Arrowheadlines: Former Chiefs RB LeSean McCoy to retire

Chiefs headlines for Friday, October 1

The latest

One-time Chiefs RB LeSean McCoy announces he’ll retire from NFL | Chiefs Wire

He’ll retire with the Philadelphia Eagles, where he was originally drafted (No. 53 overall in 2009 NFL draft) by Andy Reid. He spent most of his career with the Eagles, appearing in 76 total games, with over 1,700 touches for over 7,000 scrimmage yards and 54 scrimmage touchdowns.

“I still have that green inside my heart,” McCoy wrote.

McCoy joined the Chiefs just ahead of the start of the 2019 NFL season.

“This is the best fit for me,” McCoy said. “We have a great chance at a championship. I think the best part about it is Andy Reid, who is one of my favorite coaches of my NFL career. He’s had me since I’ve been 20 years old. Now, I’m at 31. We had a long talk and Brett Veach, a guy that believed in me for years. This was the right fit, I think so.”

Agent’s Take: Chiefs, Cowboys headline NFL’s most top-heavy teams for 2021 season; Saints round out top 5 | CBS Sports

1. Kansas City Chiefs

Top 10 By Average Salary (seven players): Patrick Mahomes (No. 1 QB); Tyreek Hill (No. 6 WR); Travis Kelce (No. 2 TE); Joe Thuney (No. 1 OG); Frank Clark (No. 6 Edge); Chris Jones (No. 4 DT); Tyrann Mathieu (tied-No. 7 S)

Top 10 By Salary Cap Number (five players): Tyreek Hill (No. 5 WR); Travis Kelce (No. 3 TE); Frank Clark (No. 1 Edge); Anthony Hitchens (No. 5 LB); Tyrann Mathieu (No. 1 S)

Top 5 Cap Hits (No. 2 in NFL): $80,561,015

Frank Clark (Edge): $25.8 million

Tyrann Mathieu (S): $19,733,334

Tyreek Hill (WR): $15,850,500

Anthony Hitchens (LB): $10,635,515

Chris Jones (DT) $8,541,666

Seven players in the top 10 by average salary are tied for the most in the NFL with the Browns. Kansas City is one of two teams where the top 5 cap hits are collectively over $80 million.

Week 4 NFL game picks: Rams top Cardinals in battle of unbeatens; Tom Brady bests Bill Belichick | NFL.com

Kansas City Chiefs 31-23 Philadelphia Eagles

WHERE: Lincoln Financial Field (Philadelphia)

WHEN: 1 p.m. ET | CBS

SPREAD: Chiefs -7 | O/U: 54.5

This isn’t about catching the Chiefs at the wrong time. The two-time defending AFC champions don’t need more motivation; they need to clean up their turnovers and provide some defensive resistance in the red zone, where they have given up 12 touchdowns in 13 opponent trips. The Eagles were overwhelmed in Dallas, picked apart by a quarterback who didn’t need a bunch of big plays to walk them up and down the field. Here comes another!

NFL’s top 10 deep threats: Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase lone rookie on list | NFL.com

5 – Tyreek Hill

Kansas City Chiefs · WR

You don’t get the nickname Cheetah by being average in any area. Hill, as we all know by this point, is far from average. The Chiefs speedster is tops among all players in deep receiving touchdowns since 2016 with 27, leading the next-closest pass catcher by five deep touchdowns. He continues to push the limits of player tracking, reaching 20-plus mph on four touches in 2021 — twice as many instances as the next-closest wide receiver. Statistically, he’s on par with where he was around this time last year, catching three deep targets for 125 yards and a game-changing touchdown in Kansas City’s Week 1 win over Cleveland. The Chiefs’ high-flying offense simply wouldn’t be as dynamic if Kansas City didn’t have Hill, who will likely own a spot on this list for the majority of his career.

Notable revenge games between legends and their former teams ahead of Tom Brady’s return to New England | CBS Sports

Marcus Allen vs. the Raiders

Week 5 of the 1993 season: Chiefs 24, Raiders 9

Allen: 17 carries, 24 yards, 1 TD; 1 catch for 8 yards

The Super Bowl XVIII MVP resurfaced in Kansas City after a messy divorce from the Raiders. While his first game against his former team was not very good from a statistical standpoint, it was the start of a dominant run for Allen against his former team. During his five years in Kansas City, Allen went 9-1 against his former team. In Week 13 of the ‘93 season, Allen rushed for 85 yards and a touchdown while helping the Chiefs defeat the Raiders in his first game back in Los Angeles. Allen won Comeback Player of the Year during his first season in Kansas City. In the 1994 season finale, Allen rushed for 132 yards in helping Kansas City defeat the Raiders during their final game at the Los Angeles Colosseum.

The Raiders made the playoffs during their first season without Allen but won just 28 games over the next four seasons, bottoming out with a 4-12 mark in 1997. Conversely, Allen and the Chiefs made the playoffs four times during his five seasons in Kansas City that included a trip to the AFC Championship Game in 1993. Allen set a then-NFL record for career rushing touchdowns in 1995. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2012, Allen returned to Oakland to light the ceremonial torch in honor of late Raiders owner Al Davis.

4 burning questions for Week 4 in the NFL | SB Nation

No. 4: Can the Chiefs stop the bleeding?

Dropping back-to-back games, Kansas City now finds itself in last place in AFC West and in need of a spark to get back on track. That should be relatively easy Week 4 against the Eagles, but if the drop this game there are major issues.

The odds-on favorites to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, the Chiefs are struggling so tremendously on defense that not even Patrick Mahomes’ greatness can dig them out — and he has been far from perfect in 2021.

Kansas City is tied for last in the NFL in points allowed, giving up 95 over the last three games. They’re on par with the Lions, worse than the Jaguars, Jets and Falcons in this area. That is really, really bad.

If the Chiefs want to have any hopes of getting this back on track they have to win against Philadelphia, and if that doesn’t happen and they fall to 1-3, well, it’s going to be approaching the time where we can write them off. I’m dying to know what happens.

Around the NFL

Super Bowl halftime show to feature Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar | ESPN

The NFL, Pepsi and Roc Nation announced Thursday that the five music icons will perform on Feb. 13 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Lamar are Southern California natives.

Dre emerged from the West Coast gangster rap scene alongside Eazy-E and Ice Cube to help form the group N.W.A., which made a major mark in the hip-hop culture and music industry with controversial lyrics in the late 1980s. Dre is responsible for bringing forth rap stars such as Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent and Lamar. Dre also produced Blige’s No. 1 hit song “Family Affair.”

“The opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime show, and to do it in my own backyard, will be one of the biggest thrills of my career,” Dre said in a statement. The seven-time Grammy winner added that their halftime performance will be an “unforgettable cultural moment.”

2021 NFL season, Week 4: What we learned from Bengals’ win over Jaguars on Thursday night | NFL.com

Uzomah comes up huge. Bengals tight end C.J. Uzomah. The former fifth-round pick didn’t catch a ball before halftime, but proved to be Jacksonville’s undoing with five catches for a career-high 95 yards and two touchdowns thereafter. Burrow hurt Jacksonville on play-action rollouts, including on Uzomah’s first touchdown, and the tight end did plenty of damage on the game-winning drive, as well: a first-down catch to the Jaguars 43, and a 25-yard reception on a 2nd-and-14 play that put the Bengals in field-goal range.

Jaguars WR D.J. Chark out indefinitely after fracturing ankle vs. Bengals | NFL.com

Receiver D.J. Chark is out indefinitely after fracturing his ankle in the first quarter of Jacksonville’s Thursday Night Football loss against the Bengals, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported.

“Tough one. I don’t know the extent. I heard it’s a broken ankle,” Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer said after the game. “And he was starting to play well. That’s a big one.”

Chark, 25, was carted off following the conclusion of the third play of the game’s opening drive. He was injured after teammate James Robinson rolled on top of his leg while being tackled as the wideout attempted to set a block downfield.

In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride

Josh Gordon reminds Tyrann Mathieu of Calvin Johnson

Then on Thursday, Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu did his best to stoke the boiler of the Gordon hype train.

“He kind of reminds me of Calvin Johnson,” Mathieu told reporters about his reaction to seeing him in practice. “Just the way he’s built.”

When that name is being thrown out there, how is anyone supposed to temper their expectations for the newest Chiefs receiver?

And Mathieu continued to shovel coal into the fire pit.

“[He] looks like one of those kinds of guys where you see two people on him, you still throw the ball to him,” he said. “We really just look forward to seeing what he can come in and bring to the team. Obviously, everybody in the locker room has a great responsibility to continue to encourage him, push him in the right direction — but from what I’ve seen, he’s a hell of a football player.”

When he talked about Gordon on Thursday, tight end Travis Kelce lit up.

“He was flying around, man — it was fun!” Kelce said of Gordon’s Wednesday practice. “When you see an athlete like that run, it’s pretty cool.”

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