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Week 5 film notes on Chiefs, Chargers, Raiders

Tyreek Hill of the Kansas City Chiefs catches a pass against Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey at Arrowhead Stadium on October 7, 2018 in Kansas City, Missouri.
Tyreek Hill of the Kansas City Chiefs catches a pass against Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey at Arrowhead Stadium on October 7, 2018 in Kansas City, Missouri.
(Peter Aiken/Getty Images)
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Once again, we begin with the AFC’s most entertaining offense.

Chiefs

It’s great when life deals you hard knocks yet you still come out on top, right, Patrick Mahomes?

Against the best defense he’s faced, Mahomes had a few miscues Sunday.

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The young quarterback, gripping a wet football, also made a handful of special plays and outplayed Jaguars counterpart Blake Bortles by a lot.

Once again, I’ll geek out over Mahomes’ knack for throwing fast strikes on the move.

Mahomes is to throwing on the run what Steph Curry is to distance shooting. (Is that geeky enough?)

One quick example from Sunday:

The Chiefs need a yard on third down, early in their first drive.

Does coach Andy Reid have his young quarterback hand off?

Of course not! Kansas City is where the Big 12 meets the NFL.

The call is for Mahomes to roll right off a run fake.

The Jags respond well.

A lineman veers toward Mahomes while super-fast linebacker Tevin Smith jets toward the pass target 10 yards downfield.

Unless the pass is pinpointed to compact Anthony Sherman, a 5-foot-10 fullback, the Chiefs will have to punt.

The laser hits Sherman in the hands, and he holds on.

Later, near the goal-line, a designed run play rather brazenly requires Mahomes to beat one defender: Smith.

A deceptive runner, he gets there one stride ahead and ducks under the human missile.

Can Mahomes keep this up?

Next is a road game against the Patriots, who played Thursday, giving them extra time to prepare for the Chiefs (5-0).

Kelce and Hill

Travis Kelce played very well.

He lost defensive backs and linebackers and found honey pots in zones. He made good blocks, even knocked a lineman to the ground to pave a run.

How did Tyreek Hill fare against Jalen Ramsey?

He won twice to fuel a clinching drive.

With Ramsey already eight yards off, Hill scared him backward and caught a pass for 11 yards. Then Hill ruined Ramsey’s press coverage with a stutter-and-go that led to a 36-yard shot downfield.

High-level football

The deep strike to Hill actually netted 51 yards.

Fifteen yards were added when Jaguars lineman Malik Jackson hit Mahomes after the throw. Jackson had made quick work of a good guard, Lawrence Duvernay-Tardif, who would break a leg on a freak mishap in mop-up time, but the ball was gone in under 2.5 seconds after the snap.

Chargers

Three games after facing the Rams, the Chargers were Rams-like in that their offensive designs had gobs of motion with frequent doses of jet action.

And a spry-enough Philip Rivers did his version of Mahomes by rolling right and hitting Antonio Gates for a long, timely gain.

The biggest development with the Chargers under coach Anthony Lynn is that Rivers, at 36, has improved at protecting the ball while also continuing to make savvy plays -- and the lead-up to the pass to Gates was a good example of it.

Rivers could’ve opted for a “60-40” throw downfield to his left, his first option. Rivers is accurate on such pocket throws, which must tempt him to go for it.

He made a better choice.

He seemed to realize that only three Raiders were rushing him. Using the extra space and time, the San Diegan rolled right and found Gates alone. So, although this was a semi-improvised play, it was also a good example of the “steady” knack that Rivers said he found midway through last season.

Defense

Rivers got patience-inducing help from a dominant defense that bought time while the offense was scoring only three points through four drives.

Chargers linemen Melvin Ingram and Darius Philon each had his best game of 2018.

Derwin James

Good grief, this man is football strong.

When Marshawn Lynch barreled into him, James gave no ground.

James gonged Jared Cook after a short pass, and the large tight end staggered several feet backward.

Also, the coaches trusted James, a free safety, with man coverage in the red zone against a good wideout, Amari Cooper. The Raiders, for their part, don’t seem to think Cooper is so good, as we’ll see below.

(Cook, paying James back, caused the rookie a pass-interference penalty in the end zone.)

Raiders

Derek Carr is learning a new offense. In front of him Sunday were two rookie tackles and a backup guard. Center Rodney Hudson, who couldn’t get to James on a screen, isn’t moving as he did four years ago in Mission Valley when he blocked three Chargers on one zany play.

Caveats noted, Carr is resembling another limited quarterback...Ryan Tannehill.

That’s not all bad. Both have good arms and are accurate when it’s a clean play.

Neither Carr nor Tannehill, however, is advanced at managing the game from the line of scrimmage before the snap, and that reduces the offense’s ability to adjust and to attack.

Also, Carr is less athletic, physical and poised than Tannehill — or has been in several perplexing, uneven showings, including Sunday’s, since his breakout season in 2016.

Carr regressing?

At their 1, the Chargers did to Lynch and the Raiders what Bill Belichick and the Patriots did to Lynch and the Seahawks in the Super Bowl.

Gus Bradley sent out extra linemen, and squared up blockers to discourage a handoff.

The Raiders tried a play-action pass.

Carr didn’t notice that edge rusher Ingram was at inside linebacker. The quarterback locked his gaze on a backup tight end who was cutting toward the back of the end zone. Ingram read Carr, who tried to throw against the grain, and picked off the pass to all but end the game, which the Chargers led by 17 points late in the third quarter. It was a brutal quarterbacking mistake -- on first down -- from a fifth-year starter.

Carr, 27, will try to rebound against the Seahawks.

Raiders youth movement

Left tackle Kolton Miller had a bad game.

He was beaten with power, speed and hand moves. On short passes and runs, he wasn’t able to get outside and block as he had last month. Old friend Michael Gehlken, now the Raiders’ beat writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, reports that Miller — who had a useful first quarter of the season, in light of the elite edge rushes he faced — played despite a Grade II knee sprain apparently sustained in the previous game.

The Chargers treated rookie Maurice Hurst as Oakland’s best defensive lineman by double-teaming or shading help toward him. Hurst, quick and relentless, had a handful of good plays.

Making his first NFL start, right tackle Brandon Parker was adequate.

Rookie defensive end Arden Key is fortunate he didn’t badly injure tight end Virgil Green with a helmet-to-helmet blow that was flagged. Key arrived late and speared Green. Cheap shots like that one are remembered come the rematch.

In addition, Key lost containment twice in the first half.

Several others Raiders are past their primes. It was hard to watch smart, sound linebacker Derek Johnson, 35, pass up on contact and lag in pursuit. He was a very good player for several years.

Raiders riddle

Carr targeted Cooper just once in the receiver’s 50 snaps. His lone reception was for 10 yards, against Casey Hayward’s off coverage.

The many shades of gray to Cooper’s quiet day included the shaky blocking unit and Hayward tracking Cooper almost everywhere he lined up.

Also, Carr was unable to exploit two chances to hit Cooper for a chunk gain.

One would’ve taken a Mahomes-level throw, off movement right. Carr instead threw the ball away.

The other time, Mahomes opted for Martavis Bryant, hitting him over the middle, but Bryant had pushed corner Mike Davis to draw an interference flag, and when James harried Bryant, the ball got exposed and Jatavis Brown knocked it loose.

Cooper, 24, may be better off joining another team in March, if he can’t gel this year under a new head coach whose background is on offense.

Feisty Phil

The only touchdown the Raiders scored was facilitated by an officiating miscue that ticked off Rivers, who was caught on the CBS feed yelling at a down judge for not flagging the Raiders for a presnap foul.

“That’s terrible and you know it!” said Rivers from the sideline after down judge Tom Symonette failed to flag a nearby receiver, Seth Roberts.

The telecast replay showed that Roberts had failed to get set.

Tom.Krasovic@SDUnionTribune.com; Twitter: SDUTKrasovic

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