“The Chiefs are Back!!!” - Rich on Mahomes’ Return & KC Running Roughshod on the Broncos

Rich opened the show with a take he was not sure qualified as an overreaction, and then spent 10 minutes proving it does not.

The Chiefs are back.

Back in the sense that Patrick Mahomes is running it and throwing it again. Back in the sense that Steve Spagnuolo is dialing up a defense and sending evil your way. Back in the sense that there is yet another young cornerback out there who is going to pick you off. Back to drawing up plays that look like they came out of the Calvin Coolidge administration, the kind where Mahomes and Justin Fields line up in three point stances and the ball ends up flipped to Kenneth Walker. Back to Travis Kelce running the length of the field.

And back, inevitably, to everyone on social media insisting the officials are in the bag, pointing at the hold on the Mahomes touchdown and the hold on the Kelce run. Even the desk conceded one of those looked pretty egregious.

They are also back in first place in the AFC West, with all due respect to the Raiders, whose opening win came outside the division. Kansas City beat Denver, the Chargers lost at home to Arizona and looked dreadful, and the Chiefs looked like the team that won Super Bowls.

The one genuinely new ingredient is the running back.

Kenneth Walker III goes by K9, because his first name starts with a K, he wears number nine, and he has the dog in him. His last two games are the stuff of legend. The first made him a Super Bowl MVP and a hot free agent, which is when Seattle decided to let him walk.

The question that followed him to Kansas City all spring and summer was whether it mattered. Great, you signed with the team that does not run anybody. Mahomes has not had a 1,000 yard rusher since Kareem Hunt. Will Andy Reid actually commit to the run?

Rich had the answer ready and enjoyed delivering it.

Walker ran for 173 yards, a career high. That is the most rushing yards in a game by a Chief since Jamaal Charles, and the most by any Kansas City back since 2012, which is to say before Andy Reid arrived. Reid is in his 14th season there now, as many as he spent in Philadelphia. Walker's 23 carries were his most in a regulation game since Week 7 of 2023, when he was a second year player.

Then there was the 60 yard run that ended the game, on fourth down, because they went for it.

"That was a sick run," the desk agreed.

Reid, asked about the commitment to running it, gave the most Andy Reid answer available.

"You never know going in how many times you're going to give them the ball. That's not a calculated thing," Reid said. "You got to be making yards, and for him to play the way he did I thought was spectacular. It was something you hope for and you got to see it, where he was the main guy there. And did a great job with it."

Rich did not buy the aw shucks framing for a second. The first 15 plays are scripted, and Walker got the ball seven times in them, including on a fourth down.

That fourth down invited an unflattering comparison, which Rich apologized for making and then made anyway. Dallas opened its season with fourth and inches deep in its own end and declined. Kansas City's was in Denver territory, and the Chiefs not only went for it, they put a defensive lineman in the game for Walker.

It also came off a turnover. Three snaps into the night, Mansoor Delane, the first round pick out of LSU taken in a top 10 spot where Kansas City rarely drafts, picked off Bo Nix. The play had a cost. Delane hit the ground untouched, got up, and was tackled by Courtland Sutton, leaving the game with a shoulder injury.

Mahomes took it from there, running one in that came back on a penalty before running it in again, which produced its own round of complaints. It did look like Kelce got a nice grab of somebody on the way in. That is the Chiefs way of doing things.

So the three questions going into the season all got answered on one night. Could the new kid play corner with Trent McDuffie sent to the Rams? Would they commit to Walker? Can Mahomes still run it? Check, check, check.

The defense was the other half. Rich went off on a tangent about whether coordinators belong in the Hall of Fame, noting Dick LeBeau made it but got in as a player, with his coaching work helping push him over. Spagnuolo, in his estimation, is awesome.

The contrast with Dallas came up again. The Cowboys could not get a pass rush on Jaxson Dart, a mobile quarterback with good backs around him, which describes Bo Nix reasonably well too. Kansas City got after it. R Mason Thomas, the rookie out of Oklahoma, had two pressures and a sack. Peter Woods added a pressure and a batted pass. Nix never seemed to have a clear throwing lane.

The most improbable piece of it was on the other side of the ball. Rich did not think Mahomes would survive against a defense that had 68 sacks last season, not with Josh Simmons out at tackle and Khalil Benson, undrafted out of Indiana, filling in. Benson allowed no pressures on 34 pass blocking snaps.

Mahomes, for his part, was mostly relieved to be playing at all after the knee.

"I've done so much rehab and so much work to kind of put myself in this position. I just wanted to get out there and play," he said. "Whenever I didn't play my best football, we still were able to go out there and beat a really good football team pretty well. And it's because the guys around me stepped up and knew they're going to have to help me as I get back into the rhythm of things."

The line was 15 of 27 for 184 yards, ugly in the first half and much better in the second. Mahomes was happy to explain who kept it afloat in the meantime.

"I told y'all literally first press conference, y'all were asking what's the difference in our offense, and I said K9. It's just that simple," Mahomes said. "The way he's able to run the ball, catch the ball. It's a special ability to run the ball tough between the tackles, and then when he does bounce it, he has the speed to go all the way."

What happens next is where Rich started doing math out loud. The Colts come to town Sunday night, still sleeping off the Derrick Henry nightmare, and now they get K9. Then Miami and Vegas before the bye, and Vegas is essentially a home away from home, since they won a Super Bowl there.

So the Chiefs could conceivably start 4-0. After that it is the Chargers at home, Seattle on a Sunday night, a chance to sweep Denver to open November, then the Jets at home and a trip to Atlanta.

"It's amazing how Week 1 winning can start setting you up for a run."