Kansas City Chiefs May Be NFL's Best, If What We Saw Sunday Is Who They Are

TAMPA -- Either the Kansas City Chiefs are the NFL's wildest roller-coaster ride -- answering one terrible dip with a sky high flight into breathless orbit -- or they are tremendous trouble for the rest of the NFL.

Because what we saw during Sunday night's convincing 41-31 whipping of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a 2021 Super Bowl rematch was a statement.

Everyone in the AFC West and, indeed, the entire league must notice, because it could be scary for them.

If the Chiefs are this team that seemingly toyed with the Bucs for a while, taking significant leads before allowing rallies that were numerous enough to keep everyone's interest but never too serious to actually threaten, then this is the best team in the entire league right now.

(Sorry, Philadelphia Eagles).

TAMPA, FLORIDA - OCTOBER 02: Mike Evans #13 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is tackled by Rashad Fenton #27 of the Kansas City Chiefs during the second quarter at Raymond James Stadium on October 02, 2022 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images)

Kansas City Is An AFC West Best 3-1

Just consider what the beaten Bucs had to say about their superior opponent late Sunday night:

"They had their best game of the season," Tampa Bay receiver Mike Evans said.

"We did get our butts kicked, hats off to them ..." Tampa Bay coach Todd Bowles said. "They played harder, they played better, they played tougher..."

Even Tom Brady, who has almost as many Super Bowl rings as fingers and isn't giving up on adding more, had to look across the field to counterpart Patrick Mahomes and marvel.

"Patrick played great," Brady lamented.

The Buccaneers were not merely being good sports. They were accurately describing what they saw.

Patrick Mahomes Has Thrown 11 Touchdowns And Just 2 Interceptions

Mahomes, for example, had this otherworldly play in which he scrambled out of the pocket, did a pirouette to avoid one tackler, rushed up to the line to gain and flipped a touchdown pass to Clyde Edwards-Helaire as two more tacklers were bringing him to a stop.

"The NFL hasn't seen anything like Patrick Mahomes, I promise you that," Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce said. "He's the Houdini of our era."

The game's statistics raise the volume on those words.

Kansas City scored 28 points against a Tampa team that had allowed 27 points all season. And KC did that in the first half.

The Chiefs converted 12 of 17 third down plays for an astounding 70.6 percent conversion rate.

KC's goal-to-goal efficiency was 100 percent on three tries. Their red zone efficiency was 83 percent.

These are unheard of numbers against bad teams. The Chiefs did this against a good Bucs squad led by arguably the best quarterback of all time.

"Listen all in all when you get all three phases working in the right direction it's a good for you it's a good thing," Chiefs coach Andy Reid said, "and tonight was a good thing."

Bounce Back Game

The small problem with all of this is the Chiefs rose to these heights from, well, some significant depths. Last week, Kansas City lost to the Indianapolis Colts, 20-17. It was a huge disappointment losing to a team that hadn't won before and hasn't won since.

"We stunk it up last week. We all knew that," Reid said. "We admitted it to you. We didn't play the way we should play. Not that the Colts are not a good football team, you don't do the things we did and expect to in the football game."

TAMPA, FLORIDA - OCTOBER 02: Tom Brady #12 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers throws a pass against the Kansas City Chiefs during the first quarter at Raymond James Stadium on October 02, 2022 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Reid's Been Chiefs HC Since 2013

Multiple players said Reid's response to that outing was to "challenge" the team to meet certain standards in practice last week. And you can guess whether these guys answered rose to the challenge.

"I feel like when coaches challenged us at the beginning of the week from what you guys saw last week, there was an attention to detail throughout practice that we have to maintain throughout the entire season because that was showing exactly how much we were focused throughout the week," Kelce said.

"Patrick knew exactly where to go with the ball. guys running routes knew exactly when the ball was coming to them and on top of that the O-linemen played their tail off."

Yes, impressive. And if this is the Chiefs finding themselves and getting ready to hit their stride, well, watch out.

"Sure enough," Kelce added, "we got the guys who can make any play on the field. And when you see us fly around and play for each other like that, we know we're a hard team to beat."

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