There are just two undefeated teams in the National Football League three weeks into the season and one of them is quarterbacked by a kid who grew up in Bonita and attended Bonita Vista Middle School.
That, of course, would be Alex Smith, who would go on to star at Helix high School, the University of Utah and is now the on-field leader of the Kansas City Chiefs, his current NFL team.
Smith completed 16 of 21 passing attempts (76.2 percent) for 155 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions in Sunday’s 24-10 win over the Los Angeles Chargers at the StubHub Center to lead the Chiefs to a 3-0 start.
He out-dueled Charger quarterback Philip Rivers, who completed 20 of 40 passing attempts for 237 yards with no touchdowns and three interceptions.
Smith, despite being sacked five times, posted a 128.1 quarterback efficiency rating while Rivers, who was sacked twice, finished with a dismal 37.2 rating.
Smith threw touchdown passes to Tyreek Hill (five catches, 77 yards) and Albert Wilson (three catches, 18 yards).
Kansas City never trailed in the early season AFC West matchup, leading 14-7 after the first quarter and 17-10 at halftime.
The Chiefs broke the game open on a 69-yard scoring run by rookie Kareem Hunt (17 carries, 172 yards) late in the fourth quarter.
Rivers led the Chargers to the two-yard line with 23 seconds to play but time ran out on the attempted comeback bid.
Travis Benjamin led the Chargers with five catches for 105 yards while Melvin Gordon had 17 carries for 79 rushing yards and one touchdown.
Terrence Mitchell had two picks for Kansas City.
“From top to bottom, this division is tough,” Smith told the media in a postgame press conference. “There are some great rivalries through all the teams. Every one of these games seem to come down to the end. I knew it when we jumped out, I told myself, everybody’s feeling good but you knew they weren’t going to give up, they were going to climb back, scratch and claw, and they did. That’s the way these games are, that’s the way the division is. Everybody is really, really good.
“This team is really good on defense. They have two guys who can really get at the passer. You’ve got to be smart with them. They’re going to get their sacks sometimes but don’t them make the play that changes the game.”
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said was complimentary of Smith’s performance.
“He did a nice job, he attacked early, he had some nice throws,” Reid said. “I could have given him some better plays. We weren’t able to get a rhythm going. We need to do a better job of that in the second half.
“I thought our defense played well with all those interceptions, those turnovers,” “All in all, there were a lot of good things.
“I appreciate our fans being here. There was a lot of red here. I love our team.”
The win by the Chiefs was the seventh consecutive over the Chargers. Kansas City, last year’s AFC West champion, has now won 12 consecutive divisional games.
Meanwhile, the woes continue for the Chargers, who fell to 0-3 this season and lost their second consecutive game in their new home since moving to Los Angeles after playing more than 50 years in San Diego.
The Chargers have now lost 26 of their last 35 games from start of the 2015 season and have lost 14 of their last 15 divisional contests.
Following road losses by both the Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders last weekend, the Chiefs are the only undefeated team in the AFC and lead the AFC West standings with a one-game lead over both the Broncos and Raiders (both 2-1).
The Atlanta Falcons are the only other undefeated team in the NFL through the opening three weeks. They lead the NFC with a 3-0 record.
Sunday’s attendance at the StubHub Center of 25,386 failed to fill the 27,000-seat soccer-specific stadium, with a multitude of fans wearing KC colors.
Smith, who grew up as a San Diego Chargers fan, admitted it was odd not playing at the Chargers’ former home in Mission Valley (where he had played high school, college and NFL games).
“A lot of years I had been singing ‘San Diego Super Chargers,’” Smith chimed about his youth while growing up in San Diego County. “We knew we were the last game there, down in Qualcomm last year. It’s still bittersweet and strange to see these guys up here. But we knew it all week.
“We knew it would be a new environment playing here. The division trumps that. These games are so important, so the focus on winning the game trumps all that stuff.”
Smith threw a 30-yard scoring pass to Hill and a six-yard shovel pass to Wilson to boost the Chiefs to an early 14-0 lead.
However, Smith admitted “there wasn’t too much good to talk about” after that.
“We didn’t make adjustments to what they were doing,” Smith told the media. “But in the fourth quarter we came through, then the O-line made big plays. It seems like every game in this division comes down to the end. They’re all great rivalries.”
On the season, Smith has thrown for 774 yards with seven touchdowns, no interceptions and a 132.7 QB rating.
Smith ranks second to Minnesota’s Sam Bradford (143.0) in quarterback efficiency ratings among NFL signal-callers and second to New England’s Tom Brady (eight touchdowns) in total touchdowns.
Brady tops the league with 1,092 passing yards, followed by Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers (967 yards), Arizona’s Carson Palmer (925 yards), New Orleans’ Drew Brees and Matt Ryan, both with 867 yards, New York Giants’ Eli Manning (825 yards), Los Angeles Rams’ Jared Goff (817 yards) and Philadelphia’s Carson Wentz (816 yards).
Smith ranks No. 10 on the list.
The Chiefs will next be featured on ESPN’s broadcast of Monday Night Football on Oct. 2 against the Washington Redskins (2-1).
Bears get super win for first of season
Castle Park High School/Southwestern College alumnus John Fox has taken both the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos to Super Bowl appearances. He remains the only head coach in the NFL to take teams to the Super Bowl from different conferences, winning the NFC championship with the Panthers (2003) and the AFC title with the Broncos (2013).
After collecting 128 regular season wins in Carolina and Denver, however, Fox has admittedly been tested in his first three years at the helm of the Chicago Bears. He entered Sunday’s game against the previously undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers with a 9-25 record.
Make that 10-25 after the Bears stunned the Steelers, 23-17, in overtime to pick up their first win of the season.
Following a season opening 23-17 loss to the visiting Atlanta Falcons, last season’s Super Bowl runner-up, Fox told the media he believed his team could contend with any team in the league, including the top echelon.
The Bears took a step backward with a dismal 29-7 loss at Tampa Bay on Sept. 17. But Fox certainly had to put on a smile following the win over Pittsburgh.
“I thought it was a tremendous effort, our guys worked hard all week,” said Fox, who signed a four-year contract with Chicago on Jan. 16, 2015. “It wasn’t how you draw it up but our guys hung in there and come up the win.
“It’s a tribute to the guys up front, it starts up front. We kind of stepped over ourselves in Tampa. Our guys knew that, especially up front. That’s kind of what we are, what we’re going to be, you’ve got to show up every week. Our guys, I thought they answered the ball up front.
“A week ago you couldn’t really evaluate our defense. They have an explosive offense in Tampa. They had a lot of short fields. I think it was good today. All in all our defense was very solid. They took their shots. I thought our secondary did a good job of being deep when we needed to be.
“They (our opponents) have given us everything they had in all three games we’ve played. We made some errors in other ones we weren’t able to overcome but we’ve had opportunities. It was nice to get that ‘W’ today.”
The Bears enter Thursday night’s game against NFC North arch rival Green Bay with a 1-2 record. The Packers are 2-1.
Jordan Howard opened scoring in Sunday’s game on a three-year run to put the hosts ahead 7-0. The Steelers matched that on a seven-yard scoring pass from Ben Roethlisberger to Antonio Brown.
The Bears went ahead 14-7 when Mike Glennon threw a two-yard touchdown pass to rookie Adam Shaheen and closed out the first half with a 17-7 lead when C Barth kicked a 24-yard field goal as time expired.
The field goal was set up when Chicago cornerback Marcus Cooper initially recovered a blocked field goal attempt and appeared to return it for a touchdown before having the ball knocked out of his hands by Steelers tight end Vance McDonald just in front of the goal line.
The ball was then illegally batted through the end zone by a Pittsburgh player, which handed the ball to the Bears at the one-half-yard line and extending the quarter by one play. The Bears kicked a 24-yard field goal to end the half.
It was one of the more bizarre plays of Week 3 in the league.
LeVeon Bell scored on a one-yard run in the third quarter and Chris Boswell kicked a 32-yard field goal in the fourth quarter as the visitors rallied with 10 second-half points to force overtime.
Howard scored the game-winner on a 19-yard run with 8:27 left in the 10-minute overtime period.
Glennon finished the game 15-of-22 for 101 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Howard rushed 23 times for 136 yards and two touchdowns.
Roethlisberger passed for 235 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions. However, he was sacked three times. Brown had 10 catches for 110 yards and one TD.
The Bears out-gained the Steelers 304-282 in total net yards.
Chicago will have a date on Monday Night Football on Oct. 9 against Minnesota in another early season NFC North showdown.
London calling: Jags pull upset over Ravens
A pair of Chula Vista natives helped make history when they played on opposite sides of the football in Sunday’s NFL game in London’s famed Wembley Stadium.
Cheered on by more than 80,000 fans, the Jacksonville Jaguars and place-kicker Jason Myers (Mater Dei Catholic High School alumnus) rolled up a surprising 44-7 non-divisional victory against the previously undefeated Baltimore Ravens and defensive back Tony Jefferson (Eastlake High School alumnus).
Myers put on an international showcase performance by kicking three field goals and tacking on extra-point kick conversions on five touchdowns scored by the Jaguars.
Myers booted field goals of 23, 45 and 29 yards to help stake his team to a 23-0 lead. Jacksonville would eventually stretch its lead to 44-0 before the Ravens avoided a shutout loss on a six-yard touchdown catch by Benjamin Watson with 3:24 left in the game.
Myers, who was making his third trip to England as member of the Jaguars, opened scoring in the game on a 23-yard field goal. It was the first time that Baltimore had trailed all season.
Following a 17-yard touchdown pass from Jacksonville quarterback Blake Bortles to Marcedes Lewis, Myers kicked a 45-yard field goal to put the Jags ahead 13-0.
Lewis (four catches, 62 yards) would go on to make three touchdown catches during the game. He also scored on receptions of 30 and four yards.
Bortles also tossed a five-yard scoring pass to Allen Hurns while Leonard Fournette scored on a three-run run to round out Jacksonville’s bounty of five touchdowns.
Bortles finished 20-of-31 for 244 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions
The Jaguars held the Ravens to just 64 passing yards in the game; Jefferson was limited to just three tackles on defense.
Both teams are 2-1 on the season. The Jaguars play at the New York Jets (1-2) on Sunday, Oct. 1, while the Ravens host the Pittsburgh Steelers in an AFC North divisional showdown that say day.
Aztecs in the NFL: Week Three
Eleven former players are in the NFL
Three weeks into the NFL regular season, former SDSU Aztecs are continuing to make their marks in the league.
San Diego State has 11 former players on rosters throughout the league, with three on practice squads and three on injured reserve.
Arizona Cardinals starting long snapper Aaron Brewer snapped the ball for kicker Phil Dawson four times for field goal attempts and six times for punter Andy Lee in Monday night’s 28-17 loss to the visiting Dallas Cowboys (2-1). Brewer was a long snapper for the Aztecs from 2008-11 on both punts and field goals, and was a three-time Mountain West all-academic pick and scholar-athlete.
A wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, Brice Butler had his best game of the young season. Against the Arizona Cardinals, he caught a pair of passes for a team-high 90 yards and a touchdown in the 28-17 win. In his lone season with San Diego State in 2012 following a three-year career at USC, Butler played in all 13 games with eight starts, recording 24 catches for 347 yards and four touchdowns. He was a seventh-round pick of the Oakland Raiders in the 2013 NFL Draft.
Atlanta Falcons safety Damontae Kazee lined up for 18 plays on defense in a 30-26 win over the Detroit Lions. A cornerback in college, Kazee was selected by the Falcons in the fifth round of the 2017 NFL Draft.
Kazee finished his final year at SDSU with 65 tackles (45 solo), seven interceptions for 156 yards, eight pass breakups, three tackles for loss and a quarterback hurry en route to being named the MW Defensive Player of the Year for a second straight season. Kazee, a three-time all-MW selection over his career (first team in 2015-16, second team in 2014), finished with a school-record 17 interceptions, 30 pass breakups (sixth at SDSU) and 214 interception yards (seventh at SDSU).
Making his second straight start in just his third NFL game, Calvin Munson of the New York Giants recorded three tackles (one solo, two assisted) in a last-second 27-24 loss against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Munson, who started all 41 games at outside linebacker from 2014-16 for SDSU, finished his collegiate career ranked sixth in tackles (301) and ninth in sacks (18.0). He was a three-time all-Mountain West pick, including a first-team selection each of his final two seasons. Munson signed with the Giants as an undrafted free agent following the 2017 NFL Draft.
Munson’s New York Giants teammate, safety Nat Berhe, lined up for 18 snaps on special teams against the Eagles. Berhe was a three-year starter from 2010-13 and was the first Aztec safety in the MW era (since 1999) to earn all-conference honors in three consecutive seasons.
Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Nico Siragusa, Dallas Cowboys defensive back Leon McFadden and Philadelphia Eagles running back Donnel Pumphrey are on their teams’ respective injured lists.
Offensive linemen Daniel Brunskill (Atlanta Falcons), defensive end Alex Barrett (Detroit Lions), and Darrell Greene (Green Bay Packers) are on their teams’ respective practice squads.
— SDSU Media Relations
