Despite a sluggish start to the season, the Chiefs now find themselves where they’ve almost always been for the last decade: Betting favorites to win the AFC West.
After losing their Week One game to the division rival Chargers and then falling in Week Two to the Eagles, the Chiefs briefly fell out of the favored spot in the betting odds. But at 3-3 after Sunday night’s win over the Lions, the Chiefs appear to have righted the ship and are now favored over the two teams ahead of them in the standings, the 4-2 Chargers and 4-2 Broncos.
The current betting odds at DraftKings have the Chiefs at +160 to win the AFC West, the Chargers at +170 and the Broncos at +210. If you want to bet on an extreme long shot, the Raiders are at +10,000.
The Chiefs have won the AFC West each of the last nine years, and are trying to make it 10 in a row this year. They’re not going to give up the division crown easily.
Last year, Broncos cornerback Patrick Surtain II was named the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year. This year, Surtain says that honor should go to his teammate, Broncos outside linebacker Nik Bonitto.
Bonitto says it’s way too soon to say that.
Asked after Sunday’s win over the Jets about Surtain campaigning for him, Bonitto instead turned the attention to Surtain, who was largely responsible for Jets receiver Garrett Wilson catching just three passes for 13 yards.
“It’s obviously an honor. Pat, he’s the best in the game right now,” Bonitto said. “What he did today was special. Every week we always go out to him to guard the best guy and we don’t hear from him ever again throughout the game. It’s a testament to him and obviously that’s a great honor just coming from him.”
Bonitto said he has a lot more games to play before he wants anyone talking about him as a Defensive Player of the Year candidate.
“It’s a long season. I still have a lot of room to grow in my game. A lot of games to just keep playing and keep trying to stack these wins. I’ve got a lot of ways to go before we start even having those conversations,” Bonitto said.
With Bonitto leading the league in sacks and on pace to tie the NFL record for sacks in a season, those conversations will keep coming, if Bonitto keeps sacking the opposing quarterback.
After Sunday’s loss to the Broncos, during which the Jets offense gave new meaning to the term “offensive,” coach Aaron Glenn bristled at a question regarding whether he’d bench starting quarterback Justin Fields.
By Monday morning, Glenn had a more measured response, after reflecting on the question that was asked about whether Fields should sit.
“When you look at what Justin did, the games that he played,” Glenn told reporters. “Listen, I didn’t think he was bad at all. I actually thought he did some pretty good things in those four games. In this fifth game, he took a step back. I’m with you guys 100 percent. And we can’t have that. And we have to get better than that. And he knows that. Ann he knows that better than anyone. So I don’t think you try to bench a player after having one true bad game. Because I thought the other games he played fairly well.”
This opens the door to potentially benching Fields if he has another bad game.
And Sunday’s game was bad. Minus-10 net passing yards, fueled by nine sacks. Fields repeatedly held the ball for too long.
The Jets host the suddenly-hot Panthers on Sunday before playing the Bengals in Cincinnati. Then comes the bye. It’s on Fields to turn it around soon, or Tyrod Taylor will likely be getting a chance to help the Jets turn yet another bad season around — and to perhaps keep Glenn from being one and done as the team’s head coach.
The Broncos sacked Jets quarterback Justin Fields nine times on Sunday, giving Denver an NFL-leading total of 30 sacks this season. And putting the Broncos on pace to make NFL history.
Denver is averaging five sacks a game this year, which puts the Denver D on pace to finish this season with 85 sacks in 17 games. That would shatter the current NFL record of 72 sacks, set by the Bears in 1984.
The Broncos’ pass rush is led by Nick Bonitto, who has an NFL-high eight sacks this season. That puts him on pace to finish the season with 22.5 sacks, which would tie the NFL record, set by Michael Strahan in 2001 and tied by T.J. Watt in 2021.
In the second year of coach Sean Payton’s tenure, Denver looks like a contender. Payton building an offense around quarterback Bo Nix is a big part of that, but the defense making life hell for opposing quarterbacks may prove to be a bigger part.
With the Jets falling to 0-6 on Sunday in London and quarterback Justin Fields having his worst game of the year, the question was inevitable. Jets coach Aaron Glenn nevertheless didn’t appreciate it.
“Justin’s numbers were not good from this game,” a reporter asked. “Is he going to be your quarterback next week, or would you consider —"
“Come on, man, what kind of question is that?” Glenn said.
“He did not have a good game,” the reporters replied. “I mean, I think it’s a fair question.”
“There’s a number of guys that, you know, I mean, sometimes this league is like this,” Glenn said. “There are guys that have bad games. That doesn’t mean you just bench him. Come on, you know better than that.”
It is a fair question. Fields completed nine of 17 for 45 yards. Factoring in the 55 yards lost on nine sacks, the net passing yards were minus-10.
Here’s another fair question. Why did the Jets give Fields a two-year, $40 million contract, with $30 million fully guaranteed at signing? The 49ers got Mac Jones for two years, $8.4 million. The Colts got Daniel Jones for one year, $14 million.
In hindsight, they overpaid Fields. And they may have picked the wrong guy to run the offense. At this point, their choices are to admit the mistake and bench Fields for Tyrod Taylor, or double down and hope things get better.
The Jets have two more games before the bye — Panthers and Bengals. If they can’t win one or both, changes could be coming. After today, it looks like there won’t be quarterback change. Which could mean other changes will be made in order to shift the blame away from Fields.
