By Fred Liggett
FredL@lstribune.net
Time for the Kansas City Chiefs to return to prime time and play under the bright lights while a national audience watches and judges their play. The Chiefs have been in this position before but in three of the four national TV appearances the team was on the road. The team’s coaches and players had a week or more to prepare for the big game but that is not the case this week.
Just four days ago the Chiefs claimed a hard fought 27-24 win over Baltimore. The LA Chargers did the same thing winning 26-21 over Cincinnati. Both wins set up a tantalizing match up where the Chiefs/Chargers game is the only one being played at the time. Having a division game this late in the season the NFL and its TV partners hope it turns out well for them in getting a stellar match up for fans’ holiday viewing pleasure. This is the case as the KC Chiefs at 11-2 host the 10-3 LA Chargers. The Chiefs pursuit of a #1 seed in the upcoming AFC playoffs is on hold, as this week the team’s goal is to earn a third straight AFC West division title.
Adding to the big game atmosphere is fans at the game and viewers at home are unsure who they will see play in the game. In the first meeting between these two division rivals the Chiefs won 38-28 in a week one match up. Since then both teams have seen injury concerns that they will take with them into this meeting at Arrowhead. The Chargers top two running backs Melvin Gordon and Austin Ekeler both have injuries that make their game status unclear. The Chiefs saw top offensive threat Tyreek Hill barely practice this week, plus RB Spencer Ware and WR Sammy Watkins didn’t even practice for the game. Pro Bowl Safety Eric Berry was also a limited participant in practice therefore no certainty of seeing him in action for Chiefs fans.
Since these two teams last played the Chargers have gone 10-2, the Chiefs…also 10-2. Expect stats like this one along with who is or isn’t playing to be talked about a lot during the game broadcast. One can expect records to be broken during the game, a key turnover that no one sees coming in a high scoring and entertaining contest. The Chiefs are perfect 6-0 at home this season, have won nine straight over the Chargers and have owned the AFC West division winning 21 out of their last 22 meetings. These numbers will improve by one at the end of this game as the Chiefs win a wild one over the LA Chargers to earn their third consecutive division title.
That’s What I REID Into It for this week.
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