KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A fake punt, fourth-down conversions, your typical Mahomes Magic... Sunday's 33-31 Chiefs win over the Carolina Panthers was maybe the most enjoyable Kansas City game of the season.
Defensive end Frank Clark liked playing in it, too.
"It was pretty awesome," Clark said. "When you've got a team that comes in and gives you the best they have, every time that happens it's always a good one out there."
Clark picked up a sack, but the defense as a whole wasn't able to corral Christian McCaffrey, Teddy Bridgewater and the rest of the Panthers' offense that racked up 435 yards and put up 31 points.
"We weren't where we can be," Clark said. "That's obvious. We had a few plays where they broke away. We had some missed tackles here and there."
Carolina certainly had a lot to do with that. They converted fourth downs on three of their four touchdown drives. One of the conversions was a fake punt in the second quarter. The Panthers even tried to two onside kicks.
Clark said to expect more of that "go for broke" mentality from future opponents.
"I tell my people all the time, 'This is what I signed up for,'" Clark said about the 8-1 Chiefs having a target on their backs.
He also said some of the team may have been peeking at what's on the horizon - the bye week - and that that looking ahead attributed to the narrow win.
"What I understand being six years in this league, I've had six bye weeks," Clark said. "Stuff like that tends to happen around those bye weeks. You've got guys thinking about time off. You've got guys thinking about not getting hurt."
The Chiefs now take a week off before traveling to Las Vegas in a revenge game against the Raiders, the lone team to beat Kansas City in 2020.
"We just want to stay focused. That's the only thing honestly that I want to do," Clark said.
