FIRST TAKE | The AFC still runs through Chiefs – Ryan Clark insist Mahomes is MVP despite 2-2 record

FIRST TAKE | The AFC still runs through Chiefs – Ryan Clark insist Mahomes is MVP despite 2-2 record

Super Bowl hopefuls. Kansas City took care of business against the Ravens. Patrick Mahomes as it was in vintage form, throwing for 270 yards, four touchdowns, four different players catching those touchdown passes. And Xavier Worthy returning from injury to notch five catches for 83 yards. The result was an impressive 30-20 win for the Chiefs. A muchneeded win for Kansas City to get to 500. Look who’s here. It’s a Friday. It’s Joe Forenb. Joe, it’s nice to see. Everybody’s got great game today. Nice to see everyone. This is a very well-dressed, well put together group. I’m just trying to do the best I can to keep up. No, you look amazing. You look amazing. Don’t Don’t butter me up. I know where this is going. You just You worry about your lane. I’ll worry about my lane. Okay. Wow. We’ve got some hostility here. Um Ken, that’s why I’m going to you away from the studio and all the hostility. Um do you have the road to the AFC Championship still running through Kansas City? Uh, with all due respect to the AFC defending champs, uh, respectfully, no. And the reason why is because they’ve shown their weaknesses. They’ve shown that they can bleed. Hey, they’ve shown that they aren’t who we thought they were. And barring injury, they’re beatable. And I mean really bad. So, when I’m thinking about the AFC, it’s it has to go through Buffalo. It has to go through even with the performance last week, it has to go through the Chargers. So even though you know we know what Patrick Mahomes is capable of, but Patrick Mahomes doesn’t really look like Patrick Mahomes if he doesn’t have Xavier Worthy if now you have the onus on Travis Kelce. So we’ve seen their weaknesses and we’ve seen their flaws not like we’ve ever seen before. And that’s why I’m giving the take to Buffalo and the Chargers opposite of the Kansas City Chiefs. No, no, no, no, no. They not going to get me to do it. You ain’t going to get me to sit up here and be like Patrick Mahomes is dead. You’re not going to get me to hit sit up here and say Kansas City can’t win. Joe, have we ever seen Kansas City go into Buffalo and win a playoff game? We have. Have we? We have our city. Have we done that? Yes, we have. No. Have we ever This is because I I be forgetting, right? A lot of head trauma, stuff like that. Lot of action. So, I’m going ask you to be forgiven. Have we ever seen Kansas City go on the road in the AFC Championship play against an MVP and a number one defense and win? Have we ever seen that? I believe we have seen that. We saw that, too. Yes, we have. No, we ain’t seen that, too, Joe. We saw it in Baltimore a couple years ago. In Baltimore, too. That Kansas City team, if they didn’t, they wasn’t hosted in the playoffs. They probably had bled and stuff that year, huh? Yeah. It was Yeah, it was like probably like they had probably We probably thought to ourselves, “This team is beatable.” We did. We didn’t we think that Stephen A. Smith was all over that. Since he’s not here, he can’t defend himself, right? And then And didn’t was it? Was all over that. Since he’s not here, he can’t defend himself. Right. And then And then wasn’t people saying, “Wait, Patrick Mahomes, remember cuz like when Patrick Mahomes first started, right? Remember when he first started, he threw for like 50 touchdowns and we was like, “He’s the greatest player we’ve ever seen, right?” But that year, Patrick Mahomes didn’t look like Patrick Mahomes, right? So what we was like, “Oh, wait. Patrick Mahomes needs other things cuz like Patrick Mahomes ain’t Patrick Mahomes.” And did they win? Wait, did they win the Super Bowl? They did, sir. What? No, Joe. Oh, I lost my mic. And here we go with this. I think he’s got the mic. I need the mic. It’s on the ground. Little cut this on. This is on. And so when So when all that stuff happened, Joe, weren’t we kind of feeling like this? We were. And then you remember going into this week against Baltimore because they did have Xavier Worthy and they had lost some games. We thought that maybe they was in trouble but then Xavier Worthy came back and they looked really good and Patrick Mahomes like Patrick Mahomes and they blew the Ravens out and now they’re two and two and the Chargers are only three and one because they lost. So now it’s closed and now it’s scary all over again. And so what I’m saying is yes, it still go through Kansas City and it don’t have to actually go to the city of Kansas City to have to go through Kansas City cuz Kansas City’s Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes and Steve Spagnolo and Travis Kelce and what’s about to be Rasheed Rice and Xavier Worthy and Bashard Smith, the rookie from SMU, who is now making a lot of plays. So what I’m saying is they ain’t dead till you kill them. And like my dog Ric Flair said, who I know is watching right now, to be the best, you got to beat the best. Okay. I was waiting for you two to fight. I mean, you guys seem like you guys were on the exact same. Very well said. Very smart. There’s a lot to love about that. Unfortunately, it is incorrect. I was right. It does not go through Kansas City. Now, these are all very articulate points, and you’re right. What are we gonna do? We’re going to sit here and we’re going to step all over Kansas City four games into the season. A fool’s errand as RC pointed out, but we don’t want to put too much weight on what we’ve seen in the past because that can distort us. Put some weight on it, not too much. Look to the future here because that’s going to tell us how this is going to play out. Football, as Cameron Newton knows, and as Ryan Clark knows, a war of attrition. And the war that Kansas City is going to face from now until the end of the season is a very different war than the war Buffalo will face between now and the end of the season. Buffalo has to go through the Jets, the Dolphins, and the Patriots. Kansas City’s got to deal with the Chargers, the Broncos, and the Raiders. All right. All right. A little bit of an edge, but throughout the rest of the season, what do we got here? I don’t have my glasses on me. We got the Jacksonville game on Monday night. Say what you want about the Jags. Number two in defensive EPA. We got the Lions. We got the Commanders. We got a road game with the Bills. We got the Colts. We got the Chargers. We got two with the Broncos. Point is, how much is left in that tank by the end of the season when you go face a rested Bills team in Orchard Park? I would say it goes through Buffalo. Respectfully, of course. Respectfully. I thought I I was taking Cam. Cam, didn’t Cam just tell us when people say respectfully? What they mean? That’s what I was going to say. Cam started by saying respectfully, too. Cam said just told us. He also said respectfully. I just took notes that if you say respectfully, it means disrespectfully. So, you’re saying that it goes through Buffalo. Disrespectfully. I meant disrespect towards RC, not towards Buffalo. You have to understand, I married into Bill’s Mafia. I enjoy sleeping in my own bed at night. Does that make me a homer? No. It makes me someone who enjoys sleeping in their own bed. What about the All right, so let’s let’s let’s break that down a little bit. What about the way that Buffalo’s winning games right now to start out 4-0? What you’ve seen from them at home on the road versus what you’ve seen from Kansas City in a two-2 start? How does that factor into your decision? Three double-digit wins for the Bills. Last week looked bad against the Saints and they still won by double digits, but it’s the Saints. There are concerns about the defense. Courtney Cron, I thought we were going to be going to commercial there and I wasn’t have to deal with any push back. I thought I was going to be able to just ride the momentum into commercial. This is a huge problem for me now. But that said, there are problems with the defense and we have seen in the biggest spots Allen shows up, the rest of the team chokes. Time and time again. To your point, I just think Kansas City has such a war coming forward with what we’ve already seen four Super Bowls in the last five years. Those bodies, that’s a lot to put on a body. Cam, get back in here. Help me out. I mean, say less. Tag me in. Ric Flair. Oh, my fault. So, what I’m saying is this. Um, when you’re thinking about the Buffalo Bills, Josh Allen is the tempo. And you just said it, Joe. As good as Joe, I mean, as good as Josh plays, that’s how Buffalo plays. Well, you can’t say that about this Kansas City Chiefs teams because it’s so reliant on the skill set around him. Travis, or should I say El Travidor is not what El Tradora used to be. He needs help. He needs Rasheed Rice. He needs Xavier Worthy. We’ve seen this. So, if it’s not if the if these guys are not healthy, the Kansas City Chiefs are in trouble. If the defense does not show up, we’ve seen Patrick Mahomes carry a whole team, but times have changed with Josh Allen and and the Buffalo Bills. Our biggest question.

FIRST TAKE | The AFC still runs through Chiefs – Ryan Clark insists Mahomes is playing MVP form despite 2-2 record