Chiefs Bye Week Take

Got a bye week this week, earliest of them this season. Good time though to continue working out what we'll do with our wide receiver situation. Many are enamored with the idea that we'll get Tyreek back. Ehh, maybe. I think we should just bring up Andrew Armstrong, see what he's got, and work Jalen Royals, Cyrus Allen, and Brashard Smith into the mix much more.

Meanwhile, a lot of talk is about the officiating, especially since a couple of officials were disciplined for belligerently mixing it up a bit with some players. Huh, I wonder if it is getting under their skin a bit from the pressure they have to get every single call exactly correct -- or, huh, the Scorecasting expectations that things go the way the NFLers want them to go.

Putting the Scorecasting intimation aside for now, the news article mentions that the number of penalties assessed so far this year is inordinately high. Naturally that could be simply because players are just committing more fouls. There is the idea, however, that refs are just calling too many things that really shouldn't be called, and they're under duress for not calling things everyone is screaming they should call.

Ha, Chiefs fans know all about that. I'd committed this blogging year to not say anything about the reffing as I have in the past, however justified my grievances have been. But, well, I'm going to break that rule now and mention that at least half-a-dozen times in this past Raiders game the Chiefs were jobbed on non-calls, I mean really obvious non-calls you'd see if you looked at the film -- holding and PIs are the main culprits. As much as the Raiders had a terrific game plan against us and they played a fine football game, the Chiefs still should've won by two touchdowns.

But yeah, every fan of every team has their issues with the officiating, I get it.

I can't help but emphasize that there are two terrific ways to make this better, just make it so the pressure is off the on-field officials and we can be sure the calls are as correct as they can be. I've shared both of them a number of times before in this blog effort, but, well, I'm just a podunk little blogger guy. It'd be nice if someone got the memo not just because I'm sharing it but because it is the truth. Sorry, it is. To wit:

Number one, get two officials in the booth, looking at monitors of every play throughout the game, right there at the stadium not just in New York somewhere, each one looking at all the angles of every play in real time, and having original play-officiating authority -- meaning they can make a call right away and make it stick just like the on-field referee. I do believe that on-field guy should indeed have the final final say, but this would go a long way to ensuring the calls are good and the on-field officials are not so pressured to make one call or another that'll just affect them emotionally when everyone wants to kill them.

Number two gets at the kinds of calls that are the ones that are most troublesome. The procedure calls and personal foul calls are generally not that much of a problem -- even the holding calls from linemen are for-the-most part pretty well adjudicated. Yeah there are times when we scream about a lineman holding our guy and they don't call it or our guy didn't and they call it. But you know? I've realized most times they do get those right, let's just face it, and those calls are really not the ones that so dramatically affect outcomes. It's not perfect, but all OLs are holding all time anyway, and it does relatively even out.

The ones that do affect outcomes, big-time? And the ones they eff up all the time? You know what they are.

Pass interference and defensive holding calls and non-calls.

Not going to get into the ugly details because we all know them. I will emphatically repeat the solution, and I know some may not like it, but hear me out, and I do hope whatever NFL officially official officianados out there will seriously consider it. It is, very simply:

No touching at all by receiver or defender as receivers run their routes.

Thuh end.

Is this simply too hard to legislate and then enforce on the field?

Please. Just nothing, no touching grabbing reaching jostling AT ALL.

I know it may be considered draconian, but trust me, it'll work. 

Yes, if a player even touches another player he is covering or being covered by: penalty. If they both do it, off-setting and replay the down. I do concede any patently incidental contact or instances when one player very accidentally bumps into another player -- those instances when a player has position and is run into -- these things may be adjudicated appropriately, yes, with the help of those monitor watching officials.

Bottom line is it categorically gets rid of the entire interpretation nature of those calls, which is simply too difficult to assess with plays happening so fast and officials' observation skills simply not so attuned to be able to make critical judgments in those instances. This solves that problem.

I do know people will screech What if it happens all the time? That means MORE penalties and we want fewer! And how many offsetting penalties and replaying down after down after down must we endure?!

I get it, all understandable concerns, but after a while, the players will get it and simply do good route running and play good pass defense. That's what we want to see. As it is there're far too many PI and DH calls and right now it's killing the game and wrecking the refs. Also I believe when there are so many called penalties the officials may be unwittingly thinking we'd better hold back because there are just too many of these happening right now, and then they don't make the calls they should be making! (Do Chiefs fans know about that...)

Oh but what if games are 78-74 with all the scoring from easier passing games?

Ummm, that kind of makes my point. And why do games have to be that high scoring if defenses actually do a good job of defending passes? Wow, what a concept!

Once again, if a defender is not going after the ball and he even remotely touches the defender in the activity of not---going---after---the---ball---itself, then it is a PI. If a receiver reaches his arms out for even the teensiest of contact with a defender as he goes into his route, it is a penalty. If that ball is arriving to the receiver and both players are jostling each other... IT --- IS --- A PENALTY.

Will there still be interpretations about which player impeded the other one more -- in a sense just so we're not getting off-setting penalties all the time? Yes, but I think real impeding force will be much easier to detect with this rule in place.

I am certain that after a while the players will get it, and they will start working to be really good passing game football players, and the best part is we don't have to deal with all the insanity of screeching about the calls we should get but don't and the calls we don't get but should and all the penalties one way or the other and the emotional roller coaster ride we all have to endure from all this nonsense.

There. Now go tell everyone else especially those who run this thing, because, um, yeah, otherwise it'll just be more of the same. 

Yet, again, yeah, if the NFLers are still getting what they want no matter how destructive it is to competitive integrity, well, then, yeah...

Nothing will get done.

Or some other dumb idea will come down the way, and, well, that's the NFL for you.

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The photograph was by David Gray at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Chiefs at Raiders - Week 4 - Record: 4-0

They have got to do more to prevent the insane tackles that absolutely wreck players' limbs. I do know they are trying, and they have done a lot to protect the NFL's assets -- and sorry I don't mean to make it clinical. I do believe they consider them human beings and are doing things to keep the hits from being wickedly injurious. Early in the game the Chiefs' Nohl Williams got a very justified "defenseless receiver" hit call against him, and I'm fully behind those things.

The NFL has indeed done well to make the hip tackles illegal, but I don't think they call them enough. They did, however, call the penalty against a Raiders player when Tyquan Thornton, who'd been having a phenomenal game and had just caught a dandy long pass from Patrick, was hip dropped just short of the goal line and... sure enough...

Had his ankle gruesomely wrecked.

That's all that matters, really. Just that Tyquan will be better, soon, just to be healthy and good even if he doesn't play another down of NFL football.

But I will add that it seems the injuries are piling up a bit too much. I don't really watch much of any other NFL things, but what little I see it seems this player or that player is just getting taken out of games for long periods of time. Sure injuries have been a reality in the NFL, but I wonder. Maybe, maybe not. Are there more? Are the players so skilled and conditioned that, while they may be better at withstanding the punishing hits, are still more susceptible to the ones that damage limbs?

We ended up pulling this one out, but it was way too close, and way too stressful towards the end of the game. The Raiders are now a genuinely good team, with what looks to be a genuinely good coaching situation.

Along with Tyquan, Kenneth Walker was amazing today. Those two guys scored two touchdowns apiece. There is this thing and that thing that needs improvement, definitely, and I could riff on all that, but for now, I'm just spent. Yeah, that sounds waaay too stupid because I wasn't out there slogging through this game like our Chiefs were, but well, next week is a bye week and I may have time to write a bit more.

Nice that we're one of the few undefeateds, but still, the price of Tyquan is just really very not-good.

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The photo is from Kyle Rivas at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Chiefs at Dolphins - Week 3 - Record: 3-0

Well that was ugly. We should have dominated in this game, but, well, Any Given Sunday.

Give the Dolphins credit, they played well considering they lost their fine running back to an injury early, and they lost their backup later when he was doing well in his place. They did as much as they needed to do to slow our offense and make plays against our defense to be in this one for most of the game.

We got a couple of early touchdowns from Kenneth Walker, but they stuffed him for much of the rest of the game. Our defense did just enough to keep the Dolphins from doing any damage, they were always playing from behind but proudly close enough throughout.

We had too many dropped passes, on both offense and defense. One of the drops was Rashee allowing the ball to bounce off his hands up into the hands of their guy. They didn't get points from that turnover, but we also didn't get the points we should have gotten in continuing that drive. Our D dropped a couple of easy picks that would've represented more of the capacity we should have had stopping them.

We also had too many dumb penalties. And I do concede, they were all pretty-much legit. One was early, a ding-dong holding call when we had the Dolphins at 3rd-&-18. 3rd-&-18. That is a major fine for somebody in the kangaroo court. They went on to score their only touchdown.

Even though we beat a team we should've had no trouble with, there'll definitely be some heavy-duty assessments of what happened.

Our pass rush was not good, but got a little better later as the game wore on, so that was okay -- Karlaftis got a nice pick off a Jones tip to seal it late. Our receiving core needs to get better separation to help out Patrick, but they did make some key catches when we needed it. Yet still, where is Xavier Worthy? Why isn't he getting untracked? His vanishing act is getting to be more and more discouraging.

And let's hope Patrick is healthy -- he got hammered after completing a pass from the middle of the end zone, so bad they called a roughing the passer penalty for dropping the body on the guy -- also very legit even though some will say it isn't! Errgh.

He stayed in the game and seemed to be okay, but we'll have to see how he is this week.

As it is we're off to a very nice start this season.

Next week we're at the Raiders, a team that itself has started well this year.

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The photograph is from Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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

Every time we play the Colts, it is a slog. There've been only two games that I really know about, in my immediate memory, that we handled the Colts well. One was that second Monday Night Football game ever in 1970, when the then World Champion Chiefs blasted the eventual World Champion Colts team that year. The other was our handling of the Colts in that 2018 divisional playoff game when Patrick just made sure we were not going to lose to this team in the playoffs again.

Otherwise we've either been shocked losing to them (how we all want to forget all those playoff losses to this team) or they've given us the worst time. We did win last year for our last win of the season, but it was at home and we barely did, in OT. Other losses I remember are our first loss of our 2019 Super Bowl winning year, that one on Sunday night, remember that one? Also at home? Uggh.

How about in the agony dome in Indianapolis? Another recent Super Bowl winning year for us a few years ago featured a very silly early loss when Chris Jones mouthed off something, no one knows what, yet we got seriously penalized and the Colts went on to win in part because of that incident.

How many more instances must we endure in dealing with this Colts insanity?

Right now I'm writing this with us up 27-20 and having to rassle too much with this thing. There are six minutes left in the game and just now our pass rush is all over their QB Daniel Jones, and he still completes the pass. Too insane. Annnd, now they score the touchdown to tie it.

I know NFL teams, all of them, really, are good enough that the veritable reality is indeed Any Given Sunday. I know.

But this Colts things is just exasperating because more than half the time we are just a better team than they are, and, and... seems every single game...

In fact a number of times the officiating is messing with us again. It is indeed helping keep them in the game. The Colts offensive lineman was holding our guy on one key play in that last drive, very obviously. No call. Meanwhile on our last drive working it working it working it to try to get that touchdown to give us more breathing room, our tackle Kahlil Benson was called for a hold which plainly wasn't. It didn't look good, but it wasn't a hold. We only got a field goal.

To be fair, I will say that earlier in the game Kristian Fulton was called for a pass interference when he barely grabbed the receiver's jersey. But you know. That was indeed a PI! I agree! Good call! I'm not going to be unfair or inaccurate in my assessment. Thing is, earlier Fulton was called for a PI that wasn't! This is the kind of stuff that keeps this Colts team in this game. They are just making the charmed plays.

But yeah, that is NFL football.

More of the Colts weirdness, just now on 3rd down the second string cornerback just barely got his hand in the way of Mahomes' super-nice pass to Rice which would have been a 1st down. He can't handle it. With three minutes left we must punt instead of move a bit further down the field at least kick the go-ahead field goal.

We are playing well enough to have 27 points so far. We are making some fine plays, I could list them.

But one of the key not-good things is, whereas last week against the Broncos Mahomes was way more over center to take advantage of Kenneth Walker's talents, tonight he was over center not even half the time -- mostly shotgun. This just stunts our running game and our ability to use play action. And because of this I just believe we really should have at least another touchdown score in our favor.

Right now at the two-minute warning the Colts are at midfield, and if they get a bit more yardage and run clock, they'll just bang through the game-winning field goal. Sorry, it just should not have gotten to this point.

Earlier we had one touchdown drive that was amazing, the one that finished with Worthy's TD catch. I mean it was wonderful, mixing it up, running unique plays, keeping the D on its heels. It was nice to see us matriculate the ball so easily, so nice to see Eric administer the offensive attack like that -- we never saw anything like that last year. We just need to do that more often over the course of the season, we should be fine.

Okay on 3rd-&-4 our pass rush got to Jones. They punted. Still 27-27 with 22 seconds left...

Now OT. Should have never come to this...

We start with the ball, yet sure enough, Mahomes not over center hands the ball to Walker, and he goes nowhere. Then he is over center and tries to pass, and gets sacked.

Except an amazing catch on a deep pass to Thornton saves us on 3rd-&-long. Right after the catch he gets clobbered. Goodness. Thornton has been really clutch for us tonight.

We get the ball in the red zone, but Patrick right now just threw the ball in the dirt. He has done that a number of times in this game. I think he just needs more time to get into his rhythm. He is definitely showing he's got it, don't get me wrong. When he can make a play, he's been at his amazing best. Tonight when he's passing comfortably, straight up, not so much pressure, he is making laser beam throws.

As it is we have to kick a field goal. There is that. But this team should be scoring touchdowns. Standard procedure tonight: One play we do exceptionally well, then other plays in the mix are just duds.

We get the field goal to go up 30-27, but the Colts get the ball.

Okay, now a crazy play. The Colts receiver makes a deep-pass catch, he goes down, then gets up again and gets the ball punched out and the Chiefs recover the fumble. If that holds we win.

The question is, is he ruled down by contact because of the bare touch by a Chiefs defender.

Right now as I write this they are reviewing it, yet the television official says the barely barest of bare touches means he is down before he gets up to then fumble.

Yepp. Down by contact, Colts 1st down at about the 20. It is this insane Colts thing. Yet again again again...

But yeah, as ludicrously silly is this yet again going against the Chiefs in Colts games, the official made the right call. I promised I wouldn't get as much into the officiating stuff this year, not that anything shared before is invalid at all, still... so, I won't write any more about any of this, so yeah.

They get the game-tying field goal, and with three minutes left in OT, Patrick does get the ball back. All we need is a field goal and we can finally sock this thing away.

After the modest kick return:

Play One. Walker with good yardage.

Play Two. Walker for the first down.

Play Three. Walker again for decent yardage.

Play Four. Mahomes looks to pass, must scramble right and gets a few yards. 3rd-&-1.

Play Five. Yes! Patrick over center! Play action! Float pass to Walker in the left flat and he runs to the 20.

Play Six. Walker for a couple.

Play Seven. Butker in for the field goal. He gets it.

We win.

Going to bed right now.

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The photograph is by Sam Lutz at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Broncos at Chiefs - Week 1 - Record: 1-0 - The Take

Okay a few thoughts about last night's delightful beatdown of the Broncos.

First, I did catch on my radar that everyone was saying the Broncos were supposed to whup us and whup us bad. I got a little nervous myself just wondering how our tackles would hold up.

Didn't have to worry at all. Kenneth Walker took care of all of that. Before the draft everyone's draft crush seemed to be Jeremiyah Love, but good thing Brett Veach is running this team and not anyone else. He knew it'd be unlikely he'd get Love even drafting as high as the Chiefs were, so right away he went after Walker, and got him.

Wow.

What a difference maker he has already shown himself to be. A good friend with whom I occasionally converse about Chiefs things told me to just wait until teams start putting nine men in the box. With Mahomes matriculation abilities, look out.

Some may consider our wide receiver groups stinks. Not. They may look at Mahomes' pick deep in our own end and think, "Worthy sucks." Not really. Yeah on that one play they were not in sync. And overall it did seem the WR effort was underwhelming.

But remember, this Denver defense is really good. They have an excellent secondary, and I just believe that contributed to our WRs not getting the best separation they could. Give the other team credit.

Just let things play out. Let them all work out getting on the same page, Eric will definitely make sure of that. Let Patrick get back into his old self, remember he hadn't played a real game for almost a year. It did seem last night he bailed on the pocket a tick too soon, but again, let him get his feet back under him.

I was wondering, with Walker running up and down the field like a madman, why they didn't do play action more often. But you know? Why? Keep setting up things for later when they will really mean something. You don't need to play your whole hand in one night.

And that leads to Andy Reid doing precisely what I know everyone is thrilled he is doing.

Starting plays with Patrick over center.

When Walker arrived he clearly announced he runs best that way. So Reid adjusted, set his offense that way, and voila. Instant offensive dominance. Again when teams start having to account for a beast of a running back now, then comes the play action, then come the shots Patrick can take down field.

Real quick our D was solid too, and sure enough, people just forget about what a defensive mastermind Spags is. We also got great contributions from our rookies, and we have to hope our nice new corner Mansoor Delane will heal from his shoulder injury soon. He got a pick on the third play of the season. I remember it took Trent McDuffie, what, 57 games before he got his first one? I'm exaggerating, but it was forever.

So yeah, what a super fun win, and you know -- you may certainly know -- this was our first win since last November 23rd when we barely beat the Colts, remember that game? After that we lost six straight to close the season. We'll be playing the Colts again next week, and fortunately again at Arrowhead.

Let's keep this train rolling!

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The posted photograph is by Sam Lutz from the official Chiefs website. Thank you.

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

Ahh the old Chiefs look to be back.

I could pound out a decent length post with all the great things about our win tonight, but really, you know it -- you could make a full, rich, complete blog post about this game in just four words. 

Four, that's it.

You know what they are.

Kenneth Walker the Third.

I mean.

Oh my.

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I may certainly put in something more tomorrow, that's cool, but for now it's bedtime and tomorrow a day of work. For tonight, sweet dreams of K9 galloping across the Arrowhead tundra!

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The photo was by Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs website. Thank you.

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Preseason 2026 Note

I have been peeking in a bit at what's been going on with our team this off-season. We got a nice new running back. We had a nice draft and some rookies are balling out right now. We added a few nice new pieces. We still have concerns about certain areas, yes. And of course Patrick is on track to start Week One and simply will not be held back. Awesome.

But I can't neglect to mention that the main things that really hold back the Chiefs are the NFLers and the Scorecasting conditions that afflict us. Last year I detailed all the things that happened that kept us from being competitive. Not going to repeat those specifically now, but they did happen, and will likely happen again. When that changes I'll be more enthusiastic about this season. We'll see.

I've also mentioned that a key thing that I believe is a critical part of that is the profound impropriety of sustaining official gambling organization associations, really just an attempt to draw in more fans. If we can readily place bets on anything and everything, we'll pay more attention, and we'll spend more money on NFL football. That's it, and it is ugly.

I'd been reading a book, Everybody Loses by Danny Funt, and it goes into great detail about how much the online betting world has infected professional sports -- everywhere. The fans, the players, the coaches, the gamblers, the media personalities, the organizations -- all of it, and it is gruesome. I had hoped to write a longer piece here about it, but why? I've already written so much, and nobody gives a crap.

I will share this one passage in his conclusion, because it pretty much encapsulates why this is so significant.

If indeed gambling becomes the default way most people consume sports, the financial toll will be enormous, but there's so much more than money at stake. The betting boom also threatens to shatter faith in the integrity of sports; in the independence of sports media; in commissioners to protect their players, coaches, and referees from threats of violence; in lawmakers to prioritize the well-being of their constituents over the wish lists of gambling lobbyists.

This is wretched. So much of it is criminal, even lethal.

So all I will say here in this preseason post is, I still like my Chiefs and still want them to do well. I will still post after every game, but realize my remonstrations about the afflictions just don't mean a whole lot, which is still extraordinarily discouraging. As such I'm making a commitment to refrain from writing about it this season. In the past I've written tons and tons about the wickedness, sometimes even about the things that have happened not just to the Chiefs but to other teams and players as well.

Even though it has been good therapy, I'm just going to post about game things. It doesn't mean I've closed my eyes to the injustices, and I'm sure my disappointment with those things will seep out somewhere, it is just I've really got to be doing other things than laboriously pounding out stuff here about it all. If there is something major going on -- that the NFLers get exposed more, that indictments of important people are brought down, or simply that the Power-That-Be actually do something about it like not just disassociate from them but reprimand them and even seek firm legislation that would put those online betting organizations out of business...

Should those kinds of things happen, I'll note them here.

And cheer.

Otherwise, I'm just going to post about Chiefs on-field things.

Yesterday, even though we lost yet again in exhibition play -- we've lost something like 11 or 12 straight preseason games going back three or four years -- our fine kicker Harrison Butker made a 69-yard field goal, with room to spare. Sweet. If he can regularly do that, our offense can make it to midfield and still get points on the board.

Reminds me of the Jan Stenarud days when making 50-yarders was a big deal -- and Stenarud regularly hit from everywhere, demoralizing teams. Some say his 48-yarder in Super Bowl IV to start the scoring put the Vikings on their heels right out of the gate.

So yeah, from this point forward, just the best of our Chiefs, no matter what.

At least there should be some fun enjoying that this season.

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The second image there is a nice artwork piece with that iconic Super Bowl IV Chiefs huddle, and forgive me when I clipped it years ago I didn't note who did it. Please forgive the lack of attribution, but it is great, I'm honored to post it, and thank you.

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