The Chiefs have their annual “who can Mahomes throw the ball to?” problem…
while the Saints need to get back to their early season form, and fast.
Offensive Struggles Highlight MNF
What Happened: The storyline of tonight’s Saints vs. Chiefs Monday Night Football showdown centers around each team’s offense. Both teams started the season in good places (great, in New Orleans’ case) but have hit rough patches that don’t have easy fixes.
Why It Matters: We don’t typically associate the Patrick Mahomes version of Kansas City with 17-10 wins, but that was last week’s outcome. Just as Rashee Rice was establishing himself as a no.1 wide receiver, the speedster suffered a knee injury of still-unknown severity. With Isiah Pacheco down for the next 6-8 weeks and Travis Kelce showing signs of aging, suddenly Mahomes has precious few reliable answers in the huddle. He’s Patrick Mahomes, so he’ll probably make it work, but this unit is already struggling (relative to expectations) and that may continue for a few weeks.
Of course, no one thought the Saints would average 45 points a game for the season, but after scoring 91 points through Week 2, Dennis Allen’s team has managed just 36 points in two subsequent losses.
Kansas City’s 4-0 record really has been powered by its defense, while the Saints have allowed just one opponent to score 20 points. If the Chiefs are a little lucky to be 4-0, and the Saints a little unlucky to only sit at 2-2, tonight’s game might just be a course correction that ends in an upset.
What We’re Watching Today
Tigers at Guardians (4:08 PM ET) – Detroit is down 1-0 to Cleveland, and if it has any hope of avoiding a sweep, today is the day to get in the W column. Tigers ace Tarik Skubal gets the nod, and the lefty was excellent in his first postseason start, blanking the Astros for 6.0 innings in a Game 1 Wild Card Series win. He’ll need a similar effort today to give his team a shot of hope.
Royals at Yankees (7:38 PM ET) – Game 1 went to the Yankees in a back-and-forth affair. The question is, was Kansas City’s takeaway that the Yankees are a superior team after erasing three separate Royals leads? Or that the Royals gave a game away and have every reason to believe they can win this series?
Saints at Chiefs (8:15 PM ET) – The Chiefs look to stay undefeated. The NFL’s only 5-0 team so far? As everyone predicted, the Minnesota Vikings. Kudos to the Commanders for improving to 4-1, something exactly zero people in the world saw coming.
The Look Ahead
Xavier Worthy ANYTIME TOUCHDOWN – The former Texas Longhorn showed off his versatility in Week 1, scoring his first career NFL TD via an end-around. He found the end zone again last week on a 54-yard bomb, and his usage should tick up with Rashee Rice sidelined and the KC running game sputtering in recent weeks.
