an earlier missed

extra point by Joseph.

On the next play from scrim-

mage, Rodgers threw a rainbow

to Marquez Valdes-Scantling,

who streaked past safety Xavier

Woods for a 75-yard score to tie

the game just before the two-

minute warning.

“Every play with this guy is a

fight. You just hope, when they

go down and score in one play,

that the offense can come back

and do what they did,” Zimmer

said. “So I was proud of them for

that.”

— Associated Press

Minnesota strikes last in seesaw bout

VIKINGS 34,

PACKERS 31

LEADERS

PASSING
CMP-ATT PCT. YARDS TD INT

Aaron Rodgers, Packers 23-33 69.7 385 40

Justin Herbert, Chargers 30-41 73.2 382 31

Kirk Cousins, Vikings 24-35 68.6 341 30

Colt McCoy, Cardinals 35-44 79.5 328 20

Ryan Tannehill, Titans 35-52 67.3 323 14

Joe Flacco, Jets 24-39 61.5 291 20

Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins 27-33 81.8 273 21

Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers 28-44 63.6 273 30

Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs 23-37 62.2 260 01

Tyler Huntley, Ravens 26-36 72.2 219 01

RUSHING

ATT YARDS AVG. TD

Jonathan Taylor, Colts 32 185 5.8 4

D’Andre Swift, Lions 14 136 9.7 1

Nick Chubb, Browns 22 130 5.9 0

Joe Mixon, Bengals 30 123 4.1 2

Antonio Gibson, Washington 19 95 5.0 0

Miles Sanders, Eagles 16 94 5.9 0

Justin Herbert, Chargers 9 90 10.0 0

Myles Gaskin, Dolphins 23 89 3.9 0

Mark Ingram II, Saints 16 88 5.5 0

Dalvin Cook, Vikings 22 86 3.9 1

RECEIVING

TARGETS REC YARDS AVG. TD

Justin Jefferson, Vikings 10 8 169 21.2 2

Elijah Moore, Jets 11 8 141 17.6 1

Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Packers 10 4 123 30.8 1

Darnell Mooney, Bears 16 5 121 24.2 1

Darren Waller, Raiders 87116 16.6 0

Davante Adams, Packers 87115 16.4 2

Tyler Lockett, Seahawks 44115 28.8 0

Keenan Allen, Chargers 13 9 112 12.4 0

Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, Titans 87107 15.3 0

Marquise Goodwin, Bears 84104 26.0 1