Chiefs at Titans - Week Seven - Record: 3-4

When this game began I'd heard the Titans were weak in the defensive backfield. Okay, this could be a game that allows us to get back in this thing. Mahomes should be able to make it happen here. This is overall a good team we're playing and we've really got to prove ourselves against the best, as two of our wins so far have been against the not-as-great Eagles and Once-Redskins.

Speaking of the Once-Redskins, last week I pointed out we have a 10-1 record overall against that team. I must be careful of my pride, because for every one of those there is some team that can beat us at will. It was a wonderful, wonderful thing to have that playoff win against the Titans two years ago, but otherwise? The five other games in that time period we've been beaten by these guys. Badly. Remember that year's regular season game when we were ahead and lost in the last minute? Remember the opening day 2014 game we lost to a terrible Titans team that really cost us a playoff spot at the end of the season? Worst of all, remember the playoff game in 2017? 

Never mind the main problem is still the main problem. Our defense is just far too mushy. Time after time after time we don't finish, we don't hit our marks, we don't cover, we bail them out with some stupid penalty... 

At this point the season looks like we're done. Our guys will give it all they've got, that's fine. Even if we make the playoffs, there's a lot of work we need to do.

First of all Mahomes' rambling play has just set himself up to be hammered like he was towards the end of this game. He was being sacked and tried to make a play when a 400-pound (or so) lineman just plowed into his head while Mahomes was almost down. Our precious quarterback lay on the ground for a moment, got up wobbly, and had to be helped off the field. For his own personal sake, to say nothing about his profession, pray he's okay from all that because it looked brutal.

When he gets back at it he just needs to pick it up and learn more about what he can do over the course of the next few years if we want to recover that success he had earlier. Right now he looks lost out there. He's ditching balls. He's not trusting his pocket protection and waiting that extra tick for his receivers to uncover. In fact at one point he was doing his far-too-typical running left away from the rush and to avoid a sure sack he put the ball in his left hand that he used just so he would be able to heave the ball out of bounds. Ee-yee.

Our receivers themselves were not helping. They were not running good routes, forcing the issue against their coverage, making critical catches. Our offense also regularly bails out the opponent -- we get a fine play, then that penalty shows up that ditches it.

Whatever is happening on offense, whether it is Mahomes or his receivers, this is evident in the fact that Mahomes has to run for his life every other play. This should not be happening if our offense was what it should be like. Is it all really just the opponent simply doing a great job of smothering our receivers? I can't believe that is the case hearing about how average the Titans defense was, particularly in the backfield. Mahomes should've had a field day out there.

But he didn't. Again, he looked timid, scared, desperate -- really, it may be an exaggeration, but this Patrick Mahomes is a shell of the one who was in total command of that AFC playoff game against the Titans two years ago. Here's what I'm thinking. He is a phenomenal talent, and exceptional football player. Now he really needs to ratchet it up a notch and really master what it means to be a quarterback. Has he done amazing things as our quarterback? Of course! But today he just looked like a guy perplexed, flummoxed, overwhelmed. Solid experienced quarterbacks -- you can tell. One thing Mahomes has got to learn to do better is wait one more tick in the pocket after making his first and second read, then just firing that ball to that third read right where it needs to be. 

I honestly just don't see him doing that nearly as much as he must.

Overall we look like the 2009 Chiefs, really. Just hapless, insecure, incompetent. Late in the game we actually started to do some of those things that we're used to, but it was too little, too late. Notably catches by Hill and Pringle were amazing. But with a team like this that can just run the ball to keep clock moving, when you're down 27-3 in the middle of the 4th quarter, well, there you go.

So yeah, while I can rant on about how Brett should just draft for defense for each of the next several years, if this is what we look like and Mahomes is regressing in some regrettable way, then we may have the face the fact that we have so many needs that simply cannot be filled with a couple drafts.

Call it bad game and a bad day against a good team, that's fine. But here's the thing...

If our wide receivers aren't getting Mahomes good looks, we'll need another young wide-out or two.

If our running backs aren't keeping the defense honest, we'll need another one of those.

If our offensive line isn't giving Mahomes confidence to stay in the pocket, we'll need to address that.

And on defense, don't get me started. Do I have to say we need that Ray Lewis guy in the middle yet again? One player I like is Nick Bolton, but I hear all about how he can't cover in pass defense. So now what? We need pass rushers too -- I think I heard the guy on the television say the Chiefs are dead last in the NFL in sacks. I believe it! How often do I see us get close but not close enough. Boom, their QB gets it off and it's usually a 1st-down pass completion.

Our defensive backfield? With supposedly stellar guys like Tyrann Mathieu and Juan Thornhill? My goodness, their QB, who I was told is just not the greatest ever, sure looked great today. I have been hearing for years that we need some kind of a real playmaker cornerback. Maybe.

As it is for now, with what we've got with this team this year, we can at least have the attitude of nothing-to-lose and just hoping for a playoff spot. There's still that.

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Chiefs at One-Time-Redskins - Week Six - Record: 3-3

This is our first meeting against the pro football team with no name, a victim of the Let's-make-victims-of-people-we-can-virtue-signal-about craze these days. It is just plain absurdity for people to refuse to see this whole thing with the once-Redskins is close to what the Soviets did to people they didn't like. In the name of establishing a communist utopia, they went back into history books to erase mention of people they did not like.

Thing is, the Redskins name is on all that stuff. In fact, excuse me, but the Redskins name is still on everything related to their past success. The Redskins have won three Super Bowl titles. To call them the "Football Team" is like insisting fans at the NASCAR race screaming "F*** Joe Biden" are actually shouting "Let's Go Brandon!"

Don't worry, I'm great with calling them whatever team name they come up with. That they haven't taken care of that for this long still speaks to the anxiety everyone has about picking a perfectly non-offensive team name -- it is ridiculous. I have seen too much "WFT" used to refer to this team, and sorry, I'm not going to use a reference that looks like a common texting acronym for stunned surprise.

Anyway, when I was 11, 12 years old I loved watching the NFL highlights of the previous week's games. They put them on the television every Saturday at 4:00. They had a five to ten minute vignette of each and every game, accompanied by Sam Spence's amazing musical scores that helped make this show the most dramatically compelling thing you could ever enjoy.

At that time there in the early 70s NFL Films also put out a half-hour special feature about a particular game of interest, the "Game of the Week." I did not watch as many of those, but they now have a lot of them on YouTube. A few years ago I came across a GOTW from 1971 that showcased the contest between the Chief and the, yes-then Redskins. It was the first time they'd ever met head-to-head. Not unusual, after all, the AFL-NFL merger had occurred just the year before.

The Chiefs won that game on a nice late-game touchdown pass from Dawson to Taylor, and here's the thing.

It was the first of many wins against the once-Redskins. In fact, if you look, for any head-to-head matchup in modern NFL history, the team with the best record against any other team - minimum ten games total played against one another - is the Chiefs over Redskins. Today's win means in the history of Chiefs-Redskins (and "Football Team") play, it is Chiefs 10, Redskins 1. 

Yes, every single game we've ever played against the once-Redskins has been a win except one. That was a loss to the eventual NFC champions in 1983. That was it. That means in those eleven games, the Chiefs own a .909 winning percentage, the best of any team over another team in modern NFL history.

[Dec 31 2021 Correction! I did put up a post to elaborate that we indeed have only the second best head-to-head record! I explain there.]

Now on to the game itself.

It was definitely the story of two halves. The first half was a Chiefs team we've seen too much of this year. Three turnovers. Sloppy play on both sides of the ball. A terrible blown coverage to allow a TD pass to, of all people, former Chief Ricky Seals-Jones who was a total non factor with us last year. Patrick Mahomes looking like he was trying to do too much and just plain messing up. 

There were any number of other things to mention that just got you to wonder. How could this Chiefs team be playing so miserably?

Kudos to the coaching staff to make critical adjustments. They put Mike Remmers in to replace Lucas Niang at right tackle. They adjusted the defense by getting Juan Thornhill and L'Jarius Sneed in position to make the plays they can make. They employed Willie Gay and Nick Bolton as nickel linebackers. How about that: our defense shutout the once-Redskins the entire second half.

That second half may very well have been the key to giving us hope.

On offense Mahomes, Williams, and Hill got it on. Darrel Williams showing his grinding running style can really make a difference. 

And Mahomes and Hill. Both were off in the first half. Tyreek let a ball go through his grasp only to be intercepted yet again. And Patrick flinged a hopeless ball in a tough situation and it was picked.

Thing is, in the second half he made one of those amazing plays that wasn't much different from that wretched play -- running left and shoveling the pass from his chest for the completion ten yards downfield to Travis Kelce. Afterwards Danan Hughes, the radio color guy, remarked that his dad once said, "Things that make you laugh make you cry." 

That is Patrick Mahomes. Sometimes it takes just a single halftime for him to pick it up and start doing the things he knows he can do.

If we can play more consistently like we should, as we did there in the second half, we'll reestablish our prominence in making that expected playoff run.

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Image of Patrick Mahomes is from Andrew Mather at the official Chiefs site. Thank you. The image of "This Week in Pro Football" is a screenshot.

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Bills at Chiefs - Week 5 - Record: 2-3

Before the recent major league baseball draft I'd thought a single thought considering the way things are in baseball these days. The thing to do, really, is

Only draft pitchers.

Seriously. Only draft pitchers, period. You can always find decent everyday position guys other teams get rid of or are just there on the market who'll do those two critical things you need in everyday players: (1) make contact at the plate and/or (2) play solid defense -- and if you get both you're good. Or if you can get one of those things and teach the other thing they don't do as well to do better at that thing, you're also good.

But it doesn't matter if you can't get the other team's batters out.

So yeah, just draft pitchers. Draft no one else, unless of course you're drafting a certified Ted Williams or Stan Musial. Otherwise, why waste a single pick on some regular position player schlub who's taking a spot of a pitcher you can work with and see if he can be one of those rare guys you can put in your rotation or make your closer. 

But you may say there aren't enough spots on minor league pitching staffs to hold all those guys. So? Who cares what happens in the minor leagues. Just throw all your pitchers into all the regular position player spots. But still fill up your minors with them so you can see who's for real. You are much more likely to squeeze from that haul those few that will be studs on the big club.

Well, guess what.

This year there were some ten or so teams who did just that. Of their 20 picks, those ten or so used somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 picks on pitchers. All 20? Ee-yepp. The Los Angeles Angels did it. All 20. Look it up. The Angels used every single one of their 20 picks on pitchers.

I was right.

Sorry, but I am humbly right also about what the Chiefs need to do in the draft for the next few years. Well, me -- along with the Buffalo Bills. Just like the Angels were right too (we'll see, pay attention to that baseball team in the next few years...)

During tonight's broadcast they mentioned something that is strikingly similar to the Draft-Only-Pitchers strategy, for pro football. The Bills have, what was it, something like ten guys who rotate in and out of play on the defensive line. The guy with the most playing time (by number of snaps), at 55%, was the lowest in the entire NFL for the guy-on-the-defensive-line-with-the-most.

Sure enough, I thought, wow. That's genius.

It is genius because defenses get tired. And after 30 minutes on the field during one long dragging draining opposing offense's drive, you're gassed, and it affects the rest of your game. It eviscerates your entire defensive effort. And if you're the Chiefs, this is an eventuality that simply cannot persist.

Let's face it. This isn't news. Sometimes the truth hurts...

Our defense stinks beyond belief. And that's when they're not gassed. I happened to stay around to see the graphic on the television that says everything about how historically bad this defense is. It told us the Chiefs have tied the record for allowing 29 or more points in each of its first five games. It's been at least 30 in the last four. Think about that. In a league that regularly sees 17-14 final scores, this is about as abysmal as it can get.

So, it is simple. Just a reminder about something I mentioned in an earlier post. You may know what it is.

Brett.

Brett Veach.

Please.

Do the Draft-Only-Pitchers thing, for us, the pro-football version -- and in the next few years...

Draft only front-seven guys.

No, do not mess with defensive back guys. Just like those regular position players in baseball, you can pick up guys here and there, they'll be serviceable. And no offensive players. Sorry, but Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes will do wonders with any serviceable player there. Besides, our O-line is good, young, and in the fold for the next few years. Nothing against the Travis Kelces and Tyreek Hills on our team.

But please. Please please please please please infinity --

If you can't stop the run -- and you can't rush the quarterback -- fughedabouddit.

I'm glad not many people read my blog, I wish there were way more, but you know? That could be a blessing right now. I do know Brett Veach does read my blog (yhee-hee), so maybe no other team will discover the genius of this plan.

And you know? Humbly speaking, even if it isn't the most spectacular pro-football insight ever, let's face it...

We need something.

Because we'll go nowhere with this defense.

So again, you got it. Maybe if you know Brett, and you are reading this right now, you can help whisper it in his ear.

Again, for emphasis.

Draft.

Only.

Front-Seven.

Guys.

I think that's all we need to say right now because, really, well, you know.

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Chiefs at Eagles - Week Four - Record: 2-2 - The Take

Everybody was wondering if the defense would make the corrections needed to actually stop opposing offenses. I think after yesterday the answer to that is a resounding kind-of. They were still very bendy, way way waaay too bendy. 

All the same issues remained: Pass rush refusing to be anything above tepid. Chris Jones refusing to be a force on the edge when they run. Linebackers refusing to fill gaps. Tacklers refusing to wrap at the point of contact. Our D-backs refusing to be any better than the Eagles phenomenal new receiver DeVonta Smith -- I mean, no wonder the dude last year won the Heisman leading Alabama to another college football title.

Well, you can't blame our D-backs too much for that. Smith is just an extraordinary talent.

But our front seven. Still. Ugh. To their credit they finally did stiffen up in the red zone. At least a few times they held the Eagles to field goals. Those are wins for us.

There was also that nice play by Ben Niemann stripping the ball from their guy right before the goal line causing a fumble we recovered... excccept... It wasn't so obvious he actually fumbled, Niemann didn't hollar like a madman about his obvious play so we could stop things, and Andy Reid did not throw the red flag. Next play, touchdown Philly.

Again, just get the call right. It is encouraging to see New York now starting to buzz in to stop things when they see something that refs missed. At least they are moving toward that magical point. It is good to hope -- you know -- for those times when the insanely stupid bad call is about to wreck us yet again.

Our offense put this one away in the 4th, they just got the job done today. Very nice.

Mahomes was solid, making all his standard incredible plays. On his last touchdown pass to a wide open Tyreek Hill, he backpedalled to avoid the rush and heaved the ball, dropping it right into Hill's breadbasket for the score. Just standard incredible playmaking.

Hill himself matched their Heisman Trophy winner for receiver excellence. Hill was on track today, making catch after catch and piling up lots of needed yardage.

Our running backs were stellar, with both CEH and Darrel Williams -- and we should add, yes, Mecole Hardman with his jet sweep runs --  doing the damage on the ground. And because of that it was encouraging to see our O-line continue to gel, particularly with its run blocking.

And of course there was the news of the week: We've got Josh Gordon on board. I'd heard he's been terrific in camp getting ready and showing what he's got.

Wow. If we can score 70 points a game, we may not even have to care how our defense plays.

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Image is from Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs site, thank you.

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Chiefs at Eagles - Week Four - Record: 2-2

Can't get a full post here now, because it is late and we just returned from a long drive after being out-of-town for the weekend. We did catch the game, however, and while our defense still stinks, our offense with Patrick, Tyreek, Clyde, our now-gellin' O-linemen, and few other people did get the job done for the much needed win.

Should be able to put up something of a take tomorrow.

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