The Kansas City Chiefs take on the Washington Commanders this week on Monday Night Football. When this game was originally circled on the calendar, it promised to be a matchup between two of the NFL’s most exciting quarterbacks in Patrick Mahomes and Jayden Daniels. Unfortunately, Jayden Daniels is out with a hamstring injury. In addition to taking some star power out of the matchup, it could be a real problem for the Commanders as they face one of the NFL’s toughest pass defenses.
Marcus Mariota will get the start for the Commanders and while there are still some hard feelings for some Chiefs fans around his infamous playoff win over KC years ago, his career has been a letdown since that season. After the Tennessee Titans gave up on him, he had another failed attempt at starting in Atlanta and now finds himself in his second season as a backup in Washington. Mariota has played fairly well in relief duties for the Commanders thus far, but he isn’t near the threat that Daniels is. That could be an issue for them against the Chiefs defense.
The Chiefs pass defense has been fantastic after a rough start to the season
KC’s pass defense comes into the Monday night matchup allowing the fourth-fewest passing yards per game in the NFL. The Chiefs are only allowing 174.6 passing yards per game and have allowed just seven passing touchdowns all season. However, they’ve been even stingier than that for most of the season. The pass defense had a rough first week of the season against Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers, allowing 318 passing yards and three passing touchdowns. Since then, KC has only allowed 159 yards passing per game at just 6.0 yards per attempt with four passing touchdowns and four interceptions in six games.
Those are truly elite pass defense numbers and are even more impressive when you consider that Kansas City won four of those six games by 13 points or more. Those types of games typically lead to the opposing team passing a lot to try and come back and racking up lots of empty stats in the second half. Thus far, the Chiefs pass defense has been good enough to prevent even those types of stat-padding completions from happening.
The other problem for Mariota is that he faces the pressure of keeping pace with Patrick Mahomes, who has been on fire over the last four games. Since Mahomes started showing confidence in his pass protection and improved and healthy weapons, he has averaged 282.8 yards per game passing with 11 touchdowns and just one interception during that four-game span. When you combine those types of passing numbers on one side of the ball with how few passing numbers are being allowed on the other, you have the makings of a very long day for a backup quarterback being thrust into the starting job.
If there is any good news for the Commanders, it is that their top wideouts, Terry McLaurin and Deebo Samuel, may both be playing for the first time in over a month. So at least Mariota will have his best weapons to try to break open KC’s pass defense. The odds are still not in their favor, and it’s going to take a special effort for him to keep pace with Patrick Mahomes — especially when you factor in that Washington’s pass defense ranks dead last in opposing yards per pass attempt allowed at 8.2. Given those numbers, it looks like it could be a long night for the Commanders.