Titans at Chiefs - Week 16 - Record: 10-5

Wow, are we really AFC West Champions? I am stoked that we are -- for indeed we are -- but I only ask because I look at that record there, you see it, 10-5, and am stunned. After each game of the past three years I had been pasting something like 3-9 up there at the top of each blog post.

Ahh, that I get to put the numbers 10-5 there is pure joy.

And of course to proudly proclaim that the Kansas City Chiefs are once again AFC West Champions!

I must also add that I'm sure San Diego fans are not at all pleased with my teams. This past fall my favorite major league baseball team the San Francisco Giants caught the San Diego Padres at the very end of the season, and went on to win the entire shabang. As the Chargers were nipping at our rear ends there for a while I was thinking about those roles being reversed, but a San Diego turnabout was not to be. Today the Chargers were walloped by the Bengals and yes...

The Chiefs routed the Titans.

A couple of posts ago I expressed concern that an opposing team could simply employ the "lightening strike" offense right outta the gate, as a ploy to take down one of the Chiefs best weapons, their running game. But today's game proved that if another team can do that, so can the Chiefs.

Before the Titans could sneeze it was 24-0. They managed a nice long pass play for a touchdown, but by the end of the first half we'd padded the lead to 31-7.

We got that fourth TD of the first half on a nifty pick and run by Eric Berry, who showed precisely why he was the -- what, fourth, fifth? -- pick of entire draft last year. He made a great play on a poor pass, then sped up the far sideline, made a great cut against the pursuit, and shot into the endzone. He even launched himself like a rocket as he crossed the plain -- tremendous fun!

I'm not sure because I didn't catch it, but I don't think we have a shot at a first round bye. We do get the home game no matter what as division champs, and I'm pretty sure we'll be playing either Pittsburgh, Baltimore, or the New York Jets in a wild-card game in two weeks. We'll look more at all of that when the time comes.

As it is we get the Raiders next week in a game that will be anticlimatic (kind of a bummer because I always like beating the Raiders in any game that is really meaningful for both teams) but a nice tune-up for the playoffs.

And for right now, no matter what happens, I have to say how amazing it has been to have a team that has been built and developed and managed and coached and led by the Chiefs ownership and front office personnel. From Clark Hunt all the way through everyone to Todd Haley, they have really done a phenomenal job to get our Chiefs from bottom feeders to title contenders. Kudos to all of them, what a job!

For now, it is all good. It is the best.

Kansas City Chiefs - AFC Western Division Champions!
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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 Chargers - Week 14 - Record: 8-5

Yes the Chargers were playing like focused maniacs after looking uncharacteristically stupid against Oakland last week. Yes the Chargers were fighting for their playoff lives at home. And yes the Chargers are still a very good team, having stormed back into the division race with four straight wins before the Raiders debacle.

But I am not one to say this was coming or even that on any given Sunday your team can just not have it together. The real fact is

This Chiefs team does not look like a division leading team.

It is that simple.

It wasn't just that we didn't play well. It was mostly a complete and utterly horrific exposure of our quite extraordinary weaknesses. Let's go over them a bit, shall we? (Oh, don't worry, this game was already painful to watch. How much worse can it be?)

First, there is our backup quarterback situation. I was actually looking forward to seeing Brodie Croyle start, thinking that over the past couple of years under Todd Haley and now Charlie Weis -- and watching Matt Cassel make great strides in his development -- he'd mature and be confident and all the rest of it.

Not even close.

The guy is still awful. He has a great arm, great mobility, all that -- yadda yadda, heard it all four years ago. The guy still hasn't a clue as to what he's doing out there. He's now 0-10 as a starter, his last win was with Alabama in the Cotton Bowl.

We'd better hope nothing else happens to Matt Cassel.

As it was Croyle's complete ineptitude was the major factor in us coming that close to having our worst offensive performance ever -- it was a 60-something total yards game back in 1963 or something like that. Today we got something like 70. As far as I could tell we didn't have a single third down conversion, we may have when Chambers made that catch with a minute left, but whatever. We got into San Diego territory twice. Utterly pathetic.

Thing is, was it Haley or was it Croyle? Why wasn't Croyle just throwing the ball down the field early? Was Haley telling Croyle to hold back or was that just Croyle being very bad? Either way, it was all pukifying, abjectly pukifying.

Second, our tiring offensive line. The Charger defense just ran us over, that's all. As bad as Croyle was, our offensive line didn't help him. Yes our QB needed to just plain get rid of the ball. But if you're as nervous as Croyle was, you weren't going to get help from these guys. The run blocking was just as poor.

By the way, a little thing to add. Just a little thing, really, nothing at all.  Besides getting thoroughly and contemptuously shut out today, did anyone forget that we didn't score a single point in the second half of the Denver game last week? So, um, yeah, that's six quarters and counting of haplessly scoreless Chiefs football.

Third, our run defense. The D-line and our linebackers were just plain putrid. (Once again the call goes out: Scott Pioli! Scott Pioli! We need a Ray Lewis-type guy in the middle really really badly...) We faced another team that just knows how to stand us up. Not only that but I'm just flat ashamed at our unwillingness to fully pursue and truly finish. That last touchdown by their back-who-wouldn't-go-down was an embarrassment of epic proportions.

For those who didn't happen to behold it. San Diego had the ball deep in Chiefs territory for the 78th time or so in the game. Mike Vrabel had this guy, Ryan Mathews, dead in his tracks until he simply stayed on his feet while all the other Chiefs guys just watched. I guess they paid good money to come to the game to see this guy dance around and they just wanted to kick back in their lounge chairs and enjoy it.

On a more serious note, didn't these guys watch that same guy take the ball in the very first quarter and get hammered in the backfield, yet still stay on his feet for a few more yards? Didn't someone on the defense say the simple words, "Hey, no one stops until that guy's face is planted deep in the turf. Make sure you finish." Was there simply no Chiefs individual within a hundred miles of that sideline to tell all the other Chiefs quasi-defenders that? I mean, I was about 120 miles from there and I was screaming it into the television set, but, well...

Absolutely embarrassing.

Third, our receiving core. Now I can't lay it all on them because of Brodie Croyle, but still, where are these guys? Dwayne Bowe simply can't carry the load. Where is Chris Chambers? Do we have to rely on pick-up throw-in Verran Tucker? Why wasn't Dexter McCluster in the mix more?

Yes yes yes, Croyle just didn't know what to do with the ball, and that's not the receivers' fault.

But if our Matt Cassel-led team can't get the passing game to gel beyond Dwayne Bowe, we're in trouble.

Fourth, our precarious situation if the other team scores early. This relates to the passing game woes. In games when the opposing team scores first, or gets up by two scores, it is very scary because we've relied so much on the run. Regrettably, really good running teams like the Chiefs simply do not make good Super Bowl teams unless their passing game is stratospherically spectacular. It's like a rule.

I know, I know for sure that every team we play from here out -- and they are all still playoff contenders, not to mention those playoff teams if we ever make it there -- they are all going to employ the lighting-strike offense on their first possession to score quickly and take out our running game. Is our defense up to that challenge?

They weren't today, big-time.

No, it wasn't just a case of having a tough time of it today. No, this was not just a bad-day game. It was way way worse than that.

This was a bad-team game.

Sure we're still 8-5 and in control of our destiny. I know all that. But I will say it again in closing.

I only care about the Chiefs being a Super Bowl winning team.

And I really don't think this Chiefs team is even a division winning team, much much less a playoff game winning team.
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Broncos at Chiefs - Week 13 - Record: 8-4

This was definitely one of those games in which an exactly equal amount of good things and bad things happened. A lot of very good things, and the same number of very bad things. The good things shout, "We're a true playoff contender with an actual chance to go far!" The bad shout, "We haven't a chance in the playoffs if we even get there!"

The best good thing is that we got a key, clutch, close win in December during a legitimate playoff push! ...BUTTT

We almost fell apart in the second half. We didn't even score a single point.

This means a very good thing was that our defense did the job! The D-line sacked Kyle Orton four or five times, forcing a key 4th quarter fumble after one of them. Branden Carr was spectacular out there, slapping away everything Orton did get off, resulting in a splendidly putrid 9 of 28 passing for the Broncos QB. What a difference from that last game in Denver when Orton torched us for 700 yards passing and 11 touchdowns (okay, it wasn't exactly that, but it was really bad)... BUTTT

Their running back, a not-even-close-to-Hall-of-Fame calibur Knowshon Moreno, went off on us for 175 total yards. So one week our pass defense is atrocious, another week it is our run defense. Sure our pass defense held this team to a very gratifying six points, the same team that put up 49 on us a few weeks ago. Think of what we could do if we put it all together.

A good thing was our continued expedient playcalling on offense. We had great success with those short West Coast offense dump-offs to our backs and tight ends, and the Charles-Jones machine was humming nicely yet again. (And I really should be saying the Charles-Jones-Cox machine because fullback Mike Cox is blocking like a maniac out there -- it is him springing them as much as it is the springees)  ...BUTTT

We didn't seem to do anything else with anyone not our backs. Fantasy league guys with Dwayne Bowe are as furious with him today as they have been ecstatic with him over the past several games. Today Bowe didn't just have an uncharacteristic zero touchdown catches, he had zero catches. Champ Bailey had him covered like a blanket on a sleeping baby, and the only pass Bowe caught was waved off because he was flagged for pass interference.

The most troubling bad thing about today's game was the penalties, and they were very costly and very much on the coaching staff. If it is a hold or clip it's on the player. We had our share of those today, don't get me wrong. A spiffy super-long run by McCluster was nullified by one.

BUTTT today we had a touchdown also nullified because of illegal motion or shift or something that happened more than once. The most blatantly telling aspect of this problem was the Barry Richardson meltdown on the sidelines, after he was called for a false start. This was unquestionably a product of his own immaturity and something which all Chiefs fans hope will be dealt with summarily by the coaches. Thing is a lot of that has to be the coaches looking at their own formations and other offense technicalities that have to be worked out or we'll be hammered by them in a crucial late season or playoff game. They happened far too frequently in today's game, helping make this one a nailbiter when it really shouldn't've been.

A good thing is that we're getting some of our key guys healthy again, and sometimes when you're playing well without them and they still get that undesired rest, they may actually play more rigorously in the late season because of that refreshment time. BUTTT

McCluster almost cost us the game when we gave him the ball and sent him through the line late, and he fumbled. We've turned the ball over only nine times this season, which is wonderfully wonderful. In fact we made up for it by getting a key fumble from them a bit later. So it is good we've got Dexter back with all his restored vigor, but it can also mean he and the rest of our returnees are rusty. Our banged up offensive line is also cause for concern because it seemed Cassel had to run around a lot more back there than usual.

The last good thing is that we still have a perfect record at the New Arrowhead, so that's very nice. Even nicer is that we have a two-game lead on the second place Chargers and Raiders with four left. BUTTT...

Errgh, the reality. We go on the road again for the next two. And next week we're in San Diego -- still solid and most likely really smarting from looking so bad against the Raiders today. I know I shouldn't be bringing this up, but remember the last time we were 8-4? It was 2005, right there poised to snatch a nice easy playoff spot, and then we refused to close in Dallas and refused to tackle in New York. Pittsburgh was 7-5 at the time and remember at the time thinking they were no threat. Well, they ran the table and won the Super Bowl, and we finished at a very respectable 10-6 although that playoff spot slipped from our grasp.

We've got to have a lot more good than bad in the last quarter of the season to keep that from happening again.
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