Broncos at Chiefs - Week 8 - Record: 7-1

This was something like the sixth straight win we've had over the Broncos -- is that right? I think I'd heard that. Something like that. I remember back in 2013 when we had that splendidly blistering start to the season... and then we faced Peyton Manning and the Broncos.

Well, the Broncos really don't have a quarterback like that these days, and I think that helped us. We got by with a 30-23 win and it should've been a bigger win. I don't know why we can't do more in the 4th quarter but after Kareem Hunt's hurdling power catch-and-run extravaganza (second game in a row!) went for touchdown we did zilch on offense.

It was funny, we saw Dustin Colquitt jog out there in the 4th quarter for only the second time in the game and we all thought what the announcers were saying -- Colquitt has hardly punted this year! I mean, Colquitt is a terrific punter, but really -- how great is that!

Mahomes in between the three-and-out to start the game and that lame 4th quarter was that guy we'd all been swooning over for the entire first half of this season. He did throw a bad interception late in the game but please, don't fret too much about the picks. This one, like many, was reasonably deep in Denver territory so it'd be no worse than a punt had it gotten to 4th down. And after this one we got the ball back on a fumble recovery a bit later.

Game-by-game Mahomes is raising his quarterbacking IQ little-by-little, step-by-step. Let it happen, it's fun to watch.

Meanwhile, what a game by Sammy Watkins. He really showed his stuff in this one, and even when he isn't the featured guy, the opponent's defense knows his such a formidable weapon that he's opening things up for everyone else. Today he had eight catches, every one of them a fine one, including two that went for touchdowns each of them requiring him to catch and make jet runs to the end zone.

We also benefited from a lot of penalties -- on the Broncos. That was a switch.

I'm still very concerned about our run defense. The Broncos two backs together easily got 100+ on the day. Yeah that urge to rip into Bob Sutton starts to well up inside, I got you, but Sutton still had the D make key plays -- Dee Ford was all over their quarterback, Chris Jones had a nice sack, Dorian O'Daniel was firing out stuffing their swing plays, Kendall Fuller had a pick where he came out of nowhere to swipe it away from Demaryius Thomas.

It was encouraging to see that the injury report listed Eric Berry and Justin Houston as "doubtful" instead of completely out. Really, let's be real -- as much as we want them back in, give them time, get them healed and ready to play. Oh, I didn't check, but Anthony Hitchens went out with an injury, we'll see if it's serious.

Halfway through this season's campaign and we're a comfy 7-1, our offense still doing the job, our defense making just enough plays to get the dubya.
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Bengals at Chiefs - Week 7 - Record: 6-1

The play of the night came early. We watched Kareem Hunt take the handoff around right tackle and appear to be buried in a pile of Bengals, until lo-and-behold there he is still running! And then hurdling a guy to get big yardage! Guh? The replay showed him being wrapped up by a defender only to spin out of it to keep going.

For all the things people are saying about Mahomes and all the offensive weapons, is not Kareem Hunt one of the best? He scored a number of touchdowns tonight, much of it with his ferociously tenacious running ability.

551 yards of total Chiefs offense on the evening. There you go.

Okay, on to the defense. So is there hope? Against a decent Bengals offensive unit?

First of all at the beginning of the game when they introduced the players and showed those PFF rankings, our guys were not horrible, they really weren't! The exception was for what I thought was really one of our defensive strengths: Anthony Hitchens and Reggie Ragland! These are our highly touted inside linebackers and they were ranked close to the bottom of all NFL inside linebackers! I know they had a poor game against the Patriots, but ouch.

One of the very interesting things about our defense is something I'd heard a number of times in previous broadcasts. Really? Is it true we are at the top of the NFL at stopping the opponent on third-and-long? When you think about it, yes, we have done very well at stiffening a bit and getting that last stop we need. Yeah we give up way to many big plays on 1st and 2nd down, and our run defense is very soft -- here's to Hitchens and Ragland making the corrections there.

Now to Patrick Mahomes. Here's the highlight: 1st play of the 2nd half, with the pocket closing in Mahomes gets smacked hard on his throwing arm, shakes it off with a vengeance, then promptly steps up to hit Watkins for 50. Whuh-oww. Throughout the night he flipped it there and there and there and did business. One critical mistake he made was underthrowing Tyreek Hill and getting intercepted, and you just saw it: he took something off when he could have easily fired it the requisite 60 yards to get it to him.

The funnest featured video was that of a ten year-old Patrick Mahomes playing basketball, taking the in-bounds pass and firing it across the court towards the basket -- sure enough, he makes the basket for the game-winner and gets mobbed by his teammates and other courtside participants.

The funnest remark by the announcers during tonight's typically fine NBC broadcast production was from Cris Collinsworth. After a screen pass completion to Hunt getting the ball close to the goal line he said, "So much going on, so much lateral movement -- it's like playing the Globetrotters." Later he added, "There's so much flash and dash, just play 'Sweet Georgia Brown'!" The producers then showed highlights from earlier in the game and did play the music. Very sweet indeed.

We're as good as the Harlem Globetrotters.

How much fun is that.

I'm hoping that even with this blowout tonight fans fully and richly enjoy watching our Kansas City Chiefs, simply because you have to think that the ratings for this one dwindled quite a bit after Ron Parker's pick-six making it 38-7 midway through the 3rd quarter. Yes, could it be, could it be? I don't know if this is a good thing because I want the Chiefs to be showcased in any way they can be, or a bad thing because of the principle, the principle of competitive integrity, but yeah... could it be?...

Are we becoming a media darling?

Well, yeah, let's just wait to see what happens in the postseason and hope that no matter what, when we win we win fair-and-square.

As it is now I can't deny this is very very very fun.
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Bengals at Chiefs - Week 7 - Preview Post for Prime Time Game

I'm going to pound out a quick preview post now because I will have no time tomorrow, and while I will be watching the game I will have little time after the game because, again, it is an evening affair.

I've always wanted to treat each individual game on the merits, but let's face it. We are all looking for two things:

- In what ways will Patrick Mahomes and the explosive offense astound us?

- In what ways will the defense disappoint and will we finally see any rays of hope from any improvement?

So yeah, tomorrow after the game I'll briefly put down my answers to those questions.

For now I just wanted to address the deep concerns I had for last year's team, right there in the middle of the season when we so abysmally floundered. Remember that? It was so bad -- suffering through completely inexplicable losses to the three New York state teams -- that I shouted at the top of my blogger lungs for Andy Reid to replace Alex Smith with Patrick Mahomes.

It was indeed a thoroughly justified response. Alex Smith had shown that he simply could not deal with a good Cover 2 defensive look, and while he did finish strong and get us into the playoffs he could not finish in a playoff game, scoring zero points in a second half against a Titans team that we had no business losing to.

On the other hand, the point of this post is that, yes, I'm very very very glad Reid did not put Mahomes in.

The reasons for this are critical to our success this year.

One, Mahomes was able to learn a ton from Alex Smith and just rest taking the entire season to gather information and process. For whatever the liabilities of Alex Smith, he is extraordinarily smart and affable, just the right combination for a youngster like Mahomes to absorb what he must to be ready to fully take the reigns in his second year.

Two, starting right at the beginning of the season with Mahomes at quarterback gave him the privilege of being assured this team is his. No quarterback controversy, and no second-guessing what Reid is going to at quarterback. Sticking with Smith for the entirety of the year last year also gives Mahomes the confidence that Reid will go with him for the duration no matter what -- even when he struggles, everyone knows, Mahomes is the man.

Even though we ended up tanking the season last year, Reid's decision to stay with Smith meant that this year will be better than it would've been otherwise. I am certain of that, and I'm sure most NFL prognosticators and Chiefs fans would agree.

On to Sunday Night Football!
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Chiefs at Patriots - Week 6 - Record: 5-1

Nkay, here's the brief late take on this game. My longer "preview" post is here from this afternoon. Again, since it is late I've got just a few observations.

Our defense looked like it was wilted lettuce in the 1st half, but in the 2nd half they toughened up. We have a decimated defensive backfield, but we played tough. Tom Brady is still Tom Brady, and they still have a fine offensive line and a good new running back in Sony Michel.

We are still committing just too danged many penalties. We simply will not win long-term if we don't stop it.

When New England went up 37-33, Breeland Speaks had Tom Brady easily tackled, but let go of him allowing him to run for the touchdown because I'm sure he thought Brady had thrown the ball. Was he refusing to finish the tackle because he was nervous about being called for that newly strict roughing the passer penalty because he didn't know he hadn't thrown the ball? Ergck.

As for Patrick Mahomes, he missed ugly on a number of passes, but on others, the guy is Gumby -- those were the announcer's words. Mahomes still astounded with some of his physically demanding pass completions. The key for him: experience experience experience. Tonight the Patriots did a lot defensive maneuvering to try to mix him up, and when he gets more and more of that he'll be more and more prepared.

Kareem Hunt. Wow. What a weapon he is. He seemed to take right off from what he did last year in that classic opening game in New England. Running and catching and simply grinding out every single touch he has.

NBC has a terrifically entertaining broadcast. Comprehensive coverage of everything, very fair, well called, and all the splendidly fun stuff about the history -- especially all the stuff about Patrick Mahomes. At one point there was a graphic with side-by-side photographs from 2000 of Tom Brady as a rookie in the NFL and Patrick Mahomes as a five year-old shagging balls at the World Series.

This was definitely a very fun game to watch.
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Chiefs at Patriots - Week 6 - Preview Post for Prime Time Game

I'm going to pound out most of the day's post before tonight's game. There are just some things I'd like to share, most of it a thread I've featured prominently in this blog enterprise before. I also have to get up for work very early tomorrow morning, so when the game ends I'll add a few remarks in a new brief post, and then we're good for the week.

I do very much like our chances in every single game we play, and that is mostly because this "Seven Samurai" team we have of Patrick Mahomes and his posse of runners and pass catchers. In fact watching a very small bit of NBC lately I have seen a promo for tonight's game that has Mahomes as this phenomenally high-scoring video game character, closing with an image of him smiling with flames all around him. Love it!

I'm actually anticipating with some hope the game(s) that this team loses, so they will keep that fire going. Trust me I do want the Chiefs to win the next 57 straight games. But I'm just steeling myself because that loss will happen, especially important because we all have this belief now that this team is invincible.

As I've shared before winning can be a curse. I've written about it here: I'm a baseball Giants and Royals fan and a basketball Warriors fan, and over the past eight years I've got to enjoy seven world championships among them. This is splendid fun, but it does mean when your team loses it seems to be a bit more painful. There is some value to having a team no one expects to win and then winning those fun games every once in a while, there really is.

Now please I would not trade this Chiefs team for any other. This is an incredibly exciting time to be a Chiefs fan, probably more now than at any other time. We all know how much Brett Veach and previously John Dorsey have done to put this team on the field and into the hands of Andy Reid, one of the premiere coaches ever in the NFL.

But I can't go another moment without augmenting the real challenge that we have as Chiefs fans.

We are not a New York or Boston or Los Angeles team.

And this team we play tonight?

A Boston team -- one which has been to the Super Bowl seemingly for perpetuity.

Every time the Chiefs take the field I take pride in the Kingdom, no matter who is out there. Yes it is awesome this set of players is out there now and I cheer them on passionately every time. But I also know...

I know we are up against it.

It is a bit harder to do it in pro football, but it is still done: Advantages are given to the large market or media darling teams so they will win more frequently to keep entire major professional sports leagues financially viable.

And since it is Major League Baseball playoff season, I'd like to share something with you.

The Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers are in the postseason again this year. I went ahead and did a little of my research again, and wondered, indeed how successful have been the teams you'd expect the powers-that-be to favor? What are the actual numbers?

I consider the strike-shorted 1994 season a turning point for this, because before that you had the very disfavored Blue Jays (not a major market or media darling) winning two straight World Series, and just before that the greatest World Series in history did not feature the Yankees or Dodgers but rather the boring Braves and Twins.

Since that time 24 years ago, starting with the 1995 season, the Yankees have made the postseason a whopping 20 times. They have had a winning season every one of those 24 years. Incidentally, since the late 1960's when the Yankees had a brief spell when they didn't appear in a World Series and the powers-that-be decided this was not good for baseball, the Yankees have had exactly seven losing seasons. This was out of 50 since that other major milestone, the realignment of 1969.

The Red Sox have made the postseason 13 times and have had 20 winning seasons in the 24 since 1994. They have of course won the World Series three times.

The Dodgers are a very interesting story. They've won their division now six straight years. In the 24 since '94 they've made the playoffs 12 times and have had 21 winning seasons. What makes this so amazing is that from 2004 to 2011 they were owned by the reviled Frank McCourt. I mean, I live in the Los Angeles area and anytime anyone speaks of this guy it is with the most vicious revulsion. He was considered so bad the baseball mandarins took over the team and handed it to Magic Johnson and his ownership group.

Here's the thing. During McCourt's ownership the Dodgers went to the playoffs four of those eight years. They had winning seasons in all but two of them. How many teams dream of such horrible ownership? I believe the whole McCourt episode was ginned up to get this team to a point where it could be in a position to better do the winning a large market, media darling team must do to prop up the entirety of the sports league.

For comparison? Look no further than the Kansas City Royals, on top of the baseball world for two glorious years in 2014 and 2015. The Royals top brass went crazy laboriously putting together a championship team for the five or six years before, and it did materialize in those two phenomenal years. Now? This season the Royals finished with 104 losses.

Know the last time the Yankees lost 100? Never. They did as the "Highlanders" back in the Stone Age, but the most they've ever lost is 95 in 1991. The Royals have lost 90 or more games 16 times, and they've only been around since 1969 and they were a dominant team in the late 70's and early 80's. (I can't help but add that from 1955 to 1967 when Kansas City's major league baseball Athletics essentially served as a farm team for the Yankees, the A's lost 90+ nine of those years and 100+ in four of them. Meanwhile during that time New York and Los Angeles were busy winning 13 pennants and 7 championships between them.)

When the Royals won the 2015 World Series the MLB's powers cringed. To them the Royals were merely one of those tools that must be in place for some of those kinds of teams winning in some instances to convince most sports fans the whole thing is is not totally rigged. This is not to say at all that the Royals winning was undeserved -- indeed that is much of the point: they probably deserved it more because of what was stacked against them to accomplish it.

Anyway, the number of times the Royals have made the playoffs since 1995? For those Royals faithful you know: two. That's it. 2014 and 2015. Thuh end.

I know this is a blog about pro football and the Kansas City Chiefs, I know.

But this competitive duplicity plays a part in our success -- or non-success because we're up against it just as much in the NFL.

Tonight the Chiefs are being showcased because our brand spankin' new quarterback is such a popular player, and he's going to get a nationally televised look-see against the most prolific quarterback in history. Could it be the case that Patrick Mahomes is helping make the Chiefs a media darling team? Ooo-eee!

I don't really think so. Unless you're the Patriots or the Cowboys or the New York Giants, the NFL's version of the Yankees-Red Sox-Dodgers, you're going to have to do a lot more to get into the elite level. (And the Giants at 1-5? Don't be fooled. While I pay no attention at all to anything, all I've been hearing when I do happen to catch something said about pro football is about how Eli Manning is through and how much Odell Beckham Jr. hates his team right now. Just watch the sports talk shows and you'll see who the favored teams are -- and it's been that way for years and years.)

So here's what I think about tonight's game, ultimately. If we win, fine, good, I like it a lot. If we lose, it'll give the team a feel for what they must do to do better next time. I don't even necessarily think the favors given to the Patriots will help them win all that much tonight. In the long run they do, yes. But no sour grapes about any of what may happen tonight. I know most people have long recognized how much the officiating favors the Patriots in any given game anyway -- it is pretty obvious.

Thing is any given loss throughout the season is just no big deal. I just hope we can stay injury-free, as does any team and their fans hope for their team.

The officiating though? Yeah, it'll be what it is now, that's fine. The real question is

Will the officiating do its typical thing and kill us early in the postseason? That's the real question. And yes, I've shared this a dozen times before, I'm convinced it is made to be that way. For baseball it is a bit different, a lot is in the exploitation of front office advantages, for football a lot of it is the officiating -- and it is likely to be worse now with even more interpretation-oriented calls like that new more strict roughing-the-passer penalty. But holding calls and pass interference calls and determining-validity-of-a-catch calls all so easily go against a not-large-market not-media-darling Chiefs team.

For now, it's the regular season. For now it doesn't really matter that much. For now we're likely to win the AFC West even with a few ugly losses, but all teams have those over the course of the year. Who knows right now what'll happen in November and December?

I'm writing this portion in the afternoon of this beautiful October day, looking forward to seeing us in prime-time tonight. In fact, hey! They flexed us into prime time against a very good Bengals team next Sunday! How about that!

Maybe we ARE turning into a genuine MEDIA DARLING TEAM! Wowwie!
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Jaguars at Chiefs - Week 5 - Record: 5-0

In this one we faced the quite acclaimed Jaguars defense. It was billed as the No. 1 offense vs. the No. 1 defense. The Jaguars defense was certainly up to it -- their players were perceptive, fast, and pursued with a relentlessness we haven't seen before. Patrick Mahomes even had his first interception, a pick that flew on him and it may have been aided by the wet conditions. He had another one later.

Our defense actually played pretty well. Was it us or the exceptionally poor play of the Jags offense, particularly the ugly messiness of their QB Blake Bortles? In the 1st half we actually got some surprisingly strong defensive play and key stops -- a nice Armani Watts pass breakup at the goal line on a 4th-down play, a Dee Ford strip-sack right after that 1st Mahomes' interception to get the ball right back, and a Chris Jones pick-six after an attempted screen pass.

In the 2nd half we held, but we were a bit more bendy. Before Jordan Lucas made a pick to terminate the Jaguars last-ditch drive to try to get back in this at the beginning of the 4th quarter, Orlando Scandrick had two key pass breakups. This guy and his experience may be more valuable than we think, his interception at the very end of the game sealed it.

Over on the offensive side our O-line played especially well. There was a long pass to Sammy Watkins in which Mahomes had all day to throw. How nice is it to see that happen for us for once. When Kareem Hunt scored a rushing touchdown for the Chiefs the O-line just blew up the Jags defensive front.

And what can you say about Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill. They just made play after play after play -- snatching passes anywhere they were and getting great yardage after the catch. Even though neither of these guys scored, their plays set up all of our offensive points.

Now to the not-great things.

The disqualifications thing is major. Chris Jones and Dee Ford were both ejected because of unsportsmanlike conduct calls. We cannot lose those guys, and I'm sure this week they are going to express enormous contrition as they play on an Andy Reid-led team.

To be honest, I have a lot of reservations about the taunting thing. Yes I do think there should not be taunting and I don't know what happened there on the field, but unless I can see more consistency from the officiating I still can't believe the Chiefs are not squeezed more in these kinds of calls. These kinds of calls that are just far too much open to interpretation. I don't know but it looked to me like the Jaguars Jalen Ramsey continued to spew the trash-bilging while Tyreek was a model of decorum.

Still, we're suffering from too many other-kinds of penalties. It just shouldn't be that hard for Reid to get our team to tighten up these areas also. I kind of thought we were looking to be one of those preeminent, reputable, disciplined NFL teams. Well those first two things ain't happenin' unless we start doing that third thing.

There are also the injuries. The sidelines were an infirmary ward today. We lost several key defensive players including Justin Houston, and we still don't have Eric Berry out there. We even lost Laurent Duvernay-Tardiff late. Let's hope these are not that serious as we move forward. I mean, we've got a well-rested New England waiting for prime time next week. This hurts.

When your best players are going down or getting kicked out, you can't help but allow an NFL team to make it a game, especially when the Chiefs have already spent the season leaping out to a huge leads then getting the Chiefs Kingdom adrenaline surging when they let the opponent back in it late.

It was like that in this one. Even though we had a very comfy lead, up 30-7 with about nine minutes left, things did happen to make us nervous.

The good thing we can take from this is that Patrick Mahomes got his feet wet (not just literally!) getting picked twice and throwing no touchdown passes -- let him get a feel for what that is like and motivation to keep working at not having it happen when it could hurt us the most.

I have seen a little analysis of Mahomes' play and when you get past all the phenomenal tool-set stuff, it is very apparent that this kid doesn't just run well, he doesn't just pass well, but he probably does the one thing most important for a quarterback to do: make reads well. Seriously, it has been amazing how well he's been seeing what's happening, adjusting, and making good decisions. Today he got to do that against what they say is the No. 1 defense in the NFL. That's great experience to have for a kid this young.

Now we just have to wait and see the extent of all these injuries and how much Andy Reid can get guys to be team players and not do ding-dong things to get themselves ejected.

For now we're 5-0 for the second year in a row. That's pretty neat, I wonder how many teams in NFL history have had two straight 5-0 starts -- I can't imagine it is that many.
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Chiefs at Broncos - Week 4 - Record: 4-0

We seem to think that this team will waltz right on through the NFL. With this offense, with the astoundingly impossible playmaking of Patrick Mahomes being the talk of everybody everywhere -- it seems like we are unstoppable. It can't be denied with this offense and with this quarterback, our team feels unstoppable.

Tonight we had to work very very hard, playing in Denver, playing a tough close one -- just the thing we need Mahomes to cut his teeth on.

There will be a loss somewhere down the line. There will be a bad game Mahomes will suffer somewhere down the line. There will be some interceptions, some untimely fumbles, some disastrous moments of NFL football quarterbacking.

This game was a close one and it looked like that tough loss might be tonight.

Not.

Did our defense play better or was it their inconsistent quarterback, inexperienced core of running backs, and questionable coaching calls? I don't know. Orlando Scandrick made plays tonight even though he had a bad PI. Eric Murray had the pick of the year, but as a safety -- I don't know how so many receivers can get that wide open that often.

And what is with all the penalties? I know it is very loud Denver out there, but please. One series we were in field goal range then too many penalties pushed us out.

But what about the good about this game. Kelce came alive in the second half. Kareem Hunt exploded, running for more than 100. Our receivers made clutch throws when needed.

And of course, what about the Patrick Mahomes-led charge to score two touchdowns in the 4th quarter to win this one.

Dare I say it? Very Montana-esque.

The left-handed throw -- left-handed! -- to Tyreek Hill to get a clutch 1st down. The scrambling to make plays -- a television announcer said something like Mahomes outside-the-pocket yardage was more than anyone in the past ten years. The absolute resolute garantulute ability to make -- the -- play.

Right now this is just fun. Very intense. Thrilling. All that.

Sure a lot more can be said to dissect this game, but it is late and I've got work early tomorrow morning. There'll be later games when I can write more of the standard stuff about our insanely weird defense.

And games when I can write about what we all behold the eyepopping things Patrick Mahomes will do next.
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