{"id":34664,"date":"2017-10-15T19:49:39","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T00:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=34664"},"modified":"2017-10-15T19:49:39","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T00:49:39","slug":"steelers-diminish-chiefs-perfect-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=34664","title":{"rendered":"Steelers Diminish Chiefs&#8217; Perfect Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BY TRISTAN SASSE<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historically, the Pittsburgh Steelers have appeared to be the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 kryptonite. Sunday was no different. Through five weeks, Kansas City was one of the NFL\u2019s leading high-powered offenses, averaging the second most yards per game (414.2) and leading the league with 32.8 points per game. On Sunday, the Chiefs were held to 251 yards and 13 points before going on to lose their first game of the year, 19-13, to the Steelers. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Entering Sunday, Kansas City was 5-0 for the second time under Andy Reid (2013). The 3-2 Steelers were coming off a 30-9 loss against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Adding to KC and Pittsburgh&#8217;s recent matchup history, the Steelers ended the Chiefs\u2019 season a year ago in the AFC Divisional Round of the playoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Chiefs offense struggled throughout, even though Kareem Hunt became the first player in NFL history with at least 100 yards from scrimmage in his first six career games. Hunt finished with five receptions for 89 yards and nine carries for 21 yards. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alex Smith completed 19 of 34 passes for 246 yards but finished with his lowest passer rating on the season (88.6). Smith has thrown 12 touchdown passes and no interceptions through six weeks. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the Steelers, Ben Roethlisberger was coming off a five-interception performance against the Jaguars. Big Ben finished with 252 passing yards, with the majority of them being to Antonio Brown. Brown finished with eight receptions for 155 yards. Le\u2019Veon Bell sparked the Steelers ground game with 179 rushing yards on 32 attempts. Bell rushed for 170 yards on the Chiefs in last year\u2019s playoff game.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Disaster struck early for Kansas City. Zach Fulton snapped the ball over Smith\u2019s head and out the back of the end zone for a safety on Kansas City\u2019s first possession. On the ensuing free kick, the Chiefs recovered after a miscommunication by the Steelers. Harrison Butker capitalized with a 46-yard field goal minutes later. The field goal marked Butker\u2019s ninth straight make after missing his first kick in his NFL debut.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the beginning of the second quarter, Bell punched in a 3-yard touchdown run. For Kansas City, Marcus Peters had an interception, but the Chiefs failed to get anything going. In the closing minutes of the half, Pittsburgh\u2019s Chris Boswell connected on a 24-yard field goal. The Steelers led at halftime, 12-3.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Chiefs were unable to get a first down until under two minutes left in the first half. Pittsburgh ended the first half with 16 first downs, while Kansas City had six total yards on 16 plays. It was the lowest yardage total for the Chiefs in a half since December of 2011 against the New York Jets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the third quarter, Kansas City\u2019s offense struggled until the final play of the quarter. Smith found Hunt for a 37-yard reception and after a roughing the passer penalty against Pittsburgh, Kansas City was within striking distance. After three quarters, the Steelers accumulated 325 yards, while the Chiefs had 91.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Chiefs had a scoring opportunity at the beginning of the fourth quarter but turned the ball over on downs deep in Pittsburgh territory. Kansas City was down but not out. Smith later found De\u2019Anthony Thomas for a 57-yard touchdown reception. The Steelers minimized Kansas City\u2019s hopes in the final minutes when Brown caught a tipped pass and raced 51 yards down the sideline for a Pittsburgh touchdown.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kansas City\u2019s chances weren\u2019t completely shattered. The defense forced a three and out, and Tyreek Hill exploded for a 27-yard punt return. Late in the game, Kansas City once again turned the ball over on downs and their perfect season was diminished. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kansas City will look to rebound on Thursday night against their AFC rival, the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders are 2-4 after falling at home to the Los Angeles Chargers, 17-16, on Sunday afternoon. The Steelers will host the 2-3 Cincinnati Bengals in an AFC North matchup. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY TRISTAN SASSE Historically, the Pittsburgh Steelers have appeared to be the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 kryptonite. Sunday was no different. Through five weeks, Kansas City&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3387,7349],"tags":[106,11032,10281,11342,103,1495,290],"class_list":["post-34664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-sports","category-sports","tag-fort-hays-state-university","tag-kansas-city-chiefs","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-tiger-media-network","tag-tigermedianet","tag-tmn"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34664"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34668,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34664\/revisions\/34668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}