Denver Broncos: AFC West rankings after one week
1. Kansas City Chiefs (won vs. Los Angeles Chargers 38-28)
Patrick Mahomes’ career against the AFC West is off to a heck of a start.
He beat the Denver Broncos in week 17 of the 2017 season, and started off 2018 by putting a royal beatdown on the Los Angeles Chargers and Philip Rivers.
Perhaps picking the Chiefs to be a major ‘faller’ this season was a bit premature.
Mahomes was very solid in his first start of 2018, throwing for 256 yards on 15 completions (27 attempts, 55.6 percent) with four touchdowns. Andy Reid’s system simply could not be stopped in this one, but the Chiefs have a weapon in Tyreek Hill who looks like perhaps the most dynamic and dominant all-around weapon in the NFL.
Hill caught seven passes and racked up 173 total yards of offense with two receiving touchdowns, and added 95 punt return yards with a third touchdown on special teams.
The guy is absolutely crazy when it comes to making big plays.
It’s hard to imagine the Chiefs will be able to achieve this kind of production every single week, but for now, we have no reason to think they won’t. They didn’t even really need Kareem Hunt to beat the Chargers by a healthy margin, as he only touched the ball on 16 plays.
Travis Kelce also caught just one pass in this game.
Next. How all three phases performed against Seattle. dark
It was such a stellar performance by Tyreek Hill that everything else is getting overshadowed. The Chiefs’ defense broke down a little bit in the fourth quarter, allowing the Chargers to climb back into the game a little bit, and they finished with just one sack despite the margin they led by for the majority of the game.
There are still areas to improve, but the Chiefs looked like a tough customer with a road win in Los Angeles to open the season.