We're all friends here, together in the trust tree, so I'll just start:
When the Chiefs shuffled their offensive line and had Mike Remmers at right tackle along with right guard Andrew Wylie, center Daniel Kilgore, left guard Nick Allegretti and left tackle Eric Fisher, I wondered if we were about to see the Bills' defensive front do to the Chiefs what the Raiders' receivers did to the KC secondary last week.
Narrator: They did not.
The Chiefs' pass protection was consistently reliable, and the run blocking was the best since, well, is it hyperbole to say recent memory?
The Chiefs just beat a leading AFC contender 26-17 in a family-friendly Monday afternoon kickoff, and they did it on the road, in the rain, and in a way that looked totally foreign from the team we've watched since Andy Reid was hired as coach eight years ago.
A few caveats are worth a paragraph here. Clyde Edwards-Helaire was terrific, hitting the right holes and breaking some tackles when he did. Also, the Bills have issues up front, perhaps best illustrated by the healthy scratches of two regulars in their rotation.
Further, they still needed the familiar magic of Patrick Mahomes on third and long, this time with Byron Pringle making the catch that Nick Keizer couldn't last week.
But the Chiefs don't need to apologize here. Their run blocking has varied between atrocious and mediocre for much of the last few seasons. Kilgore was signed late in training camp, some low-cost depth. Remmers shifted from guard to tackle after Mitchell Schwartz _ the team's best lineman _ left the game with a back injury.
The Chiefs played three new linemen, at three new positions, and played the best we've seen them in quite some time.
It was a bit like your car blowing a tire and somehow driving faster than before.
Or something like that.
The point here is that a team that has a thousand ways to beat you just found another. And they did it a few days after signing Le'Veon Bell, who may or may not be cooked as a star but is a two-time All-Pro with every motivation in the world to give the Chiefs the best of whatever he has left.
We had a week of talking about how awful the secondary was, and the pass rush, and that the offense stalls too often. We talked about Mahomes drifting in the pocket and the offensive line not being good enough. We talked about Josh Allen as a rising star, and the Bills being a worthy contender for the crown.
We talked about all of that and the Chiefs did what the Chiefs have taught us to expect:
They met the moment.
This is a point that's been made in this space before, but the Chiefs are mostly beyond competing with other football teams. They are competing with themselves now, and with these lofty goals that would be delusional if the team isn't this good.
That attitude is important. Great teams need this edge. They need to be able to respond, need to respond to doubts with their best. That's been in the Chiefs' DNA for a while now.
What we haven't seen is the team block this well, or run this well.
If they can repeat even 75% of this, godspeed to anyone trying to stop Mahomes and the pass game while having to worry about an effective run game.
Steve Spagnuolo coached a completely different game against Buffalo than he did against the Raiders.
The Chiefs were aggressive, both individually and with play calls that sent pass rushers from all angles at Allen, who appeared overwhelmed and confused.
Last week's debacle against the Raiders felt like the anomaly at the time, and that looks even truer now.
Charvarius Ward had two awful snaps in a row in the first half. He was called for a 24-yard pass interference penalty while covering Stefon Diggs one-on-one on a deep route, then had decent coverage but didn't turn to see the ball on a 4-yard touchdown against the sideline.
Corners get beat. It happens, and usually we don't focus a lot on it. The NFL has every motivation to make it easier to pass and more difficult to defend the pass. That's just reality.
But Ward's sequence _ and he played well enough otherwise _ came after a horrendous game against the Raiders. The entire secondary was torched in that game, so we didn't harp on it then, either.
But this is two in a row for him.
