Matt Smith here. receiver room that's been depleted by injuries, but they need a big target. Mahomes needs somebody that he can trust, someone that he can go to that's just not going to be Travis Kelce getting double and triple teamed the entire time. I think it's going to be a little while before Dehop picks up the entire offense, but by all accounts, he has an incredibly sharp football mind. Justin Reid talked to us today and just couldn't stop gushing about just how smart of a football player it is, isn't it?
His football IQ. So you've got to feel at least comfortable that he's going to be able to pick up elements of the offense to be able to make a contribution immediately. But his style of receivers, this team needs it badly right now. Well, when you think about Kareem Hunt coming in, replacing Pacheco, you think about DeAndre Hopkins coming in, essentially trying to take up some of the targets from Rashee Rice. How do you think this offense is going to progress being that they're pretty much middle of the road like they were last year? Yeah, that's been the perplexing thing is just that you've got Patrick Mahomes and you feel like that the offense should be turned right along, but they have some difficulties. They have a left tackle spot that's not completely secured down yet. Donovan Smith was a good stop gap last year, but they've got a rookie and a second year player in Kingsley Suomadia and Wanya Morris that have been going through there.
And I don't think there's any doubt. Patrick Mahomes has probably had one eye on the protection there in the back of his head and trying to look downfield at the same time. And I will say, I think that Mahomes has been showing a different side of himself the last couple of games, showing more comfort as far as just making more authoritative throws and the turnovers are reducing a little bit. I think there's signs that things are picking up, but like you said, when you've got one guy that you can trust to throw the football to in Travis Kelsey, because everybody else is hurt, he's going to get double and triple teamed. And then you need somebody who can win match-ups and right now nobody has been doing that. So that's where D-Hop comes in, but you're right. I mean, the addition of Kareem Hunt's been huge too, because obviously this Chiefs team faces a lot of light boxes and Kareem has been proving that, hey, he can get two yards in a cloud of decimals, pretty much any play.
He still has at least that in his bag of tricks. Matt Derick is joining us, covers the Chiefs for the Chiefs Digest. You mentioned Patrick Mahomes and some of the issues around him. Football is such a crazy sport, especially sometimes statistically. The fact that Mahomes has six touchdowns to eight interceptions, people are looking like he's having such an awful, terrible year.
I still see the same guy working with less weapons with an undefeated record. What are your thoughts on what the numbers look like versus what's taken place on the field? Yeah, that's one of the remarkable things about Mahomes is that, and I think you can say that about a lot of the superstars on this Chiefs team, they really don't care about the personal numbers that much.
You'll hear Chris Jones joking about facts and sometimes it's half joking because he definitely wants to go to the Hall of Fame one day and he'd like to be defensive player of the year this year. But Mahomes and Chelsea and these guys, they only care about one number and it's wins. So Mahomes really doesn't care about his own stat line as long as the team is winning. And you've certainly seen that because I don't think that he has been down or anything regarding his numbers.
He doesn't seem to be in a funk or anything of that nature. He talked about how last year was harder for him, that it wasn't maybe as much fun just because the offense was struggling. But they also weren't winning at the same clip that they were used to during the regular season. This year, they were 6-0, so there's not any desperation around this team of how does the offense fix itself because they're completely convinced that once everything gels, once they figure out the left tackle situation, once this receiver group gets some more experience and gets more comfortable, they feel like that just like last year. If it takes until January before they find fifth gear, they have absolute complete confidence that they're going to do it. So the fact that they're kind of muddling along right now is of zero concern to this team because they still feel like they can throw that gear on when they need to. Matt, you mentioned Chris Jones, who no longer, he can no longer use the name Stone Cold, right? I think the bald-headed guy came after him, right? You know, I think Chris has always even preferred probably the CEO of SAC Nation instead, but you know, fans will call him whatever they want to call him.
I hear that. Well, we know that that defense that he helps lead, last year they came in second and still early enough in the season. Right now, they're fifth, still one of the best defenses in sports. How did they transform this defense, letting go some of the veterans and trades and Tyreek Elby and gone to bring in some new talents?
Yeah, you know, you look at Lagerius Snead and obviously he was a huge part of that defense, but you look at every single level and this team has leaders and big time performers. I mean, obviously Chris Jones is not just one of the best at his position, but one of the best players in football. And honestly, even though defensive linemen, whether it's the tackles or ends, they're measured by sacks, but I will tell you from watching him week in and week out, I think this might be the best football that Chris Jones has ever played.
I mean, just, he gets the focal attention of the other defenses each and every week, and yet he just absolutely continually destroys offensive lines week in and week out. You talk about the Chiefs run defense in particular, which has been so good. They haven't given up more than 58 yards to a team's best running back this year, helped Derrick Henry to I think 45 yards in week one. Their run defense has been ridiculous.
And you know, that starts with Chris Jones in the middle. It continues up the middle with Nick Bolton at linebacker. When you've got Justin Reed at safety, if and when a running back gets to that next level, you're good there. But you know, and Chris Jones, when I asked him about this last week, he made a point to, you know, to point to Trent McDuffie and Jalen Watson, Tamari Conner, you know, the corners that play on the outside and in the slot because they're all tough, hard nosed tacklers too. McDuffie in particular is, you know, not afraid to get in there and try to hit a ball carrier and pop the ball loose. He's had quite a few forced fumbles in his career. Jalen Watson, just as tough as it seems like Lageria Snead was. Now, they're going to have to play without him for a while, but Tamari Conner's got that same attitude as well. So the fact that they've got guys every single level of the defense that plays hard and plays tough and tackles, I think that's a big part of why his defense seems to work. That Derek is joining us here on the J.R. Sportbreeze Show, beat writer at chiefsdigest.com with the addition of DeAndre Hopkins. We've seen what Xavier Worthy can do as he still figures things out. What do you expect to see from him?
He was basically gifted to the Kansas City Chiefs by the Buffalo Bills. What should we expect from him kind of moving towards the second half of the season? Yeah, I think there's there's two things that they in particular would like. I mean, one would be obviously to be able to connect more on the deep ball. They've taken a few shots. They've had a couple of hits, not as many shots downfield as they would like to take and not as many connections. Mahomes overthrew him last week.
A couple of weeks ago, he under threw him. But we have seen, especially the last couple of games, Mahomes has not been afraid to just absolutely gear up and throw the ball as hard and as far as he possibly can because he realizes he can throw the ball 60 yards and Worthy can go get it. So I think you're going to see some of those in the second half of the season when when they're able to set some teams up and take some shots downfield.
I'm not sure there's a single defensive back in the league that can keep up with Xavier Worthy. So he can be open 60 yards downfield on any particular play when he wants to. But they also would love to be able to get him more involved in the short passing game, intermediate passing game. If they can find him and get him more in rhythm, getting the ball in space, he's a real mismatch. It's tough to get him down once he's getting the full speed in the middle of the field. And you certainly have seen them use him on some of their patented reverses and jet sweeps. They've been taking advantage of him like that.
But they would love to be able to get the ball to him beyond the line of scrimmage in space and see what he can do. Oh, man, I found it, I don't want to say comical, but the fact that Rasheed Rice went down and there was no confirmation seemed to be a good thing. And there were so many, you know, kind of conversations bandied about about a potential return at the end of the year.
And I kind of scoffed at that. What are your thoughts? He's done. We won't see him this year, right? Is that safe to assume?
Yeah, it's definitely safe to assume. The only really good news about it was that, you know, it wasn't an ACL tear. That was what, you know, what you're normally saying here's an ACL, you instantly know that's for the season.
We'll see you next year. In this case, either the ACL was intact and it was the LCL, which is a lot more common ligament that gets that can get to get get torn up in there. But what they weren't sure of until they did the surgery was just how much more damage was in there.
And it was more on the worst case scenario side. So, you know, Andy Reid told us that it's not an ACL, but it's going to be time you've rehab lives similar to an ACL. So I'm not expecting to see Rasheed Rice back, you know, probably off at Bowfield until training camp. And even then he might not be 100 percent at the beginning of training camp.
Matt, final question for you. This is a team looking to make history. The Kansas City Chiefs are. Are we looking at a three peat? Is that the most likely outcome given what we've seen in the NFL so far?
I think it's definitely a plurality. I think you got to make them the favorite. I can't tell you that, you know, there's a 50 percent chance or better because I think there's still a lot of teams in the NFL that are really good. The Ravens are playing better football than they did in week one when these two teams played. But I felt after watching that week one game, I thought these are the two best teams in the AFC.
So I think we're going to see them again in January. We'll see if the Ravens can finally get past them. And I think there's a couple of good teams in the NFC. Right now, I mean, I think it's going to be a Chiefs-Lions Super Bowl. And I think that could be a really good matchup.
Oh, absolutely. Sign me up for it. We got a lot of great teams, a lot of teams looking to get over the hump and also in the process knock the Chiefs off the top of the mountain. Matt, where can people follow you and all of your work with the Chiefs Digest? If you go to Chiefs Digest, you can go from there to all the articles, everything on our YouTube channel at Chiefs Digest as well. Also the social media.
So you just go to chiefsdigest.com. You'll get it all there. Amen. Great conversation. You enjoy the ride. OK, we'll catch you down the line. I appreciate it. Sounds great, my friend. Take care.
