Chiefs at Bucs Preview

Just some thoughts I had to pound out in a Chiefs post.

First of all tonight I'm seeing all over the web how the Dolphins QB got severely crunched tonight. I didn't see it and I don't really want to see the replay. Apparently he had some concussive incident on Sunday as well, and the expressed concerns are that he was rushed back out there just four days later to more of a liability to be seriously injured. As I've heard so far they say he'll be okay.

Obviously the NFL absolutely has to do more to protect their quarterbacks. Whatever it is, they've got to do it. It blows my mind that they won't do more to protect players like Tua -- and our own Patrick for that matter, and all of them -- when they otherwise have a snit when a Chris Jones says to the other quarterback "Your momma" after a much nicer sack and the Chiefs lose the game because of it.

Please.

Now I believe the Chris Jones thing was just because the NFL loathes the Chiefs -- it is just one of those things we all have to live with. It was also one of those phenomenally stupid things that often enough seem to pile up against the Chiefs, especially when we play the Colts for some reason.

On my Twitter feed I have absolutely no Chiefs things showing up -- I deliberately make it that way -- but I do follow Seth Keysor who writes terrific things about the Chiefs on his Substack. One of his latest is an inventory of the 31 things that went wrong with the Chiefs offense on Sunday. 

Oh wow, did it ever. It just wasn't hard to see. I noted that Eric Bieniemy said the Colts kicked our butts so we should all just deal with it. Again, that's a fine attitude to take into next week, makes you work that much harder to prepare for the next game, that's great.

But no, Mr. Bieniemy, the Colts should've been smacked 38-20. Had little to do with the Colts. They won mostly because of, yes, the incredible legion of stupid Chiefs things.

Over and over and over again it seemed something weird or silly was happening with the Chiefs. Whether it was a ridiculous late ref's call or a goofy missed assignment or Mahomes just plain making the wrong throw or awkward scramble or the shadow-then-instant bright sunlight to mess with our vision a number of times in the 4th quarter -- over and over and over again.

31 times by Mr. Keysor's count. That's unreal.

This week we are at the Buccaneers place for a rematch of Super Bowl LV, again at their place, yet all week a massive hurricane was bearing down on Tampa. They'd actually made contingency plans to have the game in Minneapolis, but the storm ended up going a bit more south and devastating Fort Myers. The damage was pretty intense there, but it wasn't so bad in Tampa so they'll have the game there after all.

But yeah, wow.

Thing is, if you remember, the most famous major downpour regular season NFL game ever -- and no, I'm not exaggerating that it is indeed the most famous -- was in December of 1979 when a monsoon hit the game in Tampa between the Bucs and -- wait for it -- the Chiefs.

Go figure.

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Chiefs at Colts - Week 3 - Record: 2-1 Part II

Forgive me but I simply must put up another blog post, really, in defense of Chris Jones. My son has texted me telling me that, certainly, the media are going to go insane blaming this loss on Jones. And sure enough, in my original post for the game, here it is written just a few minutes ago, I put down that it was a pretty ding-dong thing for Jones to do.

But really.

Please.

The replay showed that Jones was getting up after being part of the would've-been game-sealing sack for the Chiefs. Then he looked at the Colts QB Matt Ryan and said something. Then the flag went into the air. 

Excuse me, but [you-know-what] to that.

The NFL does have a taunting rule and players can be penalized for it, but even the rule itself is a questionable one. Why have it unless the player is going to physically assault another player in some dramatically demonstrative way? If a player twerks and jumps up-and-down right in the face of another player and does it for some extended period of time, then yeah, I'm barely okay with making that call. Barely. And only because I do believe that there should be some measure of decorum among persons together enjoying a nice Sunday outing of sorts.

But please. It doesn't matter what Chris Jones said, the magnitude of the penalty does not in any way match the offense. It doesn't matter what-he-said, period. Could he have said the nastiest things about what he'd do to Ryan's mother? Unacceptable, yes, and Jones could be liable to be fined and have some kind of talking-to by his coach. I'm fine with that.

But please. Don't tell me players don't generally say those kinds of things on the field anyway, all the time. The entire Chiefs team should not be punished in a football game where individuals are raking the heads off other individuals throughout the endeavor.

Do you remember that Chiefs-Raiders game a long time ago, I believe it was 1970? It was the one when Len Dawson ran for a 1st down to seal the game, giving the Chiefs the win and a nice little edge to make the playoffs. Right after he was down, play over, finito, done deal, Chiefs win -- Ben Davidson comes barreling in and spears him. A Chiefs guy then goes over and shoves Davidson defending his QB.

Personal foul on both teams, offsetting penalties, replay the down.

Of course: Are you effing kidding me?

On the next play Dawson and the Chiefs do not get the 1st down, the Raiders were able to get the ball back, march down the field, and kick a game-tying field goal. That kept the Chiefs out of the playoffs that year.

The reason I bring it up is the NFL has obviously changed the rules about this, making those kind of dead-ball fouls less likely to impact games, essentially ensuring they do not negatively affect any plays in which players did nothing against the rules related to the play itself. Good call.

So here's the good call here: Modify this rule. Again, unless the "taunting" is so demonstrable that it is truly unbecoming, then keep the penalty flags in the pocket. Later the NFL can deal with any player one way or another, that's terrific.

You can screech Chris Jones is the biggest lout in the history of the multiverses, you can say that he should have kept his mouth shut, you can say he single-handedly destroyed the Chiefs Kingdom forever and ever, but the fact is that call should not have been made.

As much of a craphole Lucas Oil Stadium is and as much as our special teams schklurped and as much as Patrick Mahomes misfired like crazy today, we can't neglect to point out that the officials' piddle call on a tremendously stupid rule did ruin a really pretty good performance from our defense, an effort that by itself really should have won us the game.

They did their jobs. They got off the field when the Chris Jones thing happened. But then they had to stay out there gassed and just unable to keep the Colts from scoring that TD late. It is stultifyingly aggravating thinking about it, but it wouldn't have been an issue if it wasn't for...

No, not whatever it was Chris Jones said, but for

The stupid rule.

The Chiefs are good about getting over this and moving forward. They know who they are, that's cool. Again, we'll have losses like this -- this was just a really hard one because of so many things that were just not hard to see coming today, they just weren't when you knew they were playing at that place.

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Chiefs at Colts - Week 3 - Record: 2-1

I dread any time the Chiefs have to go to Indianapolis. The Colts do indeed have the stadium from hell, they really do. Obviously we lost that playoff game in January of 2014 in part because of the inordinate number of injuries we suffered throughout in this hellhole. 

Today our special teams had to endure all the ridiculous conditions related to this stadium.

For one thing the footing is wretched. A number of times I watched our runners, in whatever situation, special teams or not, trying to get going but unable to really get their footing.

Then there is the lighting. The way the windows are configured it allowed for weird volumes and angles of light to stream in messing with our receivers. There was one play when Kelce had a pass right in his hands in the end zone, except for the blinding light. He dropped it. We had to try for a field goal, and our injury replacement kicker missed it.

Earlier our punt returner dropped a ball when he had to look up into the glaring light coming through the roof window. And then there was the fake field goal that should've been good for the surprise 1st down, but sure enough our punter barely misfired on the pass to the receiver and yep, there was the blinding light in the eyes of that guy.

Finally, something about this field just seems to make it more likely players will suffer injuries. In this game there were two key guys for the Colts who suffered the worst of it, their good linebacker and a good D-back. I don't even know what this stadium does to other Colts players, but I did see they were missing some people they could have had out there.

Then there's just the evil stupidness that killed us. Just the general all-around stupidness that can so easily afflict this team. Late in the game we had the Colts dead-to-rights after a huge sack, setting up 4th down and a mile, and then they got Chris Jones for saying something mean to the Colts QB.  Unsportsmanlike. 1st down and new life for the Colts. They marched on down the field for the game-winning score.

And then, sure enough, there was the animosity between Mahomes and OC Eric Bieniemy. We had time on the game clock at the end of the first half to try to at least get down to get a field goal, and we just kind of half-way matriculated the ball down the field instead of really making something happen. Mahomes blew up at Bieniemy.

I'm sorry, but I'm sick and tired of people not recognizing this situation. I can't say it won't have an impact on the spiritual and emotional constitution of this team as it moves forward. This cannot just be blamed on this horrific Indianapolis playing field situation. I really think it impacted Mahomes' overall play. Today he really looked off, not making the passes he should, not getting his throws on target -- his worst was the last one that got tipped and picked to keep us from getting a game-tying field goal.

It was clear in this game that the Chiefs were far better overall than the Colts. But the stadium and its evil stupidness, a whole bunch of crazy-ass unlucky things happening to us and crazy-ass lucky things that happened for them, and the very uncharacteristic poor play from our special teams did us in.

The best thing is we've got our loss out of the way. Now we can concentrate on learning from this, making sure we keep our heads in the game so we don't do stunningly ding-dong things like Chris Jones did, and probably the most important thing...

We're leaving this Lucas Oil Stadium hellscape behind and hope we never have to play another game there.

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

Well that was scary. At the very end of the game the Chargers are down 27-24 with a minute left and they've got to onsides kick it. They do, right into the waiting arms of sure-hands receiver Justin Watson who promptly allows it to slip right through his grip. 

But ::whew:: Noah Gray is there to recover to seal this one. Oh my.

Into the game progression:

We were moving the ball with our first drive but a sweep run by Hardman on 3rd-&-short was snuffed. This was just one of a few really questionable vanilla play calls by Reid. The Chargers defense was looking good tonight, however, you've got to give them credit.

Our pass rush really needs to step up. Herbert got very little real pressure early tonight. Our poor D-line or their much improved O-line?

I don't know why the Chargers didn't throw to Mike Williams on every play. The Chiefs tried Rashad Fenton and he was miserable, just because he's just not got the physicality to guard the guy. We then went with Jaylen Watson who's got a bit more size but is still very inexperienced. Then we went with probably our best cover guy, L'Jarius Sneed, and he was victimized by an amazing Williams TD catch.

In the middle of the first half I was hoping Reid would put in McKinnon and Pacheco to make things happen in the running game. They did and it made a difference. A bit later CEH went back in and did nothing. I still have hope for CEH but I'm beginning to doubt he can really handle the quickness and strength of an NFL defense. One time later he did make a super nice play on a catch bouncing off guys, however.

The Chiefs first-half touchdown was one of the best MAHOMES THE GREAT MAGICIAN performances ever. We're in the red zone, he's back to pass, then starts to scramble right. He jukes and jives and jukes some more, totally escaping the grasp of a very close tackler when he threads the needle to McKinnon for the score. Can we say Whah-ow! too many times? His second TD was an absolute strike to Justin Watson -- more and more and more Whah-ows...

Mecole Hardman made some pretty good plays, and I can't not give him some cred here because yet again the Arrowhead Pride guys still can't stop hating on him. He got injured and struggled a bit after that, still working hard to be in there and play well.

Towards the end of the first half the Chiefs had the ball with a couple minutes left, plenty of time for Mahomes to matriculate the ball down the field for at least a game-tying field goal. Joey Bosa rams into Mahomes legs causing him to get up gimpy putting a fright into all of us. Flag on the play. Definitely roughing the passer. 

The ref calls the penalty on us. "The tackle dragged Bosa into Mahomes." Holding. That was their call.

Then we all got to see the replay.

Indeed, it was an absolutely horrific call. Andrew Wiley barely grabbed Bosa's jersey and in no way did Wiley's action pull Bosa into Mahomes. It was all Bosa. When the Arrowhead fans saw that replay they loudly expressed their displeasure. Not only did that keep us from a chance to get points, but way worse is he almost crippled our QB.

Our offense was just not up to the physicality of a team like the Chargers. The Chiefs did pick up as the game wore on, but the word is the Chargers went out and updated their defense in a big way, and our offense was just getting manhandled by their guys. Our extraordinary 3rd down proficiency last week against the Cardinals was nowhere to be seen tonight.

As far as our defensive guys go, good thing we've got Nick Bolton in there. He's a stud and he's only going to get better. That's a nice Chiefs thing for sure. There was an amazing pass rush sequence for our boys that utterly smothered Herbert, leading to a punt from the back of their end zone and terrific field position at their 35. Must add that we found out a bit later that two of the Chargers starting O-linemen suffered injuries.

As the 4th quarter started rookie Bryan Cook got a really stupid unsportsmanlike -- erggck -- rookie stupidness. He's going to be a good player, but he's got to learn. How about this switcharoo, though. Right after the Chargers marched down the field to within a couple yards of a TD, another of our rookies, the aforementioned Jaylen Watson, picks Herbert right at the goal line and houses it. Oh yeah.

As the game wore on Herbert seemed to wear down. He was getting hammered in the backfield and that may have been because of their weakened O-line. Herbert almost threw a pick when trying to squeeze the ball into Williams, and after the Chiefs got the ball back CEH got the handoff, got facemasked (they called it), and rambled deep into Chargers territory to get us the field goal putting us up 27-17 with about three minutes left.

Justin Herbert is a gamer even though he's still growing, learning. As mentioned he'd gotten roughed up and it looked like he was seriously injured, but on 4th down with the game on the line he threw a bullet to get his team to the five and then a couple plays later, I believe it was 4th down then too, he threw a touchdown pass to make the score 27-24.

A difficult game to watch for the Chiefs early, but they made adjustments, played a little better later, made it an exciting win with the help of a stupendous break when Herbert threw that pick-six.

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The image is from Chris Donahue at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Chiefs at Cardinals - Week 1 - Record: 1-0

Standard notes about this opener, our eighth straight opening game win, how about that.

First the concerns, and you know that always relates to the big question we have every year: Do we have a chance to get to a point of being an elite defense? As it is we've got all those rookies on the roster, we think safety Juan Thornhill is finally fully healthy, and we're hoping filling those holes on the D-line will get us some more wins in the trenches.

On the whole I feel we were too bendy for my tastes, we were just not pursuing with the laser-focus we need, and our tackling really does need work as far as wrapping up runners. As far as a first game we're okay, and our young guys can learn. It was also obvious that quite a few of our stops were really the Cardinals just not being in sync. Their QB Kyler Murray has tremendous physical talent, but there were too many instances when he just looked flummoxed. That may indeed be a credit to our scheme and the pretty good play overall by our boys.

Offensively, what more can be said. Mahomes was on. Nuff said. The one egregiously bad mark was Smith-Schuster's fumble, but otherwise he was good, and all our receivers got open and made plays. I also don't know why we don't hand the ball to Jerick McKinnon more often -- this dude gets into the open spaces. And whoa, what Isiah Pacheco did in garbage time to chew clock. Very nice.

Harrison Butker injured his left ankle on the first kickoff after our first touchdown, and Justin Reid came in to do the kicking. He did okay, especially on kickoffs, but missed a PAT. Butker then came in to bang through the PATs and even kicked a 50+ yard field goal, all of which he did by taking half-step towards the ball and just slamming his good right leg through the ball as hard as he could -- he's so strong he made everything.

Our defense did well enough, but our offense looks like it is even better than it has ever been. If so, if we can keep that up, I mean -- zowie. We have a true test Thursday night against the highly touted Chargers, in what I believe is the first game ever broadcast on Amazon's Prime Video -- that should be interesting.

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The image is from Ric Tapia at the official Chiefs site, thank you.

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Chiefs Season Preview 2022

I'm just a humble blogger who puts up a post after every game. I don't get many readers, but I do want to do the very best with my takes on Chiefs football play, and have done so now for almost 17 years. Sometimes I've written about other things related to the Chiefs, simply offering my observations and perspectives on things that affect Chiefs success.

This post will be no different.

You see, I could pound out the standard "We've got this guy and that guy and we can hope for this thing and that thing to happen" kind of post -- nothing wrong with that. I like reading those kinds of things, makes this time of the year the most hopeful.

Instead I'm going to continue making the statement about the state of professional sports that afflict Chiefs chances for success. Very few are saying these things. The Chiefs are sadly already part the institutionalized requirements to spew the racialist hysteria ("Advance social justice"), bilge the sodomist insanity ("Celebrate Pride"), and blap about how much people must take lethally dangerous drugs so they can be the very best virtue-signalers ("Get vaxxed or else!") All of these things not only derail Chiefs success, but a million times worse they destroy the health of the community and the nation.

Now I'm seeing all kinds of things about how the Chiefs have signed on with whichever online gambling operation has appeared the most respectable. It is a thoroughly wicked endeavor, yet the little I've seen or heard is that this is some kind of positive thing. I did not catch the details of this formal arrangement, so I do not know the names of these rackets, but "Draft Kings" and "Fan Duels" seem to be the most prominent. Please do not get me wrong, I am saying in no uncertain terms: these operations are evil beyond evil, and it is tremendously grievous that the Chiefs are joining just about every other professional sports enterprise and embracing this ugliness.

Yes, I am pulling no punches here. All of this should be summarily and comprehensively against the law. And yes, it does affect the Chiefs chances of success. As I've shared in my posts after the ridiculous loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Championship game, I'm convinced Chiefs leadership and management were told implicitly but firmly to take it easy on the Bengals. Don't make it a blowout -- and every indication of what we saw on the field was that they complied. This isn't just an instance of my whiny complaining as a Monday-morning quarterback or Patrick Mahomes just having a rare bad day.

It happened.

And I'm convinced it happened because of the connections the NFL now has with organized gambling. I can't help but reiterate that the week before Super Bowl IV,  back in 1970, Len Dawson (God rest his soul) was being excoriated because of an assumed relationship he had with a single gambling figure. Remember that? Remember how crushing it was, the weight of having to deal with that, of clearing his good name -- all just before he had to perform in the biggest game of his career?

Today that kind of illicit relationship is not only celebrated, but officially formalized.

I've come across an article that speaks to the rottenness of this gambling thing. Interestingly the take intimates that it has the seeds of its own destruction sown into its own business model. The problem is unless there are enough principled people to step up now to vigorously push against it and to encourage addicts to be disciplined enough and make other lifestyle choices, it will continue to thrive in some form.

One of the other major reasons for why this is so horrifically debilitating is another thing I've shared several times before, but hear very little about from other sources. I am indeed very sad about that, but much of that is because there are too many fans who just don't care. "Who cares if I put money down on some players or games? Get outta here with your Puritan sentiments. Shut up, no one wants to be around you, killjoy."

I still like the Chiefs. I still want them to win. I still hope the best for them and cheer them on. I still have a good time watching what they do on the field, win or lose -- and it has indeed been a glorious time for Chiefs fans with the Veach-Reid-Mahomes troika doing amazing work for the Chiefs Kingdom.

But they have their work cut out for them. And you know why.

It is because they are simply not a New York-Los Angeles big-market media-darling team.

As I've said before, it is harder for the NFL to do what major league baseball is doing, but you know professional sports leagues do it. Look at major league baseball right now, look at the standings here as of Saturday September 3. The Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees are running away with their divisions. That teams like the Astros and Braves are decent doesn't take away from the fact that every year the New York and Los Angeles teams will always be at or close to the top of their divisions. They are essentially permanent members of the "Premiere League" of major league baseball.

And they must be if professional baseball survives. The majors realized that in 1994 when they arranged things so the Yankees and Dodgers will never go long without winning. This idea is simple, and perfectly rational if wholly duplicitious: If you're a Twins or a Pirates you yourselves do want to win, but if you don't win, you want the Yankees and Dodgers to win. As long as they win, the league and your chronically poor performing franchise wins because you stay in a league kept solvent because the huge NY/LA fanbases are supporting their teams winning.

Those teams are then given distinct advantages to ensure they are more consistently successful, and no one else minds because that's how the whole enterprise thrives.

Makes sense. Doesn't make it any less deceitful.

What about the Chiefs? Again, I am convinced Brett Veach and his team have to work that much harder to field a team that must battle the forces that really don't want them being as successful as they could be. It is not hard to see how much teams like the Cowboys especially get the lion's share of attention in media coverage and so forth. Sad to say the NFL as a whole suffers any time the Chiefs go far in the postseason. To be fair it is my consideration that the popularity of players like Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce have given the Chiefs a certain gravitas the NFL likes. But it wouldn't have nearly the impact if Mahomes and Kelce were on a team like the Jets.

We'll see. This is a season preview. Again I could write about this or that player, blah blah blah -- great stuff mind you and I am indeed really psyched about the players on our team -- but you can get a lot of that at Arrowhead Pride or Arrowhead Addict. I like both sites, and I also like looking at Bleacher Report's Chiefs page for all the latest posts about Chiefs things. As far as I know those are the best, and links to each are in my "Links" feature in this blog. 

Thing is, this season preview is just a heads-up to see what kinds of things might just be in the mix to afflict the Chiefs in some unjust way. Wow, there are so many -- this gambling travesty just one of the more vicious.

Let the drama begin.

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The posted image is from the Kansas City Star. Thank you.

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