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

Sometimes when these prime time games are on, and yes it is quite a blessing to have so many prime time affairs -- just more of this wonderful time of having a pretty good team worthy of being so showcased, of course -- I'm going to pound out a bit of this now. 

The 4th quarter has just started and we're up 16-6. Our offense played pretty crappily in the 1st half but our defense has done well enough to keep the Giants at six points so far.

Mahomes has been nothing short of amazing, yet again, making plays over and over and over again. One play, insanely enough, was when he tossed a goofy backwards pass that bounced around until a Giants guy picked it up, yet just before he headed off for the end zone Mahomes came from nowhere and snatched it right back. 

Saved a touchdown.

Otherwise we were also getting hammered by the officiating. Any surprise? I've taken a few notes so far and there are five questionable instances of officiating that went against us. To be fair there were two calls that favored the Chiefs when they shouldn't have, but the ones that obviously should or shouldn't have been called that favored the opponent are far more. I could list them, but I'm tired. It's been done before. Ugh, just tired of it.

Several other calls are extraordinarily ticky-tack -- against the Chiefs. Just now Trent McDuffie was called for pass interference -- a horrible call because he barely touched the receiver coming off the line. Right after that the receiver caught the ball, got up to run, then fumbled the ball to us. 

Nope.

Another officiating call that goes against us when it shouldn't have been made. The NFLers really do not want us winning.

So yeah, over and over and over again the officiating afflicts our chances. Some of them in major ways. Again, not going to get into it. Not going to neglect to call it out because, yeah, it'd be nice if others would mention it. A critical mass of mentioners even, that'd be nice. It was actually nice how many did call out the favors given the Eagles last week.

And yeah, the Giants did get points, a field goal, from what they did after the shouldn't-have-been-made call on McDuffie. It is now 16-9.

Mahomes gets the ball again, and while Hollywood, JuJu, Tyquan, Travis, and Noah have been balling out there, we do so need Rashee and Worthy back out there. Travis had come back to doing okay, Noah Gray has made some nice plays, and Tyquan has our touchdown making a solid grab of a Mahomes bullet in the back of the end zone. 

Also, again, while Isiah and Kareem have done okay, we do need that more-solid go-to RB. We need to at least get Brashard Smith more involved! We'll see where we go, how this game goes... 

Until it's done...

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Nkay it's done. We win 22-9, thanks to a very nice Patrick bomb and phenomenal Tyquan catch right at the goal line after which Kareem punched it in.

Aside from all the usual aggravating officiating stuff, our defense was fine, Mahomes was fine, our backs and receivers were just fine, and the Giants generally did not play well. Nice to see the Andy Reid game plan especially in the second half was solid. It was a win we needed because we've got the Ravens next week.

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The posted image is from the official Chiefs site, taken by Steve Sanders. Thank you.

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

This post could just as easily be titled "The Exasperating Kelce," or even the "The Exasperating NFLers," or yes, yet again, "The Exasperating Reid Part MCXXIII."

Let's look at each one, briefly, and we'll start with our head coach.

1. "The Exasperating Reid Part MCXXIII." From the little I've seen and heard most people are screaming about his decision to go for it on 4th-&-1 from about our own 30-something. I don't fault the decision at all. I don't even fault Kareem Hunt because he'd come through wonderfully on those kinds of short yardage situations at other times in the game. What I do fault Reid on is going to this well once too many times, and when we didn't make it this one time, it was costly. Yes, have Kareem blast through for a key 1st down often enough, but there are times you need to do much better at either (a) disguising the look, or (b) just running some kind of novel play action run-pass option which they've done several times before to fine success.

That is just one of those typical Andy Reid specials that make you pull out your hair. 

2. "The Exasperating Kelce." The critical play of the game was by far the Kelce drop right at the goal line after a splendid 14-play drive that put us in position to take over the game. Our defense was playing very well and our offense was humming well enough to sustain clock chewing drives late -- that was the game-winner right there. 

Thing is Kelce has shown a penance for dropping those kinds of passes, and this one was crushing. The ball flipped right up into the defender's easy grasp whereupon he ran for miles. A bit later the Eagles got down to the goal line where they just "tush-pushed" it in for the score.

14-point swing.

I can't help but think about that one play from another ugly Chiefs-Eagles game, also at Arrowhead, this one in 1972. Their QB who never amounted to much threw a long pass right into the hands of our defender, I don't even remember who it was, sorry. In his attempt to corral it he dropped it right onto his foot whereupon the ball popped right up into the hands of an Eagles receiver who ran it in for the touchdown. We lost 21-20. The Eagles that year won only one other game the whole season.

Oh, and yeah, two games so far, two critically bad Kelce things. The first one was Kelce slamming into Xavier Worthy on the third play of the first game, damaging his shoulder and keeping him out of this game and maybe others. I wonder how many people are going to blame the newly-engaged-to-Taylor-Swift factor for this? I dunno, I don't give that much relevance -- it does seem Travis is committed to working hard and playing well and winning more football games. There is a lot more football to come.

3. "The Exasperating NFLers." If you want to read a bad word into that epithet about the people who run the NFL, especially all the powerful elements who really want things to be a certain way so they can make as much money as they can, then yeah, you can. And please, again, I think making as much money as you can is great...

But not when you deceitfully work to destroy the competitive integrity of the game.

And the NFLers are doing that.

I've spoken at length about the Scorecasting factor, simply that officiating can be influenced to make calls or not make calls that influence the outcomes of games. If that is true -- not even to mention the more direct influences -- then competitive duplicity is a reality in these things. I've said a hundred times before in response to the standard bleat "Well why don't you just stop watching?" -- while I enjoy cheering on my Chiefs no matter what, yes, indeed, I do pay no attention to any of it outside of Chiefs games for that reason.

As it was I can't believe how many gambling commercials there were and alcohol commercials there were and even insurance commercials there were -- yes, insurance may be fine but still implies that if people aren't behaving recklessly, they are terribly fearful others will. That's nice. NFL games are smothered with these kinds of advertisements and yeah, it can be distressing that so much of this money is going into the pockets of all these valiant football warriors I like to root for.

Getting back to the Scorecasting factor, one terrific example of the challenges we have as Chiefs fans is what happened with the Eagles "tush push." There was at least one obvious example of their linemen slamming into the Chiefs linemen well before the ball was snapped. I don't know if it was just because everything happens so fast in a great big pile of 350-pound behemoths that the refs just didn't catch it, but that's just giving them the benefit of the doubt. This without even mentioning Drue Tranquill's recovery of a Jalen Hurts fumble in one of those, but, well, it's just a great big pile of huge bodies so who knows? Advantage not-the-Chiefs.

This has so much to do with the veritable Scorecasting reality in that the NFLers absolutely do not want to see the Chiefs anywhere near a Super Bowl again, and it does manifest itself quite clearly on the field. I'm not going to go into all the evidences and reasons and how much the officiating does indeed go regularly against the Chiefs. I've pounded on this keyboard enough about that. At least some people did say something about those tush-push injustices. Always good to call them out.

But this team showed yesterday that it is far too good to be worried about except to the extent we are impeded as we are. This is one of the reasons the Chiefs are so likeable -- they work hard and they work smart and they win in spite of what they are so painfully up against.

Our defense balled out yesterday, we have some fine young players especially on that side of the ball who appear to be committed to always improving. From just that one opening game to today that improvement showed. Our special teams always excels, no worries there -- yes Harrison Butker did miss a super-long field goal attempt yesterday, but are you really worried about him?

We have Patrick Mahomes. He keeps showing why he is the GOAT. It isn't lost on anyone watching just how amazing he continues to be out there. We have a fine offensive line, and when we get Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy back we should be good there. 

The concerns about our running game, however, are legit -- we absolutely need a go-to running back. Isiah Pacheco is a hard-working, tough runner, but his vision is just not-that-great. He cannot be the answer. It is funny, this graphic about Mahomes plucked from a social media post. Dang. 

So yeah, I do think it might be worth it to give up a high draft pick to get a back from another team who is really pretty good but underutilized. I do think if we don't move on that we could be in trouble.

I do sometimes think about what it would be like to have the following Chiefs team, sort of a retro dream team scenario...

What if Mahomes could have our 1960s linebackers over there on our defense?

What if we could stick our 1980s secondary back there?

What if we could have our 1990s pash rushers up front (::cough cough:: Derrick Thomas ::cough cough::)?

What if we could have our 2000s offensive line in front of him (::cough cough:: and Priest Holmes ::cough cough::)?

I just delightfully ponder a season of 57-0 wins every single game.

Ahhh...

But then, that's the paradox of this whole thing. I'd love to see 100 straight Super Bowl titles with every game of every undefeated season featuring similar scores. But yeah, no one would watch. And the NFLers would get no money.

Annnd, you see something wrong with that?...

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Eagles at Chiefs - Week 2 - Preview

Remember the 2017 season? It was very weird. We started great, winning our first five games including that opener when we torched the Patriots at their place.

Then we went on a really bad losing streak, dropping 6 of 7 -- yeah, really, six games of seven we lost. We simply could not get a good win particularly in that stretch where all the New York teams (Giants, Bills, Jets) just had our number. It was gruesome.

Then we closed out the season winning out next four to salvage the thing, including a final-game debut of Patrick Mahomes beating the Broncos on New Years Eve.

But then to close it out there was that once-again mind-boggling heart-shredding playoff loss, this time to the Marcus Mariota passing-to-himself Titans.

In the middle of that worst part of the season I'd blogged despairingly about "The Exasperating Reid," citing a number of things he was doing that simply wasn't doing us any good, and yes, I do confess, I waffled wildly about whether or not he should replace Alex Smith with Patrick Mahomes. In hindsight, certainly thinking about the way our season ended anyway, it may have been best to keep Mahomes on the bench just learning the whole time -- it may have been valuable for his growth to get us to the plateau the Chiefs have occupied ever since.

I bring it up because The Exasperating Reid still does show up every once in a while. He was there very much in the first half of last season's Super Bowl when I do firmly believe our wickedly vanilla play-calling was the thing that did us in the most. Not our offensive line woes, not the slanted officiating, not that the Eagles played very well anyway -- all of those were factors. 

But the key factor? 

Andy Reid.

The exasperating part is just that we can never really complain too much about any of this because there are so many extraordinarily good things he has done and still does do for this team. We are who we are and we are where we are -- now already one of the greatest dynasties in NFL history -- because of those good things.

That 2017 season? I remember when we were 6-6 and on life support. Then we went off, and made the playoffs yet again. Andy Reid had a lot to do with that. We've won three Super Bowls since then, all critically close, and Andy Reid leading the way with fine play-calling and inspirational composure was significant to say the least.

In the opening game loss to the Chargers on Friday I could say there was a bit of The Exasperating Reid going on there. He could have run the ball more for one thing. But I also wonder about our pass blocking and WR route running. There were just too many times Patrick had to scramble around back there. And there were too many of his misfires on his passes.

I say this because I watched the last part of the Bills-Ravens game Sunday night, and the Bills QB Josh Allen was firing lasers to his receivers even in good coverage. He was also able to do that because of his great pass protection. Umm, the Chiefs have I think the best center, best right guard, and best rookie left tackle in the league -- that's what they say anyway. Our new left guard was serviceable and our right tackle is as well, when he isn't getting penalties. Sooo, what's up with that? 

Why isn't Patrick having all day back there and firing lasers to his receivers much more regularly? Why do we have to watch him scramble and squirm and squeak and slither out of trouble all the time? It's wonderful to watch him do his magic when he does have to do that, it's great, but why does he have to do that it seems like all the time?

Granted the Chargers played terrifically on defense, I got that. More kudos to them. And the Ravens did force Josh Allen to scramble a bit sometimes in their game, too.

But still. Is that The Exasperated Reid, or The Exasperated Mahomes? Is Patrick still a bit too gun shy? Yeah he did try to go deep a few more times than before, but I've been thinking. Why? Who cares about getting back to throwing the deep ball? Who's saying that crap? We should just be running the ball well and making sharp clean passes to our receivers wherever they are. Granted we didn't do horribly with that on Friday -- Hollywood, JuJu, Tyquan, and Travis actually did okay.

I also watched the end of the Monday night game, when the Vikings put on a clinic driving the ball down the field to score a game clinching touchdown. I thought, now that's a well-oiled, well-coached machine. I mean every play their brand new starting quarterback ran was laid out for him to have the best success -- and everyone executed. 

The Chiefs on Friday night? It just looked like too many times we were not oiled, and not coached very well. Andy Reid even admitted it! The team starting off poorly really cost them Friday night. I remember when he did confess back in February that, yes, his team was not adequately prepared for the Eagles.

What's funny is, getting back to that 2017 season when we opened with a delightful pounding of the Patriots, do you remember the second game of that season? It was a victory at home against the eventual Super Bowl champions, who coincidentally defeated the Patriots. That team we beat was

The Eagles.

So yeah we have the Eagles at home this weekend in the Super Bowl rematch nationally broadcast afternoon game. Will we be prepared this time? Will The Exasperated Reid pleasantly surprise us with a game plan that gets the best of a very good team?

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I'm blogging about this game early in the week because on Sunday I'll be watching most of the game, but we'll be heading to a family event as the game is winding down and that event will go into the evening, so I won't be blogging right afterwards. Very likely it'll be the next day, so just a heads-up. But I just felt like putting down some thoughts now I'd had a couple days after our opener this year, for your Chiefs Game Today enjoyment in the mean time.

Thank you for your readership.

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Chiefs at Chargers playing in Brazil - Week 1 - Record: 0-1

Starting to pound this out as the 2nd half starts, and I can make some notes so far for our 2025 season opener, which is in Brazil. I'd heard a while ago that Chargers season ticket holders were really steamed in that the Chargers marketing information told them they would be able to see the Chiefs among all the other teams they'd play. Surely the assumption was the game would be in Los Angeles, but, well, here we are in Brazil for all the NFL international friendliness they want.

To the game:

Here at the beginning of the 2nd half we got the Chargers on a three-&-out down just 13-6. 

The start of the game was not good, not good at all. On the 3rd play of the game while running his route Xavier Worthy slammed into Travis Kelce, I don't know how it all happened but Kelce blasted Worthy's shoulder. Worthy was announced to be out of the game, and we can only wait to find out what the deal is with this injury.

But yeah. We're already down Rashee Rice for six games and promising rookie Jalen Royals is nursing a bad knee. Thing is we've gotten actually pretty good production from Hollywood, Tyquan, and JuJu. At the end of the 2nd half Tyquan made an amazing over-the-shoulder catch on a deep pass, one that we have just not been seeing from our team for some time. It was sweet to watch. 

It set up an amazing last second field goal from Harrison Butker when we had barely ten seconds to get the field goal team on the field to get the kick in. We did, quick, quick -- and Butker banged it through from 59. These are those things that show what kind of championship caliber team we are.

Here on our first 2nd half drive we are moving the ball. It is mostly Mahomes making quick throws to Hollywood and JuJu -- good! This works! On one play Patrick had nice running room out of a scramble and he himself laid into the defender standing him up as he went out of bounds. He's not backing down. This is Patrick Mahomes.

Sure enough, our man does it. As I put down these words Patrick does a little RPO maneuvering in the backfield, holds it, makes a few pass fakes, and takes it to the right pylon. Sweet.

Thing is, for some of the rest of this game? 

We are getting no real pressure on their QB Herbert. Just none at all. We just have to put more pressure from more pass rushers but that just makes our defensive backfield more vulnerable. Yeah. We just need another Derrick Thomas back there, for sure.

I know people complain when we get Carl Cheffers officiating our games, and while for the most part it has been even-steven on the calls, some have gone against the Chiefs when they shouldn't have. We got the Chargers down to a 4th down early but they called Karlaftis for a roughing the passer. Of course, it really wasn't. He didn't do much to hit him and it was a split-second after he released the ball. It was not as if he should've known not to hit him. Just another crappy call that goes against the Chiefs. Point is the Chargers went on to score a touchdown.

Spags is now dialing up the extra pressure. Tranquill just made the play getting Herbert.

Regarding our offense everyone seems to feel the Chiefs will air it out more this year. Let's get Patrick to use that arm of his to greater effect! Yay! Well, he's thrown a few of those but he's been missing. The only one he made was that super-nice throw that Tyquan caught at the end of the 1st half -- again excellent work on both ends. Indeed let's see more of that! Thing is it hasn't happened.

But then let's just admit it, the Chargers defense is actually very good. They are right on top of everything. They are quick, smart, and smothering. Our O-line is playing okay, but our running game is just not getting what we could. Yes those O-linemen are getting too many procedural and holding penalties, but first game jitters, okay -- that'll all get worked out. But then, just like we need another Derrick Thomas on defense, we could really use another Priest Holmes on offense. Taking nothing away from Isiah and Kareem, they're actually doing as well as they could. It is not bad at all, mind you. But, yeah...

Now Herbert throws a way-too-easy TD pass to a way-too-wide-open receiver in the end zone. Ugh. Our defensive backfield kind-of looks a bit regularly flummoxed out there tonight. Jaylen Watson did make a fine play to defend a pass in the end zone a couple plays ago, but still. With no real pass rush pressure, it is hard to stop as good a QB as theirs. And our D-backs are all very young, they need some time to get this thing down.

And oh my. Just now Mahomes scrambling right in the middle at the line of scrimmage on a 3rd-&-5, 57 guys around him, going down, parallel to the ground and flipping the ball forward to JuJu for the 1st down. That's just Patrick Mahomes.

And now the nice long TD pass to Travis. Nice. But we missed the two-point conversion we needed because Harrison missed the PAT on the earlier touchdown. Now 20-18 them, moving on into the 4th quarter.

Chargers back with the ball and they are just tearing up our defensive backfield. They aren't even bothering with the run, just making our D-backs look silly.

Annnd we get another Cheffers deluxe. They don't call the obvious holding by their RB against our outside pass rusher while Herbert throws a TD pass, but they do call the facemask against our guy when he barely grazed the guy's facemask on the attempted stop. Yeah, I can see how it is all interpretation -- I do think the facemask should be called no matter how incidental.

But don't go telling us all that the Chiefs get the calls because they don't. Earlier in the game there was the very interpretive call against Karlaftis that really wasn't, while a few plays later their guy tackled Patrick then gave him an extra deliberate shove to the ground that, yes, they wouldn't call. That behavior was far more of an intentional action against our guy. Just interpretations? Maybe. 

But they certainly can go one way more than another, and they sure have in this game.

Little time is left, we're now down 9, so we must score twice to win. Those missed conversions do loom very large now.

As we scramble to get back in this one, our O-line is just not holding up. Patrick just doesn't have the time to get get off a good pass to guys getting their routes clean.

And now on 4th-&-7 Mahomes scrambles right and heaves it to a wide-open Hollywood to the five. Wow.

We get the Butker FG, to make it 27-21 them with just under 3:00 to go. 

We have a chance.

But yeah, it is Herbert against our D-backfield -- they just got a 1st-down pass completion right away. Eee. They'll run some to get us to burn our timeout... but we've got to stop them. Okay, good, a sack. We burn our last timeout, but it is now 3rd-&-long.

Oh crap. Herbert is allowed to scramble, run right, and get the 1st down with wide-open running green ahead of him.

Good containment, D-line.

Will this inadequacy on our D-line be a factor as we move forward? I mean it just didn't really do much on the whole, against what I'd heard was a bit of a weakened Chargers O-line. 

Yikes.

But yeah, the Chargers finally beat us in a close game. I mean we'd had their number for so many games, so many close heart-breakers for them.

Yes, true, we now have to take on the Eagles next week. Maybe we'll see what we can correct and be ready for next week, and we'll be a bit better with our young D-backs getting some experience under their belts.

As it was it was nice to see a sea of red in the Brazil stadium seats. It was definitely a Chiefs-favoring crowd.

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