One of the nice things about having a winning Chiefs team through the season is you can revel in all the nice things people say about the Chiefs through the later days of fall and earliest days of winter, enjoy all the conjecture about how well they'll do in the playoffs -- hey, we have a good team.
That's very nice.
Thing is, at some point, reality hits.
I know when I blog here after a loss I tend to give up on the Chiefs too readily. I cry and scream and holler the world is coming to an end. I don't think I'm too apocalyptic, but I will share things out of my despondency over any Chiefs loss.
Yes, this one was as good as any to despair.
Up 14-0 after one quarter of play, the Chiefs just blew this one.
Chance after chance after chance they had to put it away, and they couldn't. Yes it was cold, and the cold affected the Titans just as much, but my goodness, of all things, with five seconds left and the Chiefs up by one point and Ryan Succop attempting a 53-yard field goal, he misses it only for us all to watch Andy Reid try to "ice" the kicker.
He calls timeout. Just a nanosecond before Succop puts his foot on the ball for the miss, he calls timeout.
This only gets Succop warmed up for another try, and he then proceeds to make the field goal. Titans win 19-17.
Only the Chiefs. This kind of idiotic field goal-oriented agonizing eventuality only happens to the Chiefs.
Again, it should have never have gotten that far. Our D-backs were way too soft on the last Titans drive letting them get just enough yards to get just where Succop needed to be to just barely kick it through.
But our troubles started way back even before then.
Four times in the red zone and we get only one touchdown?
Countless times we simply cannot convert on 3rd down, including that critical time just after the two-minute warning when a single 1st down -- on a 3rd-&-short!!! -- would've given us the win.
The Titans kept it close by running the ball very well against us, and "we they were who we knew they were!" a very good running team -- damn, not having Derrick Johnson in there really cost us. I do think that may be our undoing, really. Remember when he ruptured his Achilles two years ago? It was against the Titans in an opening game we lost, to a Titans team that went 2-14 on the year. I believe that loss in 2014, opening day -- a game we had no business losing much like this one -- was the one that kept us from the playoffs that year because we didn't make it by one game.
And... well...
This Titans loss may be the thing that again kills us. As it is Oakland can win in San Diego and regain the top spot in the West. If Denver wins then beats us next week, we'd then be no better than a 6th seed wild-card, if we even make that.
So yeah, it was nice to have everyone talk up the Chiefs. That's fun. It was nice to be looking at that Chiefs arrowhead comfortably sitting there in that No. 2 seed spot on the NFL playoff picture graphic. Very nice. Warm fuzzies everywhere. But now... ::wistful siiigh::
...I mean, let's face it. Let's face reality.
- We rely too much on turnovers. Those things just don't happen when you want them to. We lucked out early in the game when the Titans receiver fumbled the ball into our end zone. People say how great that is, and it may be because of our pressure and ferocity, but I think it is way less great as everyone says because in large part it is just relying on the bounce of the ball.
- Alex Smith still makes one or two too many bad throws, every game. He actually threw the ball nicely today in the freezing cold, give him credit. On the other (freezing) hand, Smith threw a pick in the end zone watching the receiver the whole time, that's a major no-no as a quarterback. He overthrew receivers a number of times when he simply could not afford to do so.
- Our coaching regularly going conservative too often just kills us. Chiefs fans have actually been thrilling ("It's finally happening!") to some wonderfully innovative things out there, like surprising everyone running a counter to Hill for his touchdown, or that shovel pass to Kelce that got good yardage early in the 4th quarter. But right after that play -- it was, yes, you got it, 3rd down -- we were stuffed on some vanilla play or bad Smith throw or something I can't remember. But I know it wasn't using our best talent aggressively enough! Earlier in the game we were splendidly aggressive, but throughout the second half we just played scared. That hurt us.
- Our O-line is looking very inconsistent. At one point we had a 3rd-&-goal from an inch away, and our O-line couldn't get Ware in. We tried it again on 4th down and the O-line failed again. It actually started looking good in the 3rd quarter when our runners started getting good yardage, run clock -- sheez we're up 17-7. This is our kind of game. Problem is when we aren't still aggressive and innovative, the opponent just keys on our fears!
- Again again again THIS TEAM REFUSES TO CONVERT 3RD DOWNS. Excuse me but the Chiefs needed one single first down with three minutes left, and they can't even convert on 3rd-&-short. The Titans meanwhile stormed down the field in under two minutes with no timeouts to win. This is something I just don't get.
Look again, sorry about this, but look: ZERO POINTS IN THE SECOND HALF. It's been said before: You are not a playoff contending type team when you don't convert third downs and you don't score any points for long, long stretches of a given game.
I seem to believe we didn't score any 2nd-half points in the Raiders game. So, ahem, when did we last score a second half point? 1986? Well, yeah, the Atlanta game, of course, but still, our last second half points were Eric Berry's two-point conversion run-back -- this was very nice, but PLEASE.
Our points should be coming on Ware runs and Hill touchdown catches and Kelce bulldozers and Smith laser strikes. No, we're bumbling and stumbling and I'm going to say it, sorry, I'm going to say it...
Pretending like we mean business out there.
Yes we make great plays with great talent, yes, so we should be winning.
But the playoff contending teams make that key great play one more time and today we had 57 chances to do it and just didn't.
Now yes, I do get down about all this too much. Every team loses these kinds of games. It was freezing cold out there. This will be one these guys can learn from as an extraordinarily painful loss, they can toughen up, regroup, there's that. You know we haven't lost to an AFC West team since that horrific Denver home loss at the beginning of last season, so there's precedent.
There are good things about this team. This year a number of times it already has made the play that needs to be made.
So let's hope they learn from this and get that ganas for the instance that one-more-time play needs to be made when it needs to be.
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