Late turnover lifts Chiefs to 20-17 win over Panthers

Chiefs second-year cornerback Marcus Peters, who led the National Football League with eight interceptions as a rookie, leads the National Football League with five interceptions this season.

After a rocky 1-5 start, the Panthers took advantage of a bye in week six. If the Chiefs can’t slow down a running game led by RB Jonathan Stewart and QB Cam Newton, the Panthers have a good shot to extend their win streak to three.

ALEX RETURNS: Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith is back under center after missing last week’s game against Jacksonville with a head injury.

“I felt really good regardless”, Smith said. Miami can get wins out of those games and move up in their division.

Smith had the late turnover, but he was steady if not spectacular in directing the Chiefs offense.

CHIEFS PK Cairo Santos more than earned his keep in Week 9, converting 4-of-4 FG attempts, including a 51-yarder. The Chiefs will look to add to the struggles of the defending NFC Champions, but they will have to do so without the help of some key contributors. Kuechly and company will have to wrap up quickly and securely if they want to get the the Chiefs offense off the field. Their weakest area this season, it is nice to start seeing major players back on the field.

Having all the available big-play threats is something that the Chiefs figure they might need this week because Carolina’s defense. The Panthers have passed the ball 54 percent of the time and have gone shotgun on approximately 64 percent of their offensive plays.

With the Panthers facing a third-and-6 in their own territory, defensive coordinator Bob Sutton dialed up an A-gap blitz up the middle that caused Newton to throw a wobbler off his back foot. “Oh you’ve got to be”, Childress said.

The past two weeks, Newton said the Panthers have reaped the rewards that come with putting in the work.

ARIZONA (-131⁄2) over San Francisco – The 3-4-1 Cardinals have to turn things around in a hurry or they can say sayonora to their playoff hopes. “We were still trying to have the winning ingredients”.

Kansas City leads the National Football League with 20 takeaways, two more than Carolina had through eight games in 2015.

According to ESPN’s matchup predictor, which is based on its FPI rating, Carolina wins the match-up between the two teams 60.0% of the time.

On the offensive side, Cam Newton hasn’t shown what he did previous year. Dee Ford racked up his 10 sack of the season on a second-and-11, and Chris Jones followed with another sack on third down to take the Panthers out of field goal range and force a punt.

“I’ve had mobile quarterbacks my whole career including here”, Reid said. “It doesn’t matter what defense is called”.

Former NFL official Gerry Austin doesn’t know why Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton has played since 2014 without drawing obvious roughing-the-passer penalties, but he has a solution. The first three teams figure to be in the playoff chase right down to the bitter end while Tampa Bay is a unsafe division rival.