At first glance that's, hey, cool! Very few people dislike us! The fewest of any team! That has to be good! Woo-hoo!
But then, we're not particularly liked either. On the list of most liked teams, we were near the bottom, not last, but close to the bottom. Still. It is as if we embody the essence of the Oscar Wilde quote: "Worse than being talked about is not being talked about."
The Chiefs are just there. You can't dislike them, but, that's because they're so stuck in that middle-America podunk little middle-of-nowhere smallish-size nondescript city perception. As you know Kansas City is light years from being nondescript or meaningless. It's just, Kansas City doesn't have a New York Times ubercasting network to govern what people are supposed to think about things.
Already the world is shifting into ultra-crazy mode, especially with this media-generated racialist war exploding out of control. The NBA's Golden State Warriors talk about not going to the White House for its championship celebratory recognition, and Donald Trump tweets "Well you're not invited anyway so nyaah." So the entire sports world including the NFL rages against that mean racist Trump.
Colin Kaepernick starts separating himself from the allegiance-to-the-flag activities that open every NFL game, others join him in support of the racialist spasms that define today's raging culture war, and when Trump recently urges the NFL to fire those guys, they now amp up their rage so the New York Times suckling media outlets can showcase the folly for the most spectacular virtue signaling there can be.
As a result, at least it appears to be a result, the NFL is floundering. People complain about a lot of things, and some of it is legitimate. In my view the speed and force of the game causing more likelihood of brain injuries among the players is one of those things, and some day when I have time I'll include my thoughts about that in a post.
But the culture war now comes roaring into the game in a big way. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell doesn't have a clue about what to do, for the entirety of his tenure, what is it now, ten years? He's been worthless. He simply has not shown the leadership required to make sure the game doesn't suffer from all this internecine virulence. Now that it's getting worse, he'll still bumble and stumble about addressing it, miserably failing to move things to a point where what is truly just and righteous prevails.
Meanwhile the Chiefs are in the middle of this meandering morass all the while starting off the season well, yet again firing out to a 3-0 record.
At the end of the game the announcers crowed about the Chiefs having now won 25 of their last 29 regular season games. Yes, you could justifiably say we do some things very well. They are indeed all the things we've talked about for the past several years of Andy Reid-Alex Smith football. All Chiefs fans know them too well.
But as the scoreboard said "17-10" for what seemed like about 14 hours of this game, I couldn't help but see a number of things that bother me about this Chiefs team.
- Our pass protection. Again our O-line is simply not giving Alex Smith enough time. I'm sure I see opponent quarterbacks have far more time than we do, I'm sure of it. I mean, on one play late, Melvin Ingram, one of the best pass rushing linebackers in the league, sacked Alex Smith, and on the replay it showed the most feeble attempt to even block him. Please. Please please please.
- Our run blocking. This should be our best quality on the O-line, but it was still iffy. Yes we've got Kareem Hunt back there, and those times we can get a small seam and he can do magic. Maybe I'm expecting too much -- and I have a right to, I'm a fan -- but watching the Chargers running game early they were able to blast out for huge gains regularly. This relates to the next inadequacy:
- Our linebackers. Where were they on those gains? To their credit they had to have made adjustments because they did keep the Chargers to zero points after they got 10 in the 2nd quarter, but in my view there were a number of other reasons for that, one of which was that Philip Rivers was just off today. There were throws he'd always make that today were just crap. Maybe he has lost a step, this is his 14th year in the NFL.
- Penalties. Holy moly, how many more penalties can we get? At one point in the 4th quarter they said we'd had 111 yards in penalties. And there were more after that, I'm sure, including a Phillip Gaines PI at the goal line with less than half-a-minute left in the game. It's awesome we are so aggressive, but can we juuuust dial it back a bit and still play well?
These things concern me. They are all major issues, major, and while you may think I'm a little melodramatically overblown with any one or two of them, I just don't think a good Andy Reid talking-to will solve them.
On the other hand, there are some awesome things about this team.
- Kareem Hunt. Is it possible just to get him the ball every single time we run an offensive play? Really. With the exception of Hunt, Tyreek Hill and, believe it or not, Albert Wilson, the rest of the Chiefs offense was invisible. And again, not to belabor the point, but the O-line is partly to blame. Alex Smith just can't get untracked more routinely. Travis Kelce, for one, was nowhere today. But Kareem Hunt was just phenomenal, again. The kid powers, weaves, dances, and has terrific vision.
- Our pass coverage in the D-backfield. I really believe that we are missing Eric Berry, I do. For the overall purpose of pressuring the opponent's offense, Berry is just a factor that is missing right now. But these guys are playing their hearts out to make up for it. Terrance Mitchell had two picks and harassed their receivers constantly. He wasn't perfect, but I'll take it. Marcus Peters was All-Pro. Daniel Sorensen was all over the field. There's someone I'm not mentioning I'm sure, but it was very satisfactory today.
- Special teams. One of our strengths was still true today. Colquitt punted well and Santos had a field goal right after getting creamed on a field goal attempt. Our coverage team did splendidly keeping the Chargers far from their end of the field, but once we did foolishly try that snap-to-Albert Wilson fake-punt run that got snuffed. Our defense did hold keeping it from hurting us.
- The big plays. I've always been nervous about our reliance on the big play. You can't always count on it. Thing is, everyone says how good the Chiefs are at it. Maybe there's a reason. Maybe there's something we've got that makes us more likely to get them. Maybe it can be coached and developed and perfected. Today there were the interceptions. The key stops. That sack by Justin Houston late when it was still a one-score game. The bursting blistering touchdown from Hunt to seal it. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing for a team that needs a little more recognition, that needs to climb up the list of most liked teams a bit more.
This is a nice win for a team that, while it does have a lot of work to do, does seem to have what it takes to get the job done.
Maybe in a world distracted by the idiocy of the culture, and even though they're dismissed as whatever by most of the NFL-watching world, the Chiefs can continue to authentically be a team that deserves to be considered one of the best.
That's pretty cool right now.
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