Kansas City Chiefs vs. Jacksonville Jaguars Preview & Prediction | PFF

Kansas City Chiefs vs. Jacksonville Jaguars Preview & Prediction | PFF

Monday Night Football, we have the uh Kansas City Chiefs traveling to Jacksonville. With Jacksonville playing as well as they have been recently, specifically last week, I think this sets up to be a very fun one, especially for how well the Chiefs played against the Ravens last week. So, a fun and exciting one heading into Monday Night on Monday Night Football here in Jacksonville. Where are we starting with this preview though? We’re going to talk about the Chiefs offense having their breakout last week. And of course, a very loyal Jacksonville Jaguars fan mentioned to me that is their Jaguars defensive coordinator. It’s Anthony Campanili. I’ve been saying it wrong before that, but I watched so many games with the sound off that you know what, Trev, when you work in silence, you don’t hear anything. Um, so Anthony Campanili against Patrick Mahomes in this game. And I think what you get, and it’s the obvious story from the Chiefs offense this past week, the Xavier Worthy effect. Okay. You could just feel it when they were playing the Ravens. Yep. Deep shots or at least even the threat of deep shots changes the entire structure of the defense when you have a guy who ran the fastest 40-yard dash time of all time. And and when you look at this is going back to last year. Now, this is not just this year, Trev. This is the entirety of last year also included in this. So, a year plus of Xavier Worthy. When Xavier Worthy has been on the field, Patrick Mahomes 81.3 passing grade, 7.4 yards per attempt. Very solid stuff. When Worthy is not on the field, whether it just be has a few plays off or he was injured like the last couple games, 63 passing grade, 5.8 8 yards per attempt and his average depth of target for any pass when Worthy is on the field is a full yard greater than it is with Worthy off the field. So when you look at just the worthy effect and it’s not to say that oh he’s one of the elite receivers in the NFL now or he’s you know he’s always getting the ball and yes he needs to get a good amount of targets to at least keep that threat going but just the threat of that speed and what it does to dictate coverage structures and more too high looks and space for Mahomes to work underneath. What you get now in the short term is that okay Mahomes has space to work with and he can throw it a little further downfield. And when you saw it last week a couple times when they do get those single high situations, if teams want to man up, then Worthy can run right by somebody and they can hit a big play like they did early in the game against the Ravens. Long-term, you look at this and you go, “Okay, if Worthy’s healthy and out there and they’re open in the space and then in week seven, we get Rasheed Rice back to work underneath.” You see the vision for this Chief’s offense. But Xavier Worthy right now is their most important player because he takes the top off and he makes safeties respect your offense. He makes you they make you he makes you respect those explosive plays that could happen on any given play and then even you have the trick plays like the endound that he had for what was it a 35 yard carry last week as well. So you just have so many more options with a guy who’s on the field with speed like that because it opens up everything else. I’ve talked about this a lot say with the Green Bay Packers and Matthew Golden. It is the same thing with the Chiefs and Worthy. It opens up everything else as a complimentary piece to everything Mahomes gets to do underneath. Yeah, it’s his his presence in the offense. You’re right. I mean, it cannot be understated how important that is. And then when they get Rasheed Rice back, I mean, that’s the real version of the Kansas City Chiefs. People sort of wanted to either write them off or crown them one way or the other. The true story of the Chiefs is always going to be when they were going to get those two uh offensive playmakers back. You specifically in this game, Dalton, we’ve talked about it before. Anytime that you play the Chiefs, what’s the best defense for Patrick Mahomes? Him being on the sideline, him not being on the field. And I think the Jags have a way to be able to do that against Kansas City uh this upcoming week. Chiefs 52.0 run defense grade this season. That’s 30th in the NFL. 0.108 EPA per rush. If that doesn’t mean much to you, 31st in the NFL. So they are not good at defending the run or they have not been through the first four weeks of the season. Now, on the other side of things, the Jags have been great on the ground in their first year with Liam Cohen as their head coach and uh offensive play designer, offensive philosopher. I should I should also say 576 rushing yards so far this season. That is fourth in the NFL. 188 yards before contact, which is first in the NFL. So, we don’t we don’t talk about the Jags offensive line is, you know, these great people movers and one of the best offensive lines in the NFL, but they are executing at a very high level. First in the NFL in yards before contact, 70.4 rushing grade. That’s 14th in the NFL. And I tried to do a little bit more digging. Okay, is this a power running team? Is this a zone running team? Honestly, they do a little bit of both. They’ve done more zone running than they have power concept between the tackles running. But the output is pretty similar for how much they’ve given one attempts uh to one side versus the other. And so really it doesn’t really matter. They’ve been pretty versatile in how they’ve been able to run the ball. And the Chiefs just really haven’t been able to stop it. And if if they can really dominate the the time of possession while also continuing to move the football and have a very high EPA per play when running the ball, that is how you keep this a one-sore game. That’s how you how you keep Xavier Worthy, Patrick Mahomes, and that Kansas City Chiefs offense on the sideline more. And and I like their chances in this game. Ultimately, the way that the Chiefs played last week, hard for me to not take them in this game. I’m going to take the Chiefs 27 to 24. But I think this could be a blast to watch. This could be a ton of fun and I’m really looking forward to watching this. This could be a huge for as much as I just talked about running the football. Dalton, this could be a huge Trevor Lawrence game. This could be a huge changing of the narrative game for him. If that offense is able to play well, if he’s able to have a handful of really nice throws, and if the Jags are able to win this game, it’s going to be a signature type of Trevor Lawrence game that people will point back to and talk about him taking that next step, becoming more consistent and hanging around with some of the best quarterbacks in the NFL like we felt he was going to when he was coming through the draft uh all those years ago. So, I think this is going to be a fun one, but ultimately I do have the Chiefs winning by three. To your point about Jacksonville and their run game because it’s been really effective. Travis ETN’s been awesome. Their offensive line has been good. And I want to point out to give credit to the tight ends, they have the highest run blocking grade for tight ends in the NFL right now. Breton Strange, Hunter Long, Johnny Munt, when you see the Jags get in these multiple tight end sets, they’re coming right downhill right at you and they’re doing it really effectively. So, I think Liam Cohen in that run game does give them a shot. I I do think having Worthy in this game specifically with the Jags and their zone coverage and how good they’ve been, especially I’ve mentioned them covering over the middle of the field. They’ve been doing it better than anybody. I think it is a big factor to have worthy to space things out a little bit and for Mahomes to kind of use that death by a thousand paper cuts approach. I’m with you. I think Trevor Lawrence is kind of the fulcrum in this game. I think there’s a lot of constants. There’s a lot of things both of these teams are good at. But Lawrence against a really good Chief secondary that’s turned things around after a bad week one. They Trevor Lawrence is going to have to play his best game of the year. I I think if he plays roughly the same, which is kind of average football that he’s played the first four weeks of the year, I like the Chiefs in this game. Lawrence has got to make four or five throws. I I think that’s and it doesn’t have to be that many with them with their run game and with their defense, the way they’ve been playing. That might be all he’s got to make four or five throws. That makes the difference in this game if the Jags are going to win. But I’m with you. Tight game, two good defenses. I’m taking the Chiefs. So, I think they broke through last week. 23-20 Kansas City on the road.

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Kansas City Chiefs and The Jacksonville Jaguars.

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