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

Okay okay okay, I guess we should all confess right now.

Preseason games are meaningful.

Really, I don't know if there have been many NFL football players in the history of NFLitude who have had a more rotten game than Kadarius Toney did tonight. He was barely at practice for all of training camp because of a nagging injury, and he did not play a single snap in a preseason game -- everyone was wondering if he'd be ready for opening day and the Chiefs always said "We really think so."

And boy was he ready.

He was all ready, set, and well-prepared to play absolutely atrociously.

If I remember correctly he had three targets, and he dropped them all. The first was thrown right on his numbers and he let the ball bounce right off them and into the hands of the Detroit D-back for a pick-six. We were up 14-7 and playing pretty well. Now it's a ballgame when it really never needed to be.

The second was a drop that may have been affected by Richie James crossing in front of him. We were deep in Lions territory and had to settle for a FG. That may have been on the coaching staff, and ya know? It was kind of that way all night. Kind of a clown circus show out there among our receivers, did you get that feeling? I think the seven-deep WR room may be a bit problematic if you ask me.

The third was when it was very late and we were down by one with the ball at around midfield. Ideal Patrick Mahomes conditions! Mahomes throws a strike right at the numbers of the jersey on the gnat camped out there between the numbers on Toney's jersey.

Drop.

We imploded from there and Detroit ends up winning 21-20.

This was a very tough one to take, even though, really, we showed we were still a pretty good team. We just had a number of dumb things happen, the exact number of dumb things that lose a team a game like this. 

It was only the first game of the season, however, so it may actually be not-so-bad because these guys will have a good ten days to look at what happened and fix it. And yeah, I know I'm being redundant, but please guys, get that receiver situation fixed. I mean, it was just ugly out there.

Oh, and did missing Chris Jones and Travis Kelce have any negative impact? Actually, I don't think so. Having them back in there would be really really really good, but our defense played pretty well, and tonight Noah Gray was a capable fill-in there at tight end. Blake Bell even caught a touchdown pass.

A couple more things. Those interminably hating on Clyde Edwards-Helaire? Sorry but the dude balled out tonight. He's not Jim Brown or Gale Sayers, so back off already. Let him do well with what he's got.

And our very short-yardage game. Still really ugly. That play on 3rd-&-very-very-very short on our second-to-last possession was extraordinarily ugly. We make that and we could, really, if we scored there, pretty easily have salted this one away.

We've got a good Jacksonville team at their place for our next game, so let's hope the wake-up call that was this game will get us ready for that one.

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