Sunday, September 20, 2020

Chiefs at Chargers - Week 2 - Record: 2-0

We had no business winning this game. Wow was our defense the most melted butter -- we lucked out far too often when their fine very-1st-NFL-game-of-his-career QB misfired a few too many times. And their D-line just overpowered our O-line. Did we actually even win this game? And next week, we have Baltimore. We're going to have to play a lot, lot better if we have a chance next Monday night.

The four horsemen of the football apocalypse started to rear their ugly heads again in the Chiefs Kingdom. The last time we had to withstand their cruelty was after this game, the last time we'd lost a game. Seems like eons ago.

To start we'd gotten hit pretty hard with the injuries. We'd already been down a few key players, but today at different times our linebackers got shaken up. Frank Clark also had to leave, Darrel Williams left, Sammy Watkins had a blatant helmet-to-helmet personal foul against him that wasn't called and will be in the concussion protocol.

The penalties started to pile up again. Last week we had one, and we all thought, woo-hoo! We'd finally got the discipline down. Today, it was gruesome.

The poor play calls, especially by our defense. We just never looked like we were ever in a position to do any serious damage on defense. We did pick it up a bit in the second half, with some people like Mike Danna showing some promise and Tyrann Mathieu making TD-saving plays. Our tackling was atrocious. Our defensive line couldn't stand anybody up if they wanted to. With our linebacking core already our obvious weakness, we need those stout guys in the middle. Here's what I'm wondering: We paid Chris Jones $80 gazillion? Already knowing how poor he was with run defense? 

The one horseman that didn't really hurt us was the turnover, so yeah, we did manage to take care of the ball. In this game if we lost it even once we would've been toast.

Mahomes just looked miserable in the first half, but then that's his game -- find a way to make it so you absolutely have to perform. I think the late game issues get him to step it up -- that's a very good thing for sure. Their new QB Herbert looked really good for his first game. 

Travis Kelce really kept us in it. And of course Tyreek Hill had the catch-and-flip-into-the-endzone of the game! With 12 minutes left we were down 17-9 and Mahomes flunk his patented long ball on the run, and Hill made a diving catch much like the one he had last year against Minnesota. They say he got away with taking his helmet off for an unsportsmanlike penalty, which would have made our two-point conversion attempt much more questionable, but Hill later said his helmet was coming off on its own. Whew... got the conversion to make it.

And then there was Harrison Butker, really saving our buttkers. He'd already had a 58-yarder, then in OT he banged through a 53-yarder to win it, except we had an offsides call against us. So now he has to hit another 58-yarder, and he does, except they call time out just before the snap. So then he has to kick it in again from 58 yards, which he does to win the game.

Very exciting, but way more than it needed to be! Maybe this is a nice little wake-up for us and we get a real idea we are not invincible.

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