AFC Notes: Patrick Mahomes, Chris Jones, Todd Monken, Chiefs, Ravens

Chiefs

Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes said the past two close games keep the team motivated to perform.

“It keeps you motivated, which I think can be a good thing in the end,’’ Mahomes said, via PFT. “I think sometimes I look back on the year we lost the Super Bowl and we were very dominant throughout the regular season and it’s just kind of like you get to this point where you start coasting [because] you’re winning games, you’re just doing the normal thing. If you look at us last year though, it didn’t go the way we wanted it to. I feel like we just continued to work every single week and we knew we had to get better and we didn’t let the details slip and we ended up playing our best football at the end of the year, and so that’s the hope is that with all these close finishes, we’re getting wins, but it’s keeping us hungry so that we can try to continue to get better as the season goes on.”

Chiefs

Chiefs LB Drue Tranquill said that despite the low sack totals, DT Chris Jones still impacts the game in ways that let the rest of the defense capitalize.

“Anybody who is really involved in the game and watches it knows that numbers can lie,” Tranquill said, via The Athletic. “Chris is the best one-on-one pass rusher in football. He’s disruptive. He’s getting four or six hands on him, it seems, every play. Because of that, our defense finds success and we’re able to exploit offenses in different ways.”

Chiefs DC Steve Spagnuolo also recognized the importance of Jones and what he brings to the defense.

“He affects every player around him, whether it’s a linebacker fitting behind him or somebody pass-rushing along with him or it’s the (pass) protections that we’re seeing because of Chris,” Spagnuolo said. “We’ve got to keep trying to take advantage of that.”

Jones said that Spagnuolo gives him a lot of flexibility within the scheme to allow him to play freely.

“Spags is a heck of a guy,” Jones said. “Against certain schemes, I’m able to exercise my rights and go outside or go inside, depending on what formation they show. Sometimes I overdo it. It’s like a blitz. I take a lot of calculated risks. It’s (a) high reward or no reward.”

Ravens

Ravens OC Todd Monken could be another marquee coaching candidate going into 2025. When asked about his candidacy for jobs around the league, Monken reiterated his focus on Baltimore for the rest of the season. 

“I don’t deal with it,” Monken said, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN. “I don’t deal with it because it has nothing to do with the here and the now and nobody really knows anything. I don’t control that. All I control is the job I have here. That’s the most important thing. It’s winning here and scoring points because if you don’t worry about that, you don’t have a job here. Then the other stuff doesn’t happen.”