2. The Cowboys’ performance on third down was the story of the game.<\/p>\n
Defensively, the clear difference on Thursday was the Cowboys’ performance on third down which, excluding a kneel-down at the end of the game, saw Dallas convert on nine of 15 opportunities.<\/p>\n
Specifically, Dallas converted numerous long third-down chances, moving the chains five times on 3rd-and-7 or longer. The Cowboys achieved that feat three times on their opening series, which ended in a touchdown, converting a 3rd-and-7, a 3rd-and-9 and a 3rd-and-10.<\/p>\n
Dallas then moved the chains again, this time despite a 3rd-and-8, early in the fourth quarter when Dak Prescott found wide receiver George Pickens for a 39-yard gain. The play, which set up a go-ahead touchdown just four snaps later, represented a clear swing moment in the game. Kansas City had the lead at that point, meaning a punt would have provided the Chiefs’ offense with an opportunity to extend the lead, and at worst, drain some clock. Instead, Kansas City was once again playing from behind.<\/p>\n
Overall, if any of those long third downs went the other way, there’s a good chance the Chiefs would have found a way to win the game. It just goes to show how thin the margin for error is when you let a good team hang around, and it needs to be an area in which Kansas City improves down the stretch.<\/p>\n
3. A major positive from Thursday’s game was the Chiefs’ efficiency in the red zone.<\/p>\n
It certainly wasn’t all bad on Thursday despite the result, and if there’s one major positive takeaway from the game, it was the Chiefs’ red zone touchdown efficiency.<\/p>\n
Kansas City was 3-for-3 in terms of scoring touchdowns in the red zone, which marked a major improvement after the Chiefs were just 2-for-9 in that area over the course of their prior two games.<\/p>\n
If Kansas City is to turn things around and make a run over the next several weeks, that improvement in the red zone will need to continue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2. The Cowboys’ performance on third down was the story of the game. Defensively, the clear difference on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[36104,10251,102,104,103,300,36103,16598,8250,80,16379,8251,27564,36106,36105,36107,33827],"class_list":["post-72139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-andy-reid","tag-chiefs","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-football","tag-geha-field-at-arrowhead-stadium","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-chiefs","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-football","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-super-bowl","tag-super-bowl-iv","tag-super-bowl-liv","tag-super-bowl-lvii","tag-travis-kelce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}