The Kansas City Chiefs got crushed in Super Bowl 59, losing 40-22… and that score barely tells the story. At one point, they were down 34 points, the fifth-largest deficit in Super Bowl history. With multi-Super Bowl-winning stars like Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and Chris Jones on the roster, you’d expect them to bounce back fast in 2025. Week 1, though? Not even close.
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Playing against the division-rival Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil last Friday, the Chiefs looked out of sorts right from the start. They had their WR1 (Xavier Worthy) ruled out for the game after just the third play because of an accidental injury, and Justin Herbert was really slicing and dicing up the Chiefs’ previously vaunted defense.
Despite that, the Chiefs had a chance to win the game late in the fourth quarter. They were down 27-21 with 2:14 remaining and no timeouts. All they needed to do was stop the Chargers on 3rd and 14. Instead, they let Herbert scamper for a wide-open 19-yard scramble to pick up the first down and seal the game. Unfortunately, as Cam Newton discussed on Friday, one of those team leaders, Chris Jones, was the man at fault on that decisive play.
“Oftentimes, I say this with all due respect to all playmakers worldwide. Sometimes trying to make A play can mess up THE play,” Newton started his banter session on 4th & 1.
As the Chiefs backed up in coverage, Chris Jones was one of four men rushing the passer. However, instead of maintaining his contain position on the outside of Herbert to keep him in the pocket, Jones tried to be the hero and broke in to try and get the sack.
Herbert, however, popped outside of him and ran 20 yards down the sideline to win the game. From Newton’s perspective, this isn’t a mistake anyone—much less a veteran like Jones—should make.
The former Panthers QB points out that the defense was in Cover 2 Man, and the biggest “ailment” of that type of defense is the quarterback run.
“Right now, Cover 2 Man’s ailment is a quarterback run. Typically when you do a Cover 2 Man, you either have defensive end contain or you have a quarterback spy. They didn’t have no spy, they were expecting the defensive end to keep contain… It’s simple, we hear coaches talk about it all the time: do your job!”
And Chris Jones, who was clearly supposed to contain on that play, heard the same thing. Former Charger and current Chiefs linebacker Drue Tranquill obviously wanted this one a little more. He had two TFLs and two sacks on the day, including one on the play right before Jones’ flub to put L.A. into that third-and-long scenario. After the third-down conversion, Tranquill can be seen getting into Jones’ face about it.
Clearly, there was no debate about whose fault that one was. Not a great sign for Kansas City when it’s your veteran leaders costing you games.
