Rams at Chiefs - Week 12 - Record: 9-2

At the end of last season I'd said we only have three defensive players who are keepers. Chris Jones, Nick Bolton, and Willie Gay. This year it is pretty much the same but I would add Trent McDuffie and L'Jarius Sneed to the keeper list. Maybe that's okay, that we have five guys who are "tagged" as so good they're among the best big-D guys.

Or is it bad that there are so few?

I mean, they showed a stat on the television that told us the Chiefs are 31st in the NFL in opponent quarterback rating as well as number of opponent touchdown passes.

That stinks.

McDuffie is a terrific find, very true. And there may be some promise with our very young defensive backfield -- I mean really, at any given time defensively we may have McDuffie as well as rookies Jaylen Watson, Joshua Williams, and Bryan Cook on the field at the same time. Danged... four rookies in an NFL crunch-time situation backfield. I think back to 1981 when the 49ers had three rookies in the backfield -- Ronnie Lott, Carlton Williamson, and Eric Wright -- and they did great, the team even went on to win the Super Bowl that year.

But still. Today we were facing the Rams third-string QB and an overall depleted offense.

This defense. Errrghnnckghcknnnnn...

Jones was a disrupter yet again. Bolton was getting his hits in. McDuffie was a smothering force on the back end. Sneed had a clutch pick late in the game.

But what about the bendiness of the overall? Yeah it's nice to have a Patrick Mahomes to match score with score, but then, against a pretty good Rams defense today, Mahomes was not at his best in the red zone today -- even once getting picked in the end zone.

We did get through today's game with a good win, not overwhelming, but expected -- jacking our record to a very nice 9-2.

Here's the thing. New thread here. Follow me on this...

We play at Cincinnati's place next week. As I noted in my last blog post, their stadium is one of the ugly six as far as that destructive turf goes. What do you think about this idea?

Here you go: We rest our best players.

Seriously. Some selected nine or ten of our top players just don't see the field, at all. Sure it is very likely we'll lose to a very good Bengals team, but that's exactly it. 

What happens when we throw our very best players and most laborious effort on that field, we lose the game with, really, not as much to gain with the record we've already compiled, and we lose a number of key players to injury?

A week ago the World Champion Golden State Warriors NBA basketball team had a road back-to-back. An NBA schedule is rather grueling -- a game every other day, flying all over the country -- when you have a road back-to-back it is very hard on the body. So what did coach Steve Kerr do?

He rested his best players on that back end of that series.

Against a fine New Orleans Pelican team he rested Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andrew Wiggins. That's the core of the team, all their very best players. Every one of them, sitting it out.

Exclusively playing the second-string, the Warriors lost by 40 points.

It was a gimme loss. New Orleans fans did not get to see the Warriors' best, much less enjoy the amazing handles of the best player in the game, Steph Curry. The game itself was predictably lousy.

But the Warriors are smart. They're World Champions for a reason.

They know come playoff time in April and May those guys absolutely have to have their legs underneath them.

Is the NBA unhappy about that? Most likely. But ya know? I only care about the Warriors (I've shared before they are my favorite basketball team.)

So yeah, I say rest those Chiefs guys. Pick any nine or ten. Patrick Mahomes leads the list. Let Chad Henne get some good in-game work. Get Ronald Jones a decent number of reps. Give JuJu a little more recovery time. Absolutely positively transcendently seriously. Make it an extra bye week for some of our guys -- hey there is a lot of talk about adding that extra bye week as a regular season feature anyway. 

I mean please, I can only think of that nasty facemask against our fine quarterback today. It looked really ugly, you know about it, a little after the 4th quarter started and the Chiefs were close to the Rams goal line. In fact Patrick Mahomes himself wouldn't like not playing, but ya know? Who's the boss? And what are we about as a team, overall, with the overall goal in mind?

And please, I wouldn't even really be as serious about this if it wasn't about us having to play on the ugly turf there in Cincinnati.

The only real drawback is the way the Bengals, and again the NFL itself, will think of this as some kind of slight against the Bengals. "What, you're not willing to play your very best against us? What's wrong with you?"

Nope. It's just we don't want our players injured on your ding-dong fake grass, and ya know what else? We don't think you should be playing on that yourselves -- for your players' sake -- so who're the greater fools?

So yeah Bengals and NFL, how about removing that turf, like, yesterday? A lot of players have been talking about it, not just me here in a cheezy little blog. They've been seeking formal action against it, for all the players' sake.

It'd be nice if the Chiefs made a bold move and rested their best next week.

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The pic of MVS is by Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Chiefs at Rams - Week 11 - Record: 9-2

Brief notes about this game: It was supposed to be in Mexico City, but the field there was so trashed that they had to move it to Los Angeles. I'm glad they did that, for a number of reasons.

What was with the uniforms? The Chiefs looked stylish in their all-whites, but the Rams were donning their all-yellows. No wonder the Chiefs don't have an all-gold look with a red trim, they'd look like bleeding bananas. Oh, and how about this. We're in our road whites at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the site of Super Bowl I, the Kansas City Chiefs being a proud participant.

And of course this is the showcase game of the year. 9-1 versus 9-1. They'd mentioned all kinds of ways this game was the biggest matchup of the year this late in the season in NFL history and all that. What was kind of goofy is at one point in the middle of the 2nd quarter they showed a graphic: Total yards so far for each team: LA 191. KC 191. And the 9-1 records. Weird. It was also 23-23 at the half, with both kickers missing an extra point.

Right out of the gate there was crap call on Eric Murray -- he was doing nothing inordinate to a "defenseless receiver." He addressed him cleanly as receiver Robert Woods dropped the ball. A touchdown pass followed. This is the kind of officiating silliness the Chiefs have to deal with, it feels so interminable. After the call the announcers said nothing, no remarks about how easily the call should have been made. And there was a penalty right after that on Demetrius Harris nullifying a big gain, but they didn't show a replay or share a thing about it. Jordan Lucas had a block-in-the-back penalty called against him later on a punt return that was barely a touch on the back of the defender. In the 3rd quarter on Goff's TD run the right tackle moved well before the ball was snapped. No call. Errgh.

Yes, we ourselves just can't stop committing legitimate penalties. We had ten, yes ten penalties in the first quarter of this game. We could do much better -- sounds like a broken record. But it just drives me crazy that so much of the aggravation comes with the interpretation type calls in the hands of the officiating. Sometimes they may not even be paying attention, as one PI call was made after the pass was clearly tipped at the line. Andy Reid went screaming about the tip by making what looked like a time-out motion -- and of course they charged him a time-out and never gave it back. He won the challenge, yet was still charged a time-out, something we could have really used as we had a two-minute drill going at the end of the 1st half. This is just ding-dong officiating. Yes we need to get our asses in gear and not commit penalties, but how ding-dong is this officiating.

What is so ironic is that they said before the game that they put the first-team officials in there, even replacing officials regularly assigned to this team to make them even better, something they only do in playoff games -- unprecedented they said.

This is not even to mention the ridiculous taunting call against Tyreek Hill during his touchdown on a mile-long Mahomes pass. Please. Now I personally don't think players should do that. I don't like most of the idiotic dances they do -- I think they're all foolish. But please. What Hill did with the peace sign scoring that long touchdown? Gimme a break. This is just on the NFL and another mark against the league for not doing more about it all.

Patrick Mahomes had his 32nd TD pass of the season to Hill, his 33rd to Hunt, his 34th to Conley, his 35th to Kelce, his bomb to a wide open Hill his 36th, and that nice crossing pattern to Conley for his 37th... Six altogether. There are only 21 QB seasons in NFL history of more than 36. Whole seasons. Mahomes still has five more games ahead of him for this season. Something I really like seeing a lot of, something that you just didn't see nearly as much as you are this year: Mahomes is getting that time to throw, his receivers are getting out there in a lot of space.

Mahomes got thoroughly schooled tonight with those strip sacks and D-TD's -- I like it. I want that to happen. I want him to know how to be better by avoiding those kinds of things, having them happen, then learning from them. That second TD by Samson Ebukam was just a fluke thing anyway. Those things happen.

Give them credit, the Rams may not have the best defense in the world, but their defensive line without question is one of the best, and it did make a huge difference tonight. It was so intimidating that late in the game  on one particular play Mahomes just gave up. He stepped back to pass, felt the pocket collapse, and just tucked in. He's always tried to find a way out, but on this play he just gave it up. He'll learn.

Oh, and still he converted a 4th-&-2 just a couple plays later, leading to our go-ahead score late. That's cool, but from those last two drives when we had a chance to tie the game, he'll learn how to adjust to that fierce pass rush, and know he doesn't have to go for broke on any given play -- the two last picks were on deep throws.

This was a barnburner for sure, the highest scoring Monday Night Football game ever. It was like a basketball game, the score, really. Final: 54-51 Rams, first time ever both teams scored 50+ in a game. It was the third highest score, both teams combined, in NFL history.

This is just a single game against a non-conference opponent. While it had all the pageantry and accolades and all the rest of it, it was just one game. In fact it was a great game for us, because we can learn so much from it, and Mahomes can grow more from it.

Not saying much more about this, because I'm hoping to have a mid-season report of sorts coming up. It's the right time, we've got a bye week, I've got a little time off for Thanksgiving, let's really look at this Chiefs team in the context of history. That's next...
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Rams at Chiefs - Week 8 - Record: 4-3

Oh did this game start poorly. The Rams shot right down the field and scored a touchdown with a handful of plays that made our defense look like melted butter.

But shortly thereafter we made whatever adjustments we needed to, and it was over. There was a nasty burp at 7-7 when Jamaal fumbled after never even getting the handoff cleanly and the Rams got the ball at our 10, but we stiffened and their kicker (whew) missed a field goal.

Otherwise there was Jamaal, Knile, Knile, Jamaal, Jamaal, Knile. Very nice. Our D also played well,
with great pass coverage forcing the Rams quarterback into flustered throws and the grip of Chiefs pass rushers. Justin Houston had three sacks, and to shut down the Rams late they got Dee Ford in there -- it was nice to see him make some plays.

I was concerned for a bit about our stalwart No. 1 overall pick last year, Eric Fisher, who is playing well but today gave up a nasty sack by Robert Quinn and then had a movement penalty against him a couple plays later. Cause for extended concern? I don't know, everyone can have tough moments in a game.

I mean, look at someone like Dwayne Bowe.

This was one of those stellar days for Dwayne Bowe. Ever notice that Bowe will have those cringe-generating games where he drops that one pass or runs that silly route that just kills us, but then he'll come back and win our hearts with a game like today? Everything threw to him was snatched splendidly, including one pass he grabbed that was way over his head while the defender was tackling him before the ball got there.

Yes, they'll still say our receivers haven't caught a touchdown pass yet, and yes, that's a bad thing. But come on, look at Alex Smith's play today -- agile, quick, decisive. After every gasp we take when he looks to pass, he'll find a way to zip the ball to some receiver. Damn he did that well today, going 24-for-28 -- that's amazing.

All this was topped by Andy having another game in which he masterfully disguised his intentions, imaginatively mixed it up, and again deftly used our running game to dominate. Knile and Charles may get all the press, but we're above .500, 4-1 in our last five games, and steadily moving into contention position.

I'm great with that.
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Chiefs at Rams - Week 15 - Record: 9-5

What a contrast. What a contrast. Our quarterback situation with Matt Cassel in there is like the brightest daylight compared to last week. I must say it was wonderful wonderful wonderful to see him back in there leading the charge.

I know I've spoken of Cassel as schizophrenic, but that's only because the quarterback position is so critically important. Whatever my ambivalence, there is no question that Cassel is indeed one of the best signal callers in the game. This isn't just because he isn't Brodie Croyle, but he has indeed played extraordinarily well for most of the season. A TD-to-INT ratio of 2-to-1 is pretty good. Cassel's ratio is something around 5-to-1.

And you can't deny the guy is a proven leader. He's coming off an emergency appendectomy that happened just eleven days ago. That's just amazing.

Above all the guy has guts and wants glory, and those are critically vital ingredients a QB needs if any team wants to by taken seriously in the playoffs. After a miserable first quarter (making it seven straight scoreless quarters) Cassel led a couple of great drives that led to touchdowns, putting us up 14-6 at the half. Just watching him do that nifty spin move out of a collapsing pocket then running for a first down during that second drive was just beautiful.

And then there is the defense. Last week they were simply abyssmal. This week they had someone tell them to tackle.

And they did.

They shut down their fine back, Stephen Jackson. They also held the Rams to a couple of field goals early when they ran all over us. As the game progressed they put more and more clamps on the Rams great rookie QB Sam Bradford, completely shutting him down after that depressing first quarter. Wallace Gilberry will be the guy with his name in the headlines, getting three sacks, each one critical to our victory. Early in the second quarter he put the Rams out of field goal range, and in the fourth he kept the Rams from sneaking back into the game late.

I didn't catch how Jamaal Charles is, because he was injured after a boffotacular 80-yard run to put the game away late. Even though he and Jones were stuffed for most of the game, he is showing that he definitely should be an All-Pro this year. He did walk off the field under his own power and he was sitting there on the bench with ice. I heard nothing about him after that, so we'll see where he is for next week.

Speaking of next week, we've got our last two games at home sweet home! We are so not-there yet. San Diego is still breathing heavily on our backs. But this was a crucially important win, getting it on the road and closing the road season with a 3-5 record -- that doesn't seem impressive, but it could've been a lot worse.

The team hasn't lost yet at the New Arrowhead and they plainly play better with the hometown fans right there with them. Their next two are against middling teams, Tennessee and Oakland, though both can be explosively surprising.

For now, a tough road win is sweet, and nice for a good boost of confidence.
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Chiefs at Rams - Week 9 - Record: 5-3

Has anyone noticed that we've won 5 of the last 6? The only thing is that we're 4-0 against the NFC (sweeping the NFC West) and that won't win us any tie-breakers. Can we take all the AFC teams (against which we're 1-3) we've got for the rest of the season?

This game was almost another heart attack game, with us going up 24-7 before they started making waves, getting it to 24-17 and driving for the game-tying score when they bogged down at about the thirty yard line as the 3rd quarter ended. The Rams really killed themselves at that point, getting all kinds of false start penalties and pass interference calls against them. Thing is, are we a good enough team to win without the help? I mean, at one point their QB Marc Bulger was something like 23-26 in passing, and he ended up with over 300 yards on the day. That's phenomenal.

I have developed a new healthy respect for Tony Gonzalez. Is Herm Edwards just using him more and better (5 catches and 2 TD's today)? That's great, but I have to confess I've always had a reserved opinion of him in light of all the plaudits heaped upon him. I think a lot of it is that I do expect him to be super human out there, and I know that isn't fair. The don't think you'd disagree, however, that when he comes up with some of the terrific plays that he does make, he does deserve his ranking as one of the best ever.

We've played a killer schedule so far. I say this because we've got piddly Miami next week. It should be cake, but I fear that's just the game to humble us big-time. It's in Miami, and while we beat them there last year, we have a history of just not getting done at their place.