Chiefs vs. Saints: Kansas City continues its undefeated start to the season with a comfortable win over New Orleans on Monday Night Football

CNN
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The Kansas City Chiefs maintained their undefeated start to the season with a comfortable 26-13 win over the New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football.

It wasn’t always pretty for the two-time reigning Super Bowl champions, but great performances from returning veterans Kareem Hunt and JuJu Smith-Schuster helped them improve to 5-0.

Hunt finished the game with 27 carries for 102 rushing yards and a touchdown, while Smith-Schuster had seven catches for 130 receiving yards. Both players were signed mid-season to cover Kansas City’s growing injury list.

The pair’s production ended years of fruitless runs; Smith-Schuster’s performance was his first 100-yard game since Week 7, 2022, while Hunt’s 100-yard output was the first time he reached the mark since Week 10 in 2020.

Quarterback Patrick Mahomes then spoke about the impact of both players since returning to the team. Hunt was drafted by the Chiefs in 2017 before being traded to the Cleveland Browns, and Smith-Schuster was on the Super Bowl LVII-winning team in 2022.

“Coach Reid knows their abilities and knows how to put them in great positions,” Mahomes, who finished with 331 passing yards, no touchdowns and one interception, told reporters. “Kareem just runs extremely hard. He gets every yard out there. He catches the ball and does everything he can to go out and win.

“Then, even when JuJu wasn’t getting a lot of reps, he was in the playbook and learning. The things he had lost in one year, you all saw two years ago. He fits well in this offense. We did a great job today and it was cool to get these guys going and improving.”

On the other hand, the Chiefs defense limited Derek Carr and the Saints to just 220 yards of offense and allowed just two touchdowns, while the Kansas City offense did just enough to continue the winning run.

The tone of the game was set early when Carr was intercepted by Bryan Cook on the game’s first drive and Hunt scored a touchdown on Kansas City’s first possession.

After a Harrison Butker field goal, New Orleans cut the deficit to three points with a 43-yard deep pass from Carr to Rashid Shaheed to bring the Saints onto the field.

But two more field goals from Butker restored Kansas City’s lead before another TD from the Saints once again reduced the game to three points.

When it looked like it was going to be a tight end, the Chiefs scored their second touchdown drive of the game with rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy running into the end zone from close range.

Worthy was able to celebrate the moment in a special way by handing his mother the touchdown ball in the stands to celebrate her birthday before hugging her.

A final field goal from Butker capped the victory and the Chiefs continued their excellent start to the season.

Mahomes praised his team for finding “other ways” to win despite mounting injuries this season.

“At the end of the day, our defense plays little by little, and I think people are starting to realize that even when we make those field goals, those plays keep us in the game even more,” he told reporters after the game.

“Obviously today we had a better day offensively – a lot of yards. Now it’s about finding ways to finish with touchdowns in the red zone so we can make those jumps bigger (and) faster and then we (defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo) can really let spags be spags. I think if we can do that, we’ll get better and better as the years go on.”

It is the Saints’ third defeat in a row after they started the season brilliantly on offense. The loss was made even worse when Carr left the game midway through the fourth quarter with an oblique injury.

There was a moment of joy for New Orleans fans when Khalen Saunders, the team’s defensive tackle, intercepted Mahomes in the end zone before returning the ball 36 yards. According to the NFL, Saunders reached a top speed of 15.79 mph upon his return, the third-fastest speed by a ball carrier weighing over 320 pounds since 2016.