Five Questions with Arrowhead Pride: Can the Bears compete at Arrowhead?

The Chicago Bears have started the season off 0-2 and after that rough of a start, fans started to wonder if things could get any worse?

Well, that’s certainly happened this week with some controversy around some comments around Justin Fields, the resignation of defensive coordinator Alan Williams and it looking like three of the starting five offensive linemen will miss the game against the Kansas City Chiefs this Sunday.

What should the Bears be prepared for this Sunday in Kansas City? We sat down with Tom Childs from Arrowhead Pride to get the latest on the Chiefs.

1. Oddly enough, both the Chiefs and Bears have scored 37 points on the season, despite both of them being in wildly different positions. In your estimation, why has the Chiefs offense struggled?

No offense, but if you’ve told me a couple weeks ago that the Chiefs offense would be tracking along with the Bears, I would have (A) laughed at you, then (B) feared that it must have meant an injury to Mahomes.

Luckily, the worst possible outcome of that scenario hasn’t come true, but that’s not to say that the Chiefs offense hasn’t been a tough watch. In fact, it’s been damn ugly at times.

The injury to Travis Kelce, the drops and of course, the alignment of Jawan Taylor has been well documented — but it is the lesser talked about issues that have concerned (certainly me) the most.

Play calling has been unbalanced; receivers aren’t reading zone defenses and are sometimes even running into each other; snaps from our pro bowl Center have been a little off.

The offense as a whole has just been ‘off’. I do think they’ll get their act together. I just hope they don’t wait too long to do it.

2. How is Matt Nagy perceived in Kansas City? Obviously that’s one that Bears’ fans would love to know.

Chiefs fans were sad to see Matt Nagy depart back in the spring of 2018. The team had just come off a season in which the Chiefs went scorched earth with Alex Smith under center. The thought of a Nagy working with this kid called Patrick Mahomes (you may have heard of him) excited everyone — not that it could have possibly been any better for Pat in 2018 anyway.

So the years passed and Cody Parkey’s miss happened, Matt Nagy was without a job so the Chiefs bought him in as quarterbacks coach to replace now Giants OC, Mike Kafka.

Kafka was tipped to be the successor when Eric Bieniemy eventually left, but the call of working with Daniel Jones was too tempting clearly, allowing Nagy to slot back in line behind Bieniemy — who was always going to move on sooner rather than later.

Eric Bieniemy was absolutely right to leave the Chiefs for the Commanders OC gig. It was obvious that he was never going to get the head coaching gig that he craves while he worked in the shadow of Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes.

After all of that and two very different journeys for both Bieniemy and Nagy, the Chiefs now found themselves in the position they could have been in 2018. And despite the rough start, there is still optimism that Nagy can take the offense to new heights.

3. How much of a difference did Chris Jones make for the Chiefs’ defense in week two?

I don’t want to take too much away from Chris Jones’ outstanding performance on Sunday, but I also don’t want to discredit the Chiefs’ defense for their performance against the Lions in week one.

Jones is obviously the superstar of the unit and he showed that against the Jags, with his league-leading pass rush grade of 91.7 as per PFF. However, there were contributions from all over. The defensive backs were excellent as were the young pass rushers alongside Chris Jones.

Perhaps it was Jones’ presence that allowed others to excel?

There can be no doubt that Chris Jones absolutely makes the Chiefs’ defense better, but it’s certainly not the one-man show that we’ve been used to anymore.

4. Two parter- do you see any way that the struggling Chicago Bears can cover the 12.5 points at Arrowhead and is there a particular Chiefs’ prop bet on DraftKings that interests you?

The Chiefs’ offense is in desperate need of a get-right game. — as I discussed earlier there have been struggles galore.

Rarely do the Chiefs cover these larger-than-life spreads, mainly because Andy Reid point blanks refuses to run up the score on opponents — opting for a time control approach instead.

But I would like to see a different approach from Reid this week. The receivers are in desperate need of a confidence boost, so I am hoping that the Chiefs put the throttle down for the entire sixty minutes.

I apologize for any arrogance, but after watching the reruns of the Bears games against the Packers and Bucs, I do find it difficult to imagine the Bears stopping the Chiefs’ offense if Kansas City addresses their issues.

On the flip side, the struggles of Fields & Co are plain to see. I do think that the Bears can score points if they let Fields be Fields.

But if the Bears insist on making Fields work from the pocket, then Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo will send blitzes straight from the depths of hell his way. It could get ugly.

As for the prop bet, I am going to back Clyde Edwards-Helaire for the last touchdown scorer at +1100. I just know that Andy will put the ball in the running backs’ hands if the Chiefs go up big.

5. Has Taylor Swift’s popularity amongst Chiefs fans grown since the Travis Kelce rumors? And do they have a couple nickname yet? I like Traylor, personally.

*Disclaimer, I used all of my puns on last week’s edition of five questions.

My personal enjoyment of Taylor Swift’s music hasn’t increased — mainly because my guilty pleasure is her top hits, but I am sure that more and more Chiefs fans have added her playlist to their Spotify playlists recently.

Traylor appears to be the nickname doing the rounds on social media but my personal favorite is swifTE. I’m sorry.

I get why this is a story. If it is true, they are a power couple that could rival all other power couples. But to be honest, I am just looking forward to hearing the inevitable break-up song. Kelce can use it as bulletin board material.

Thanks for having me Bears fans. I hope the season gets better for you — after Sunday.

The Bears are staring down the barrel at an 0-3 start and they are going to need everything to go right for them this Sunday in Kansas City if they are going to tally their first win of the season. As always, thanks to Tom Childs and everyone over at Arrowhead Pride.

And as always, if you want to place a little wager on the game, our friends at DraftKings Sportsbook has you covered.