Welcome to short-week football. It's here, for the first time in 2022. In all its glory.
Thursday night games are generally favorable to the home team, for obvious reasons. And this particular home team, the Kansas City Chiefs, has been slept on in the futures market and early-season lines, in my humble opinion. Not enough respect is being put on the names of Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. Except, well, for those who backed them in Week 1, in which they came through glowingly in a thorough unmasking of an overvalued A rizona squad.
But what do we make of a tough divisional challenge with the Chargers so soon in the new campaign. Well, you still have to worry about top Chargers corner J.C. Jackson playing and/or making an impact, and if you watched the Raiders move the ball up and down the field on L.A. last week, you have to wonder if their defense is really that much improved right now, save for the individual impact Khalil Mack makes to the pass rush. I tend to think these AFC West games will be shootouts by and large; it took five sacks and three Derek Carr picks to prevent the Raiders from scoring into the 30s in Week 1, and check out some of these troubling stats:
The Raiders had ten drive-opening first-down plays; Carr dropped back on nine of them (one run), and was sacked once. Carr went 8-for-8 in those passes, for 80 yards, with six of them going to best bud Davonte Adams in his Raiders' debut. Everyone knew where the ball was going, and despite a suspect offensive line, the Chargers couldn't stop it. The Raiders averaged 7.33 yards per first down play and 10.8 net yards per first-down attempt. Which begs the question: what the heck will Reid and Mahomes do to them?