Kansas City Chiefs offense looks well oiled against a darn good Houston Texans defense
Alex Smith completed 15-of-20 passes for nearly 200 yards and three touchdowns in the first half of Kansas City’s season-opening win over the Texans on Sunday. Two of the scores went to an up-and-coming tight end in Travis Kelce, who caught all six of the passes thrown in his direction for 106 yards with a touchdown. And while the Chiefs offense slowed down considerably in the second half, that was mainly due to the game being out of hand at the half.
The run-pass mix kept Houston’s defense off balance throughout the game, affording Smith the opportunity to throw from a clean pocket on consistent basis. With Donald Stephenson and Jah Reid as the team’s two starting tackles against the likes of J.J. Watt, that’s an amazing feat for Andy Reid’s squad. The interesting thing here is that Kansas City used the run to set up the pass, not the other way around. Led by Jamaal Charles, the Chiefs running game tallied less than 100 yards on 32 attempts. Once that area of the offense improves —a likely scenario moving forward —the overall unit will be that much better.
The Final score of 27-20 really doesn’t tell us the story here. Smith led Kansas City to a 27-9 halftime lead before attempting 13 second half passes. It’s also important to note that Kansas City held that very same 18-point halftime lead until just over four minutes remaining in the final stanza. In reality, it was domination from what is looking like a good Chiefs team.