December 14, 2019

By Fred Liggett
FredL@lstribune.net

Thanks to 24-hour Christmas music stations people have been hearing “Santa Claus is coming to town, Santa Claus is coming to town” over and over again. This week many Kansas City Chiefs fans throughout the metro have been hearing “Drew Lock is coming to town, Drew Lock is coming to town.”

Lock is the 23-year-old rookie quarterback of the visiting Denver Broncos who come to Kansas City for another edition of an AFC West Division rivalry. Lock’s name keeps coming up due to Lee’s Summit being his hometown followed by his four-year stint as QB of the Missouri Tigers. Family, friends and metro area fans are expected to find their way into Arrowhead to watch Lock play his first NFL game against the Chiefs.

Lock is 2-0 so far as a starting QB for the Denver Broncos. Drew Lock is the first rookie in NFL history to throw for over 300 yards and three touchdowns in his first road start which occurred last Sunday at Houston. This came after a strong first career start in a home win over the LA Chargers the week before.

Now comes the challenge of an AFC West Division road game and it just so happens to be against the division champion for the fourth straight season Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs clinched that title in last week’s 23-16 win at New England. The job at hand is now to improve their seeding in the AFC playoffs which begin the weekend of January 4 and 5. If the season ended today the Chiefs would be the #3 seed.

There is more to Denver’s sudden success since Lock was named starting QB when the team was just 3-8. While a lot has been said of Lock’s QB rating this week the Broncos Kareem Jackson was awarded the AFC Defensive Player of the Week honor for his work down in Houston. The Broncos success still depends on how well Phillip Lindsay runs the ball and how effective Von Miller can be stopping the run. No doubt Drew Lock so far has been enjoying his time on the field. Away from the field Lock faces the task of looking at film and coming up with a game plan to beat his hometown team. A lot of ticket requests have been made this week as Lock’s friends from Mizzou and at Lee’s Summit High School wish to see him play in person this time as a pro.

When Lock takes the field on Sunday he will look across and see the Kansas Chiefs who are coming off from the high of finally beating the New England Patriots and breaking their home winning streak at 21 games. The Chiefs, now 9-4, not only feel good about the BIG road win but also accomplishing a division championship. The team won the AFC West for the fourth straight season with the hard earned win which followed an Oakland Raiders loss earlier in the day.

In the first meeting this season between the two teams the Chiefs ruled the day in Denver winning easily 30-6. This second meeting in Kansas City will be more like the one played in KC in 2018 when the Chiefs won by a closer margin of 30-23. The Chiefs enjoy beating AFC West Division teams and will do so again even against a home town kid. That’s What I REID Into It for this week.

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