Patrick Mahomes’ Kryptonite

Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes was unbeaten in the months of November and December since being the starting quarterback in 2018. That has since changed with the Chiefs losing to the Cincinnati Bengals for the third consecutive game. It would seem that the Bengals have a formula for beating the Chiefs and it involves causing turnovers and having their QB Joe Burrow be methodical in his approach to keeping Mahomes off the field. A rather simple gameplan in the grand scheme of things. This win by Cincinnati has them in the conversation for a top-2 seed come playoff time. They are keeping pace with the Baltimore Ravens who currently are in first place in the AFC North, but the Bengals now have the tiebreaker against Kansas City and they play Buffalo in a few weeks. It could interesting down the stretch for the Bengals.

A Trade That Backfired

I completely forgot that the Philadelphia Eagles were going to play the Tennessee Titans this season. This past week they hosted Tennessee and of course you knew that WR A.J. Brown was going to get the ball early and often for the Eagles. He showed the Titans why it was a mistake in hindsight to trade him, but the main reason they did is because they couldn’t afford pay him. Salaries of wide receivers ballooned all over the league this past offseason and the Eagles obliged and gave Tennessee their first round pick for Brown on draft day. A few days after this game, the Titans fired their GM Jon Robinson. I’m sure it wasn’t just because of this trade. There have been many questionable personnel moves over the past few seasons and it just came to a head coincidentally now after this game.

Deshaun Returns

First and foremost I’m going to say that Cleveland Browns QB Deshaun Watson’s reputation will never be what it was when he was the Houston Texans quarterback. When you are accused of sexual assault by over two dozen women who you paid to give you a massage, your prior reputation goes out the door. A grand jury didn’t bring any criminal charges against Watson and he is in the midst of civil lawsuits which some he has settled. I unlike most pundits on television withheld my opinion on this until the justice system played itself out. Now that it has, I don’t see how Deshaun Watson will be able to live up to that contract he received when he was traded to the Browns. I’m not basing it off the one game he has played so far this season. Of course he looked like a guy who hadn’t played a football game in almost two years. Remember he held out of playing any game for the Houston Texans last season. It wasn’t because of the sexual assault accusations. He wanted out of Houston and it eventually happened. Even when Watson does play better and he will, the Browns gave a fully guaranteed contract to a quarterback that is behind the eight ball and will need a full offseason to get in line. The only other quarterback to get a fully guaranteed contract was Minnesota Vikings QB Kirk Cousins and that hasn’t exactly worked to their advantage, but they are in first place in the NFC North this season. Watson has to get Cleveland to the playoffs every single season in order to justify that contract and they expect to be contenders while they have him. And Deshaun needs to stay the course and work towards being the football player he was when he first entered the league. But more importantly he needs to get himself right as a man who showed good character from his college days at Clemson.