Chiefs Rumors: Was Chris Jones proven right?
The result of Thursday night's game will undoubtedly be used by Chris Jones to argue his importance to the Kansas City Chiefs in contract negotiations.
Kansas City lost the opener, in part, because the Lions were able to pick up a game-clinching first down by running David Montgomery right at the spot Jones would have been.
To be fair, the Chiefs defense played well even without Jones. They limited Detroit to 14 offensive points, which should have been enough to win the game. However, Kansas City is in the business of winning Super Bowls and climbing that mountain requires special players doing special things. Jones elevates the defense to another level.
One more sack could have been the difference between winning or losing. One more run stuff could have saved the day. That's what Jones can put the magnifying glass on.
No one can prove the Chiefs would have won the game if Jones had played. But his camp can certainly argue it.
Chiefs Rumors: Replacing Orlando Brown Jr. wasn't so easy
The Chiefs can look no further than Orlando Brown Jr. and Donovan Smith as a cautionary tale when assuming a replacement can be an upgrade.
Kansas City let Brown go in free agency to the Bengals. To fill the gap at left tackle, they turned to Smith after he was released by the Buccaneers.
Let's just say Smith's debut at Arrowhead didn't exactly go well.
Smith allowed pressure on 15.6 percent of plays, leading all players on Thursday night, per Pro Football Focus. That's a higher rate than Brown ever posted in Kansas City.
It would be one thing if Smith was going against Aiden Hutchinson on every play, but the ferocious Lions pass rusher was also busy making Juwaan Taylor's life a living hell on the other side of the line.
It was one game. Smith will have the chance to prove he can do better in future weeks. The concern level at tackle is just a bit higher on Friday than it was on Thursday morning.
Chiefs Rumors: Patrick Mahomes misplaces trust in Kadarius Toney
Despite the catastrophic drops by Kadarius Toney, Patrick Mahomes is media trained well enough to know his best path is to publicly defend his wide receiver.
"I have trust in KT," Mahomes told reporters after the game, per NFL.com. "He missed a lot of training camp. Obviously, he wanted to play and fought in rehab hard so he could play. Stuff is not always going to go your way. Obviously, he would have wanted to catch a few of those in the game, but I have trust that he is going to be the guy that I go to in those crucial moments and he's going to make the catch and win us some games like he did last year and get him more and more reps. I'm sure that those drops will disappear."
The problem for Toney and the Chiefs is those drops are par for the course for the receiver.
Jordan Dajani of CBS revealed as much with a damning stat that should have Mahomes wary of throwing Toney's way again: Toney's drop rate of 9.7 percent on 82 career targets is the highest in the NFL since 2021 among wide receivers with 75 or more targets.
And that was before Toney dropped another pass, raising his drop rate to 11 percent.
That's an unacceptable number that can't be excused by injury or training camp absence. It's a receiver's job to catch the passes that hit his hands. That primary skill shouldn't regress because of a knee problem.
The drops weren't a Week 1 problem. They're a Toney problem.
