KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Headed into the bye week, the Kansas City Chiefs are on a four-game winning streak and did not lose a game in the month of November.
Much was made about the defensive side of the football earlier this season when they were giving up historically large numbers to opposing offenses.
So despite beating the New York Giants, Green Bay Packers without Aaron Rodgers, and the Las Vegas Raiders, they welcomed their biggest test and the leagues best offense to GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday and held them to single digits.
“That’s the number one offense in the National Football League and I just thought our defense brought it every snap, in particular our defensive line against a heck of an offensive line,” head coach Andy Reid said.
Defensive tackle Chris Jones was the star of the night with 3.5 sacks, a fumble recovery and a pass deflection that led to the game winning interception by L’Jarius Sneed.
“It’s never how you start it’s how you finish. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. You are going to go through adversity along the way,” Jones said. “We went through adversity. We had a lot of guys hurt. We were rebuilding the chemistry back on this defense and getting guys healthy.”
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes gave his team’s defense credit for keeping the offense in it during a slow start to the season and fighting through comments talking about how bad they were.
“It got lost because the offense wasn’t playing very well, that we were winning games because of the defense,” Mahomes said. “People were so used to our offense kind of going out there and putting up these numbers, but I would say it every week when I was right here at the podium, don’t lose how good our defense is playing. To go up against an offense like that, that has put up so many yards, so many scores and touchdowns and to shut it down, that’s impressive.”
Mahomes even took to Twitter letting his teammates Jones and Tyrann Mathieu know they were appreciated.
“Whole defense went crazy! I been trying to tell these people the last few weeks!” He wrote in response to a tweet by Mathieu praising Jones.
“We can beat the Cowboys and they are going to say the Cowboys are off and they didn’t have their top receiver. Every week we have something coming. It’s okay, it’s a little bit of adversity. It’s good for us. It’s a challenge,” Jones said. “We hear it. We still suck. We can use that as a building point. We can continue to build as a defense, as a team, build chemistry and continue to put up points and win.”
The Chiefs will now get a long rest before welcoming division rival Denver Broncos on Sunday, December 5 in the start of a three-straight division games.