Running back. We all wondered just how much the NFL hosed us by mismanaging the Kareem Hunt incident, but I think this team got better after that. It convinced many that this was a team built on principle, that we weren't going to be a part of any of that, and it moved the team to work that much harder at addressing it. Veach had already done a terrific job of picking up both Damien and Darrel Williams, who were both terrific yesterday.
Of course much of the kudos goes to Damien for piling up 154 all-purpose yards, 129 on the ground. When we needed to grind clock he did splendidly, but he was clutch throughout the game.
Quarterback. We can still point out all kinds of great things about Patrick Mahomes, and even though he didn't have a touchdown pass the way he managed the offense was exceptional. For whatever you may say about Alex Smith's past failures to get us to the promised land, he was instrumental in shaping this kid, because let's be honest, he looked very Smithian out there just plain managing things. You so need that from a signal-caller.
Of course you have to give credit to his leadership ability. You can really see it out there, the team just responds when he's at the wheel. In the middle of the drive that got us our 3rd TD, Mahomes got crunched and came up limping. A loud gasp from the Kingdom could be heard across the country. But he stayed in, played hard, and scored that eventual touchdown himself. We heard nothing else about it -- I still wonder for next week: What's with the knee? Still, on our last touchdown with a few minutes left, Darrel Williams was being stood up at the one-yard line when guess who came from out of nowhere to make the final push to get him into the end zone?
I was a bit concerned about his inability to throw the long pass, he was just off, and some of his passes were real ducks. It might have been the cold, though it wasn't that cold, just a bit snowy which fortunately wasn't a factor at all. The weather for next Sunday, as of now, is sunny but cold.
I must add though that the play of the game was that sidearm sling around the lineman to Kelce who reached down and snatched it out of the air for 16 yards. It was just another of those "Did I just see that or what?" plays that we thrill to every time we watch him play. What a great time to be a Chiefs fan.
I have to add that to me, it seemed he was truly comfortable performing in a big game -- in playoff action before he just seemed to be nervous out there and not his regular season self. He's grown and matured and that makes a big difference.
Wide receivers. Sammy Watkins, wow what a big deal it is to have him back. In the few plays he had you could tell he is truly a factor. Yes we see Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce seeming to get all the looks, but one reason is because Watkins demands so much attention.
When Watkins does get the call he is amazing. One play occurred on the very first drive, when Mahomes hit him in stride and after a really nice juke ended up with a 30+ yard gain.
Offensive line. Solid. That's all you can say about it. We all know how well Eric Fisher and Mitchell Schwartz have been playing, and having Mitch Morse back steadily at center is terrific, but special plaudits have to go to our guards Cam Erving and Andrew Wylie who both had to come in and fill holes and have really done a terrific job. They are so instrumental to Mahomes getting the protection he needs and Williams to have the running lanes to chew up yardage.
Defensive line. This new kid Derrick Nnadi anchored a defense that everyone is raving about, and rightly so. I can boast a bit that I knew on paper this defense was better than what we'd seen and better than the substance of all the vitriol spewed at defensive coordinator Bob Sutton. Meanwhile just back to Nnadi, another defensive play of the game was his explosive solo backfield stuff of a Colts run, one of a number of key stops that kept the Indy offense out of sorts the entire game.
Then there was Chris Jones, who batted down three Andrew Luck passes, and it seemed more like 17 of them. This Colts offensive line was supposed to crush us, but apparently our defensive scheme was to get those hands up. Jones was a Darryl Dawkins out there just pushing that line back with his big body and still able to leap swatting everything out of the air.
Andrew Luck was the least sacked quarterback this season, so the major battle here was between our sackers and their sack-stoppers. In this contest, the Chiefs won.
Run defense. I addressed this a bit in my previous post, because it was such a critical aspect of this game. Again, the punditry thought the Colts could easily run the ball against us, but as I'd mentioned before, I just thought Hitchens and Ragland were better than that. Of course it wasn't all them, but give them credit. Otherwise our safeties played better and we didn't even have Eric Berry out there. Oh my if we could get him back for next week...
Defensive backfield. Even without Berry and questionable talent at safety, our pure coverage guys are actually pretty good. Kendall Fuller and Steven Nelson are underrated yet get the job done. Throw in the mix this new kid, Charvarius Ward, who as I'd also mentioned before thought showed he's got something even when he got torched against Seattle. All that really made life miserable for Andrew Luck. You could tell most of the time when he was trying to pass he'd get frustrated, or even outright sacked, and much of that was the smothering defense by our cover guys.
Ward, by the way, had four pass defenses. He was also in on tackles all over the place.
Special teams. This was a wild one for this unit. The ugliest moment of the game for us was that one failure to pick up that rusher allowing him to block a Dustin Colquitt punt resulting in a Colts touchdown. Naturally every Chiefs fan was going, "Uh-oh, here we go again."
Later however Colquitt got a booming punt off when we needed it, the ball downed at the Colts five-yard line, but lo and behold, he was ran into, five yard penalty, Chiefs first down. One of the great things about this game was that we chewed up so much clock with drives that Colquitt was rarely used.
Harrison Butker, our kicker, was perfect -- 4-for-4 on PATs and a FG -- so nice considered the kicking game has been such a nightmare for us in playoffs past. The ironic thing is that Adam Vinatieri, the Colts kicker and notoriously good playoff performer, missed a PAT and, believe it or not, had his only FG attempt bonk off the upright. How about that.
Fans. We don't give the Arrowhead faithful enough credit for helping make life difficult for the opponent. Often it is instrumental that the opposing offense will move offsides or get a delay of game call because of the crowd noise. That didn't happen once yesterday, but one thing that did happen was the number of offsides calls that went against the Colts defensive front, there must have been four or five of them. While it was the defense that shot themselves in the foot, they had to have known they were in hostile territory to make them so jumpy.
Thing is, it was so nice to watch the fans there at Arrowhead finally smiling and high-fiving as the clock wound down. It was neat seeing Twitter-posted footage of the patrons of Big Charlie's Saloon in Philly having their loyalty rewarded with a fine Chiefs playoff win.
What can you say about Andy Reid. Just steady, smart, and some have been saying that for once in a playoff game he played to win for the duration -- meaning he didn't stop going for it after getting a big lead. We went for it on 4th down three times if I'm not mistaken, and made it each time.
Another key advantage for us was our time of possession on offense. We were able to keep Luck and company off the field for long periods of time -- credit both Reid and Mahomes for making that happen.
Brett Veach had already done a lot of the heavy lifting just taking care of business assembling this fine team, we'd all noticed this from Day One of the 2018 season. Kudos to him for always being on top of things and getting the job done.
And Clark Hunt. Of course I'd written tons about what may have been anything Hunt that has impacted the horrific Chiefs playoff experiences, but this win could not have come without his lasting positive contribution to the ball club in the number of ways he's done that. It is awesome that every time the Chiefs come into the locker room after a game they put raised hands together and shout "Fam!" That feeling of family is real and permeates the organization, and much of that has to come from Clark's leadership.
Bottom line in all this is something that is joyously delightful, it really is: The Kansas City Chiefs finally defeated a genuinely good NFL team with a genuinely good quarterback in a playoff game. I say that because, no disrespect, the previous four playoff wins we'd had since our Super Bowl in 1970 were all against teams that had so many issues there is no way we could've lost. Those four wins... compared to 16 losses over that time.
Yeah.
This time we defeated a team that genuinely could have beat us. Really.
Finally.
Thing is, some may say, "What about your conspiracy theories now Dave, after this win? You'd always said the NFL and the officiating and a number of other things have always been against us?"
Well, excuse me, but I still feel that way. Please, this isn't done yet. As I write this that Patriots-Chargers game is winding down and the Patriots are clobbering the Chargers. So here you go: Next week you'll see a game at Arrowhead that will feature the podunk little midwestern cow-town Kansas City cheering on a team that has had every disadvantage afforded them materialize on the football field in any postseason action, facing off against the eastern elite establishment charmed big-market media-darling Patriots from the Boston metropolitan area, probably the most favored sports mecca in the world (Boston's professional sports teams together have the highest title winning percentage of any area in the nation).
Now don't get me wrong. The Patriots win because Tom Brady and Bill Belichick together are pro football geniuses, avatars, powerhouses, whatever superlative word you can use -- not denying them that stature at all. But as everyone with eyes who watches this team on the field knows, this is a team that is filled to the brim with a history of benefitting from crazy-ass lucky plays and "fortuitous" officiating calls.
Let's just see what happens next week.
Let's just see if what the Chiefs do to overcome all that is good enough.
As I mentioned in my post right after the game yesterday, one of the most wonderful things I saw on the Arrowhead Stadium football field was a distinct preponderance of
Got-it.
Yes, very much so, we will need every ounce of it we have to win next week.
Here's to watching it happen again.
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