Fear of Mahomes’ injury and yet the joy of victory! Know how the Chiefs won the match in OT

This year’s Kansas City Chiefs went 8-0 with help from some upsets. Maybe none topped it like the 30-24 win over Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the “Monday Night Football” fixture played at Arrowhead Stadium.

Patrick Mahomes, who sprained his ankle on the first scoring play, lead the Chiefs from a seven-point fourth quarter when Kansas connected for two fourth-quarter touchdown passes. In the next offensive series he spearheaded the team’s fifteen play drive that took nearly eight minutes five seconds. Baker Mayfield drove the Buccaneers on a game-tying touchdown drive in the last minute of regulation time. It took only initial play of the overtime session to see the Chiefs triumphing in the game.

It was important for the Chiefs to make the trade that brought in Tennessee Titans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. Hopkins scored two touchdowns and caught eight catches for 86 yards in his second Kansas City game.

Kansas City Chiefs (8-0)

QB breakdown: Mahomes’ initial 20-yard connection was in the first half by a 35-yard ball to Hopkins. No other quarterback completed a pass for more than 20 air yards. Four times he was fired.

Most shocking performance: Kareem Hunt had 16 rushing yards on seven attempts in the first half. He ran seven times for 47 yards on Kansas City’s game-tying touchdown drive with 14:14 left to make it 17-17. In that game he rushed for 106 yards on 27 attempts and came up with the final touchdown.

Two adjectives describe the game: Gritty victory. The team that looked awful was the Kansas City Chiefs’ previously potent offense, which was down by seven scores going into the fourth quarter. They scored twice in the last two drives, once when Mahomes was coming off the injured ankle to tie at 24-17 and win in overtime. Adam Teicher

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-5)

The Bucs almost upset the NFL’s only undefeated team but they’ve dropped three in a row; three of their big weapons like Mike Evans, Chris Goodwin, and Jalen McMillan. Mayfield’s 1-yard touchdown pass to Ryan Miller help to tie the game 24 All. Hunt’s, 2-yard touchdown ended the 10-play overtime victory over their defense.

It was the first time the Bucs were worse than.500. The next week they are due to play the San Francisco 49ers and Evans should be back having received his week eleven rest. The Chargers are the only remaining team with a winning record for them and they could yet make another late-season playoff charge.

Mayfield passed for 200 yards and 2 TD on 23 of 31. When Justin Reid was covering, Cade Otton made it 11 yards in the end zone corner. Following custom, Mayfield had solid targets in Otton, Bucky Irving and Rachaad White in the screen game again this week.

Biggest game plan flaw: All four of the Chiefs scores came on third down, two of which put Hopkins on Josh Hayes making his first professional start after Tyrek Funderburk was a failure the prior week.. The Bucs had no other option with Jamel Dean out of the game due to a hamstring injury that placed him on injured reserve, but this was tough. Hayes got the ball from a Tykee Smith forced fumble against Travis Kelce.

Amazing stat: As in the Super Bowl LV, the Bucs applied subtle pressure to Mahomes even though Vita Vea and Calijah Kancey sacked him two times. Before the fourth quarter, the Bucs blitzed only 13% of Mahomes’ dropbacks, second-lowest of any game under Bowles. Bowles’ blitz rate of 11% during the Super Bowl LV was his lowest. Jenna Laine