Week 11 concludes south of the border in luxurious Mexico City with an AFC West matchup between the bizarro Chiefs and the insane Chargers. Neither of these teams have been able to stay out of their own ways this year, incredibly on-brand 10 weeks through the year. The Chargers throttled Green Bay in Week 9 only to turn around and blow a game in Oakland on a short week, leaving their playoff hopes on life support. The Chiefs tread water through the Mahomes injury, and decide to completely lose their minds down the stretch against Tennessee and blow a game in which they had over a 98% win expectancy with under 2 minutes to go.
That Chiefs loss has completely mind fucked me about this team. To have the other 52 guys gel over three weeks without the MVP, only to completely ruin all the goodwill built up in a span of 110 game seconds. So I’m not really sure where to gauge the Chiefs. The defense looked much improved against Aaron Rodgers and Kirk Cousins, only to get eviscerated by Ryan Tannehill? We know what we are getting in the offense. Everyone is healthy, Mahomes is still around, they’re as close to a guaranteed 28 points as we’ve seen this decade. A top 5 offense in both YPP and 3rd down conversion rate, if there’s one nit to pick about the offense its their red zone play calling. Ranked 27th in red zone conversion rate, KC has only managed to convert 47% of their entries. The problem for opposing defenses remains that the “red zone” for Mahomes is the entire field. Defensively, the Chiefs have also been confounding. Is this the team that slowed down Green Bay and Minnesota? Or the unit that let the Colts and Texans run for 700 yards over two games?
For the Chargers, things are looking bleak. The quintessential Jekyll and Hyde team, the Chargers now get the joys of surrendering a home game and get to travel to altitude to take on the fastest receiving corps in the NFL. If the Chargers are going to have a chance in this game, they’re going to have to be on point offensively. The Chiefs have had chances to bury the Colts, Texans, and Titans early, and failed to do so each time. If the Chargers can weather the early storm, we know Reid and the Chiefs are just as susceptible to barfing all over themselves as they are. We have a chance to see some truly stupid football tonight. Also similar to the Chiefs, the Chargers are excellent at sustaining drives, ranking top 10 in both YPP and 3rd down conversion rate. They also are in the bottom quarter in red zone conversion rate. The Chargers have been right around league average defensively as well. I’ll be looking for a lot of big plays from KC tonight, and Los Angeles is going to have to either follow suit or play keepaway from Mahomes. Both the Colts and Texans beat the Chiefs by taking the air out of the ball, giving Mahomes only 3 possessions in the 2nd halves of their games.
Not going to play any games with the Chiefs defense tonight. I expect them to score in bunches like they typically do, and to wear out LAC as the game goes on. The Titans loss was one of the flukiest I’ve seen in a long time, for sure the weirdest of the Mahomes era. So tonight I’m just going to focus in on the Chiefs getting off to a hot start, and for the MVP to take care of business on his end of the field.
Picks
- Chiefs 1h TT over 13.5 -130
- Mahomes long completion over 40.5 -110 (.5x)
- Mahomes over 314.5 yards +100
Season Record
- 16-31 -12.3x
