KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes left the field swinging his right arm, which had been bent grotesquely on a strip-sack by the New York Jets’ David Bailey, and for a brief moment a pall seemed to descend over Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday.
Mahomes bent his bad elbow on the sideline. I threw a few warm-up passes. Then I got back into the game.
The two-time MVP threw for 242 yards with two touchdown passes to Kenneth Walker, who took some of the pressure off Mahomes by adding 102 rushing yards and a rushing score, while Kansas City’s defense dominated the second half to end a 35-12 rout of the Jets that helped put the Chiefs back on track.
Walker finished with 143 yards from scrimmage and the Chiefs (6-2) sacked Geno Smith five times, while keeping the Jets out of the end zone and allowing them to erase the stench of back-to-back losses to the Seahawks and Broncos.
“If I’m able to play, I’m going to play. It’s part of the game,” said Mahomes, who had his elbow worked on at halftime by Chiefs coach Julie Frymyer but still planned to undergo more testing after the game. “Once I threw the ball, I knew I was good.”
Much to the relief of the Chiefs, who lost Mahomes to a season-ending knee injury just over a year ago.
Smith finished with 165 passing yards for the Jets (2-7), who managed just 229 total yards of offense. They were credited minus-9 in the third quarter, when Kansas City scored two touchdowns that turned a 14-12 halftime lead into a comfortable victory.
“You just had two losses there, and I felt like we had a good week of practice, and they didn’t give up,” said Chiefs coach Andy Reid, whose team was heavily criticized for blowing an 11-point fourth-quarter lead in Denver. “I take my hat off to the guys.”
The Chiefs have beaten New York, losers of four straight, in each of their last three meetings.
“I thought in the first half the guys were making plays. We were playing with a lot of pride and a lot of spirit,” said Smith, who was sacked 28 times for a league-high 236 yards this season. “I thought the same thing in the second half. It got away from us.”
Missing star receiver Garrett Wilson to a concussion, the Jets were reduced to running the ball with Braelon Allen or Breece Hall — returning from a quadriceps injury for the first time in five games — or having Smith throw short passes to rookie Omar Cooper Jr.
They were able to move the ball that way for a while. They just couldn’t get into the end zone.
A week after Jason Sanders made four field goals in a loss to the Raiders, he made four in the first half alone in Kansas City. And it would have been five if Sanders hadn’t missed from 53 yards out with less than a minute left in the first half.
The Chiefs, meanwhile, lost a fumble when backup quarterback Justin Fields tried to sneak in on third-and-1. They lost another one when Mahomes was sacked by Bailey for the second time in three games – the strip-sack that injured the QB. And the Chiefs saw struggling kicker Harrison Butker miss another field goal attempt in the first half.
Butker actually missed twice: He had another attempt after missing from 56 yards out due to a penalty, then missed again, further putting his future with the team in doubt. The Chiefs recently signed former All-Pro kicker Justin Tucker to their practice squad.
“No need to ask,” Reid said of a brewing controversy. “I’m not making any decisions about that today.”
It was thanks to Walker, largely held in check by Seattle and Denver, that Kansas City took the lead at the break. His first touchdown reception came on the first play of the second quarter, and his second was a 25-yard screen pass in which offensive guards Trey Smith and Kingsley Suamataia laid a pancake trail for him to follow.
“Honestly, we made a lot of mistakes in the first half,” Walker said. “At halftime we sorted everything out.”
Walker ended up doing most of the work on a 60-yard TD run to start the second half, although it was a lateral from Mahomes along the line of scrimmage to Travis Kelce on fourth-and-goal from the New York 1 that ultimately allowed the Chiefs into the end zone.
They put the game out of reach later in the third quarter, after a 69-yard punt return was negated by penalty. Walker carried six times on an eight-play, 82-yard march, and his touchdown to make it 28-12 gave him his third career three-touchdown game.
“I thought everything was going well in the first half. In the second half we just didn’t play up to par,” Jets coach Aaron Glenn said. “It’s disappointing, and I told our players that. All we can do is go back to work. That’s the only thing I know how to do. In situations like this, you just have to go back to work and try to figure out how, as a head coach, to get us to play two halves at a high level.
“It’s something I need to think long and hard about. I have a lot of thinking to do. I just can’t wait to get back to work.”
Jets: Wilson (concussion) was inactive. The same was true for LB Trevin Wallace (groin), DE Joseph Ossai (ankle) and CB Nahshon Wright (back).
Chiefs: CB Mansoor Delane (shoulder) and DL Peter Woods (concussion) were inactive. RT Jaylen Moore injured his ankle. WR Xavier Worthy left in the final minutes with a left hamstring injury.
Jets: Face Buffalo at home next Sunday.
Chiefs: Visit Atlanta next Sunday.
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