A date: November 17.
That was the day in 1998 that I started my "sports celibacy" as I call it. I just don't pay any attention to any sports stuff, even Chiefs stuff, outside of those three hours on Sunday when the Chiefs are playing. I must say that my radar picks up a lot, from news reports and friends and family telling me things about the Chiefs, but I don't as an ironclad rule go out of my way to find out stuff.
The reason I started it that day was because the night before, a 4-5 Chiefs team hosted a 9-0 Broncos team on Monday Night Football, and got whupped. Chiefs 4-6, Broncos 10-0. This was after a summer of supposedly minor retooling to make the previous year 13-3 supposedly superpowerhouse Chiefs into a supposedly true Super Bowl contender.
But then this debacle at Arrowhead. I simply decided to end the agony and didn't pay any attention to any sports, even Chiefs, until I resumed just Chiefs games in 2003.
The reason I bring all this up again is because last night, this prime-time game of the year, was played on, yes, November 17.
A funny thing about that was that the announcers said that November 17 was the anniversary of the "Heidi Bowl" game, that infamous event in 1968 when the Jets and Raiders were battling in a long, close game, and at 7 pm the network switched over the film Heidi. I thought about that and thought, wow, what a metaphor for my distance from sports anything.
As a Chiefs fan it is my sworn duty to nurture a healthy revulsion for the Oakland Raiders, and sure enough, after everyone was settling in to enjoy wholesome children's fare, the Raiders went on to score two touchdowns in the last couple of minutes to put the Jets away.
There is it, right there, I know, I know... Dave, you shouldn't be putting yourself through the torment of your hated rivals doing great and your teams doing poorly! You should indeed be doing something else without any attention given to this pointless sports stuff!
Well, there is a good point to that, which is why I still maintain some reasonable semblance of meaningful sports celibacy. Really, if I don't, it'll drive me crazy.
But there are a lot of enjoyable things about our Chiefs and enjoying them for three hours a week through the fall, and while I'm not going to go into them all, I will simply say that I enjoy writing here about our team, win or lose, and I can enjoy making remarks about the splendid opportunity we had to showcase our talents on national television last night.
Yes, we did lose a game that was aggravating because of the rotten officiating calls that went against us as well as the stupid things that we did to ourselves that killed us.
There is a ton to write about, but I'm just going to review what I thought could not happen last night for us win, and mention what did happen that couldn't happen. (See previous post for that preview.)
1. Justin Houston and Tamba Hali could not let themselves get blocked. They did. In fact, they didn't even touch Peyton Manning the whole night. Manning just has too quick a release and his receivers are just too damn good for us not to rattle him a least a few times. We did bat some passes down, and our D-backs did actually do a fine job covering, getting many of Manning's passes to fall incomplete. The problem is these guys are too damn good, and even with the average of, say, three of every four Denver incompletions, it is that one completion in each of those sets that is the killer.
Really, when you think about it, the final score was 27-17, but look at it this way. That's five scores to three scores. Those two extra scores were because their QB and WR's are so good that they were able to get big plays just those couple more times to put us away.
Give credit to their offensive line, they played great. But I also think we don't do enough mixing-it-up on the D-line to keep them guessing. Where were the occasional stunts and safety blitzes just to put a little more pressure on?
2. Dwayne Bowe could not be head-shakingly putrid and Alex Smith could not be misfiring too much. While Bowe caught a touchdown pass and Smith made some good throws, they were just not workin' it last night. Bowe was running his goofy routs and Smith was throwing the ball where it was just uncatchable. Dexter McCluster made an amazing sideline catch but it was late in the game and we just don't have the vertical passing game to keep that stuff going.
That's really the key, bad, critical, rotten, crucial, spewtanamous thing that is most aggravating with it all. Smith did throw the ball down the field more than he had been, but damn. Donnie Avery, not much. Dwayne Bowe, just didn't get untracked. Dexter, even with the great grab, not much. Junior Hemingway, A.J. Jenkins, non-existent.
These two factors represented the most profound breakdowns last night.
Other than that, everything else was not too bad. Yes, we lost the game, but we played well.
We had stupid things happen like, what was with that Wes Welker fumble that Derrick Johnson snatched up in the pile and ended up in the hands of... Wes Welker? Welker was even shaken up on the play. What was that?
Dustin Colquitt didn't get the ball downed inside the 10 once. Just didn't happen, and that didn't help. Those pin-backs mean fewer chances for them to get big plays that hurt.
Jamaal Charles ran well, but only after we were behind by ten. At the beginning of the game he couldn't go anywhere.
Our tight ends were fantastic, and what a great catch and butt-plant in the back of the end zone for Anthony Fasano. He was in the mix a lot more last night, that's what we need to see happening.
Eric Berry and the other D-backs actually did a good job of containing, they really did, but without any pass rush they couldn't hold them off forever. Five scores for them to three for us. That's close. That we stuffed Denver in that respect, that's good. That we couldn't take advantage of that -- erghkk.
Dontari Poe and the other D-linemen were beast shutting down their running game. That was nice to see, and bodes well for the chance that we can actually get to Manning next time.
We play Denver again in two weeks, so we'll see how we adjust for that game. We'll have the hometown noise to help, that'll be a plus.
I will add that it is far better to lose to Denver and go 9-1 than to lose and go 4-6 like we did in '98. Our team played well on the whole last night, they really did, and maybe the adversity will make them stronger as the season winds down.
A postscript to the sports celibacy '98 / Heidi Bowl '68 thing is that the loss by the Jets to the Raiders in that 1968 game was the only loss the Jets would suffer over the course of their last eleven games into the postseason, which included a playoff win against those Raiders and a Super Bowl win.
And the Chiefs? They went on to win the Super Bowl the next season.
There's always next week.
_
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