Monday, December 21, 2020

Chiefs at Saints - Week 15 - Record: 13-1

We've been engaging in major Christmas family things this week, so I was only able to watch the first part of the game live, then had to watch the rest on the DVR. Just a few notes to share here.

I think the CBS color guy Tony Romo is a lot of fun. One thing he's said a number of times is the key to the Chiefs' great success is that "Mahomes Magic." True that. The guy is, well, whatever new extraordinary superlative you want to use. I don't know, we're definitely running out of them. He swam and slipped and slid and slung himself and his shoveling and shotputting arm all over the field to get this win against an excellent Saints defense.

Get the call right. There was a play where Mahomes clearly fumbled the ball but it looked like he threw a wild incomplete pass while being hit that guard Steve Wisniewski caught, but alas, he's an ineligible receiver. But he didn't catch a pass, he recovered a fumble. Of course regularly it'd be bad for our fumble to be ruled a fumble if the other team got it, but you know? At least the call would be correct. The Saints got a nice fumble from us later in the game when the proper call was made, so...

I don't know about you, but I'm kind of liking how our defensive backs are playing. L'Jarius Sneed is a tremendous find. Tyrann Mathieu is "The Landlord" (though no one can excuse him for dropping that easy pick). Breeland and Ward and Sorensen and gradually-now Thornhill are holding their own. We're still eagerly waiting to see what this yet-again splendid Brett Veach late-season pick-up of DeAndre Baker will mean. 

Our offensive line really needs an upgrade. It is nice that we got Wisniewski back in there to help with the injury situation, but it's still thin. Mahomes was scrambling for his life all game, and while I actually like that he does that because he makes so much happen from doing that, he did get pressured unmercifully and sacked a number of times. If we're going to have issues moving on through the playoffs, it could be our offensive line. You've got to give these guys credit, however, they did do well enough for our runners to close out the game late.

Having Le'Veon Bell is big, very big. CEH got that ugly leg injury and it appears he will be out for the remaining two regular season games, with everyone saying it could be longer. Taking nothing away from CEH at all, it seems Bell works better when he can get a feel for how the line is moving, he can get into a nice game flow rhythm, that's how he rolls. You could see it today out there as his amazing game is starting to come back to him.

Andy Reid is getting daring, which is wonderful. It is not only his ability to arrange amazing plays for this team giving them wonderfully fun opportunities to succeed. "The intellect meets the talent level, all the way across the board" is something Tony Romo said as the Chiefs were closing this one out. Part of this is when we've got to finish games, he's having Mahomes throw the ball to get those first downs. Awesome. Reid has developed the capacity to play to win, not to play not-to-lose. 

About those injuries, damn, that Superdome turf. I've always considered these artificial turf fields so dangerous -- like that Lucas Oil Stadium field one in Indianapolis. It just seemed today the injuries for both teams piled up more than usual. Maybe it was just because of CEH's injury, but I'm always thinking they could be doing more to limit those injuries. They're doing some, which is good, but these turf fields just don't help.

We get to be home in Arrowhead for our last two regular season games and at least one more in the postseason right after that, so that'll be very nice.

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Photo is by Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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