The Kansas City Chiefs’ defense did its part in the team’s 21-17 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Week 11’s edition of “Monday Night Football.”
The Eagles, now 9-1, have the league’s best record. The Chiefs’ defense held the defending NFC champions to 238 total yards while sacking quarterback Jalen Hurts five times. But Kansas City’s offense turned in a third consecutive game without a second-half score — so the impressive defensive performance just wasn’t enough.
Defensive tackle Chris Jones — who registered two sacks and four tackles-for-loss — took a regretful tone after the game.
“A lot of good football we left out there,” he admitted. “[We’re] self-reflecting overall as a group. I think this is a growing moment for us as a team overall. It’ll give us a lot to look at to improve and get better on.”
Though he expects accountability to be a message in the week ahead, Jones declined to blame the defeat on the Chiefs’ offense.
“I’m pretty sure they’re going to pick it up,” he predicted. “We’ve got a lot of young guys. Like I said, a lot of self-reflecting right now — and being accountable. That goes around. We’ve got trust in those guys. We’ve got a lot of playmakers on this team — especially offensive-wise.
“I think we’ll continue to improve throughout the year [and] improve this week. Mental errors, whatever it may be — I think that’ll be the point of emphasis this week, and we’ll try to get it going next week.”
Though the Chiefs’ offense has struggled for most of the season, it has generally scored enough points that the team’s strong defensive performances have not gone to waste. So Jones is not prone to overreactions — particularly given the team’s past success under head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
“We’ve got a lot of hope in Pat Mahomes and Andy Reid and this offense,” Jones declared. “They’ve scored a lot of points. We never once doubt them. We always have their back. We always trust that if we get them the ball back, they’ll have an opportunity to score. I don’t think that’s going to change after one game.”
Speaking in the locker room, safety Justin Reid highlighted the shortsightedness of one side of the ball blaming the other — in spite of how well the Chiefs’ defense played.
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“This is a team game,” the defensive back reminded his listeners. “I mean, there’s the offense goes out and plays their game. The defense goes up to play their game, and we complement each other. Sometimes the defense is going to have some leaky yardage and we’re going to rely on the offense to go out and put some points up.
“Sometimes the offense is going to have to punt, and we’re going to rely on the defense to get the ball back to them. That’s why football is the greatest team sport.”
The Chiefs will have a short week before they travel to the desert to face the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday. Though sitting at 5-5, the Raiders have won two of three games since firing head coach Josh McDaniels and naming former New York Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce as interim head coach.
“Improvement, accountability, can’t drag it on,” noted Jones. “We’ve got a big division game coming up. [The Las Vegas] Raiders are a team that’s been on a roll since they got the new coach. We can’t hang our head on this — but we definitely can improve. We’ve got a lot of improving to do.”