NFL: Chiefs roll over over overstrained Bengals

The Kansas City Chiefs (6-1) came to a never-ending 45-10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals (4-3) in Week 7’s Sunday Night Game. Patrick Mahomes and his Offense played superbly as usual, while the Defense against Andy Dalton and Co. showed perhaps their best performance of the season.

Before the Bengals knew it, it was already 14:0 for the landlords. Patrick Mahomes played a largely undisturbed defence that never really got into the game and threw two touchdown passes at Running Back Kareem Hunt in the first 17 minutes.

The Bengals gave a short sign of life in the middle of the second quarter – Andy Dalton found C.J. Uzomah for a 4-yard TD pass – but the Chiefs were not impressed. They added ten points to the break – Mahomes found a completely open Demetrius Harris in the end zone.

As if that hadn’t been enough, KC put a scoop on it after the break. They crossed 75 yards in seven plays and Hunt ran into the final zone this time. Only nine seconds later Dalton finally hit the final nail into his own coffin and threw a Pick-Six into the arms of Ron Parker. The rest of the game then ran under result cosmetics and statistics improvement.

The young quarterback of the Chiefs didn’t have a hint of a problem in this game. He could break out of the pocket at will and play out his strengths accordingly. With his three touchdowns he meanwhile set Kurt Warner’s record for most TDs in his first eight games (21). Mahomes consistently exploited every weakness of the completely overtaxed Bengal Defense and essentially took the game out of reach before the break.

That you usually don’t look good against the high-power openness of the Chiefs has become the norm in the meantime, even though what the Bengals have shown has sometimes looked very poor. But the fact that they can’t get anything straight against the probably worst defense of the league is not really possible. And this is where Dalton comes in. At the break he came on 118 passing yards – 110 of them went to A.J. Green. And at the latest with the Pick-Six in the third quarter to the interim 38:7 it was finally clear how this game would end. A pass that he simply must not throw, especially since none of his teammates had a chance to hit the ball.