Kansas City will be playing Buffalo on Monday night for the early contest on the two-game slate. COVID outbreaks throughout the league delayed kickoff by four days for this game. Both teams are coming off their first losses of the season in Week 5, so the chance to move to 5-1 is on the line Monday.
The Chiefs are 3.5-point road favorites with the moneyline favoring them at -200. The Bills moneyline has been set at +170 with the over/under placed at 57.5 points.
Defensive Trouble
The Chiefs didn’t look great on any side of the ball last week, but I’d put their loss to the Raiders on the defense first. Patrick Mahomes wasn’t very efficient, but the defense made him take risky shots just so the Chiefs could match the Raiders scoring.
Mahomes completed just over 50% of his passes for 340 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception. This isn’t a great day for last year’s Superbowl MVP, but it’s tough to blame an offense that did score 32 points.
Las Vegas beat up the Chiefs on the ground and in the air. It seemed like the Chiefs couldn’t get the big stop, and in the second half, the Raiders ran away with the game.
The Classic Bills
Buffalo starting undefeated and taking the league by storm is not what fans are used to seeing in any season. On Tuesday night, Buffalo resorted to their old ways and looked like the team that has been getting picked on in the AFC East for the past twenty years.
Buffalo just didn’t show up to play football on Tuesday night. There’s nothing that can be said to justify their performance. Tennessee has been practicing on Zoom in preparation for this game because of a COVID outbreak in their practice facility, and they still blew Buffalo off the field.
The Bills did move the football, but they gave the ball away three times and committed ten penalties in the process. The whole team needs to be better this week, or the Chiefs will do the same thing to Buffalo that the Titans did on Tuesday.
The Picks
Both teams have top-five ranked offenses, but each defense is ranked in the bottom half of the league. The Chiefs offense has to clean some things up, but they weren’t awful last Sunday. I think they’ll have a big game against Buffalo, who is giving up 263 yards per game through the air.
Monday will be a big test for Josh Allen. The Chiefs are struggling on defense, but they are one of the best units in the league in limiting opposing offenses aerial attacks. I think the Bills will need to establish the ground game to be successful because the Chiefs are very vulnerable in this area.
If you like offense, this will be an excellent game for you to watch. Despite this, I don’t think Mahomes and the Chiefs lose two shootouts in a row. They’ll find a way to get the job done on Monday night.
I’m taking the Chiefs at -200 and over 57.5 points.
