Double-digit deficits are barely a cop-out for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs

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Falling behind by double digits is usually the death knell for most NFL teams.

for Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City Chiefsit’s a situation that makes them thrive.

Mahomes and the Chiefs rallied from 14-3 down to win Denver Broncos 16-14 on Sunday to improve to 9-0, coming back from at least 10 points for the second time this season after doing so in Week 4 against the Chargers.

Kansas City improved to 19-14 with Mahomes at quarterback after trailing by double digits in the regular season or playoffs and posted a staggering .576 percentage in those typically dire situations, compared to a .139 mark in NFL history and a .160 mark since Mahomes entered to the NFL in 2017.

No quarterback other than Mahomes who has faced at least 20 double-digit deficits has won even 40% of those games, with Tom Brady (.378) and Joe Montana (.370) next on the list.

The Chiefs have a better chance of winning a game after trailing by at least 10 points with Mahomes at quarterback than teams in every game with multiple big-name defenders, including Hall of Famers Dan Fouts (.503), Joe Namath (.500) and Warren. Moon (0.493); former MVP Matt Ryan (.527) and two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning (.508).

Mahomes needed help with a blocked field goal to snap Kansas City’s 15th straight regular-season and playoff game, the longest streak in the NFL since Green Bay won 19 straight in 2010-11.

Kansas City is the fifth defending Super Bowl champion to start the next season 9-0 or better. With this week’s win in Buffalo, the Chiefs are off to a 10-0 start behind only the 2011 Packers (13-0) and 1998 Broncos (13-0) for the most consecutive wins to open a season for a defending champion.

New Yuk, New Yuk

The New York Jets and the Giants both played — and lost — on Sunday, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given how teams in the Big Apple have fared recently.

It marked the fourth time in five weeks that the NFL’s two worst teams in the past eight seasons both lost. The Jets lead the NFL with 86 losses since the start of 2017 — one more than their tenants, the Giants, have during that span.

Since the start of the 2017 season, there have been 116 weeks in which the Jets and Giants have played each other — barring two head-to-head games — with both teams losing 59 of those weeks compared to just 12 weeks in which they went 2-0.

There are many reasons for both teams’ underachievement, but the Giants’ 2019 first-round cornerback’s underdevelopment Daniel Jones and the lack of production from the Jets quarterback Aaron Rogers are high on the list.

Rodgers, 40, bears little resemblance to the back-to-back MVP-winning QB in Green Bay in 2020-21. After missing most of his first season in New York with an Achilles injury, Rodgers has been unable to elevate the Jets’ offense this season.

New York has gone without an offensive touchdown twice in Rodgers’ last seven starts — matching the total he had in 239 regular-season and playoff starts in Green Bay in which he played more than at least half.

Rodgers’ 33-straight regular-season and playoff starts without passing for at least 300 yards in a game is the third-longest streak of the past 20 years, trailing only David Garrard’s 39 from 2005-08 and Alex Smith’s 35 from 2005-09 .

Jones has been even worse, failing to throw a TD pass in six of 10 games this season. He joins Mike Glennon (2021) as the only Giants QBs in the last 20 seasons to have multiple games with at least two interceptions, no touchdown passes and less than 200 passing yards.

The pursuit of history

Ja’Marr Chase create a season for some players in just two games against Baltimore Ravens.

Chase followed up his 10 catches for 193 yards and two TDs in the first meeting between Cincinnati and Baltimore with 11 catches for 264 yards and three scores in Thursday night’s 35-34 loss.

Chase’s 457 yards are the most by a player in a single season against a single opponent, surpassing Art Powell’s 428 for the Raiders against Houston in 1963. Chase is the first player in NFL history to have at least 250 receiving yards and two TDs in two career games, also against Kansas City in Week 17 of the 2021 season.

Despite Chase’s historic performance, the Bengals lost both games because they couldn’t get a stop Lamar Jacksonwho had eight TD passes in two games.

The teams combined for 148 points, 1,541 yards and 17 TD passes in the two meetings. That is tied for the most TD passes thrown in a season series between two teams with Washington and New York Giants in 1962, and the third-most yards behind only San Francisco-Atlanta in 1990 (1,600) and Detroit-Green Bay in 2011 (1,583).

Happy Garbo

The story of jim garbo as a coach who transcended his role has moved to Los Angeles Chargers.

The Chargers have already surpassed last season’s win total with a 27-17 victory over Tennessee on Sunday, improving to 6-3 and giving Harbaugh his 50th career regular season victory.

Garbaugh reached the mark in his 73rd game as an NFL head coach. Only six coaches since the merger have accomplished that faster, according to Sportradar, including his older brother John, who picked up his 50th win in his 72nd game as coach in Baltimore. The fastest coach to 50 wins in the Super Bowl era was George Seifert, who led the Super Bowl champion 49ers in 1989 and won 50 of their first 62 games.

Garbo led San Francisco to a seven-game improvement in his first season there in 2011 and achieved similar success in college. Stanford improved by three wins in its first season, while Michigan made a five-win jump in its first year there.

The Chargers did so largely behind a defense that became the ninth team in the Super Bowl era to allow 20 or fewer points in each of the first nine games of the season. They are just the fourth team to do so since 1980, joining the 2013 Chiefs, 1999 Jaguars and 1990 Super Bowl champion Giants.

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