Sunday Night wrap-up: Patrick Mahomes and Chiefs cruise over Bears

[KC Wolf]

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Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes didn’t need the extra motivation.

But he wasn’t giving it away either.

Mahomes was subdued by his own standards, yet did plenty to lead the Chiefs to a 26-3 win over the Bears.

That improves them to 11-4, keeping them within range of a playoff bye entering the final week of the season. They’d need to win next week against the Chargers and have the Patriots lose to the Dolphins to get to the second seed.

As for the game itself, Mahomes was 23-of-33 for 251 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for another touchdown to boot.

And one of his celebrations was petty, yet justified.

NBC cameras caught him running back from the end zone counting to 10 on his fingers, as if he was reminding himself when he was drafted in 2017, and oh-hey-look-over-there-that’s-one-of-the-teams-that-didn’t-take-me.

Players invent their own motivation all the time, and Mahomes is smart enough to know he’s in a better place anyway. Having Andy Reid as his coach and guys such as Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce put him in position to win more games, and make even more money than if he’d have been drafted eight spots higher by the Bears.

Here are five more things we learned during Sunday Night Football:

1. This is your regular reminder that Bears General Manger Ryan Pace once traded four things (his first-, third-, and fourth-round picks in 2017 and his 2018 third-rounder) so he could move from third to second in the 2017 NFL Draft to draft quarterback Mitchell Trubisky instead of Mahomes (or Deshaun Watson for that matter).

Sometimes, it feels like we’re beating a dead horse by mentioning this.

That particular horse, however, is kind of asking for it.

There will never be a particularly good defense of the decision, but it also goes to show that smart people with too much time on their hands can analyze a situation from every possible angle, and still end up 180 degrees from right.

Bless his heart, it’s not Trubisky’s fault. He didn’t overpay to overdraft himself. He also is not able to do anything to ever make the decision justifiable.

He was 18-of-34 passing for 157 yards Sunday, breaking the elusive 100-yard barrier in the fourth quarter.

2. And while we’re on Pace’s case, he also traded away a perfectly good Jordan Howard to the Eagles for a sixth-round pick, and the Bears (7-8) have struggled to run the ball all year.

They were 29th in the league in rushing offense entering the game, and were using kick returner Cordarrelle Patterson there in the second half.

Patterson’s capable of big plays as a wrinkle, but the Bears could use someone who had been proven capable. Instead, they have a pick in the 200s next April.

3. The Chiefs were playing with a lead, so it’s naturally easier to be confident.

But when the game was still close, coach Andy Reid made a decision which out to pump up the two phases of his team that don’t always get much notice there.

Letting kicker Harrison Butker try a 56-yard field goal in the second quarter was bold enough, since he had never hit one from that far.

Especially considering that the conditions in Chicago aren’t kicker friendly (though the weather was mild for December), it shouldn’t have been an automatic for him.

But considering the field position the Bears would have had with a miss, it was a bit of a statement of belief in his defense, that they’d be able to defend a much shorter area.

Or, maybe it was just the Bears.

4. It’s kind of salt in the wound at this point, that the only Bears points were scored by Eddy Pineiro.

He’s in the same “not his fault” category as Trubisky, as he’s been reasonable competent this year. His 46-yarder at the end of the third quarter was his seventh consecutive field goal made.

He entered the game 18-of-23 on field goals (78.3 percent), and has hit 26-of-28 extra points.

That came after surviving the most ridiculous offseason competition, which features nine guys kicking during minicamps, and coaches making everyone stand still and observe “Augusta silence” to artificially create pressure, after Cody Parkey was scapegoated for his playoff miss last January.

As the season has worn on, we’ve found out Pineiro isn’t so bad. And that maybe it wasn’t all Parkey’s fault either.

5. Sometimes statistical quirks are just coincidences, with no greater meaning.

But the Chiefs are 1-3 against the AFC South this year, with the lone win coming against the Jaguars in the opener.

The Texans are a legitimate playoff team, and the Titans have their moments, but the Colts have been off all season.

The Chiefs are pretty good themselves, so the losses being so geographically concentrated is a reminder that some things just make no sense.