Steelers at Chiefs - Week 16 - Record: 11-4

During the game the announcers brought attention to the Chiefs being without several of their best players because of the Covid stuff. They emphasized Andy Reid's philosophy, which is far better than mine that's for sure. I like it.

"Next man up." 

The idea: just go with who you got. It's why he's the coach of the Chiefs and not me. It's why he's the coach of our team and not anyone else, period. It's why he's a Hall-of-Famer who ranks among the best coaches ever.

But still. Ergh.

I thought about giving it another take, but I won't -- I posted about it here in may last one and that's enough. Sure enough today we did not have several key guys including Travis Kelce and Nick Bolton. Without Harrison Butker out there our one-game kicker missed a field goal and a PAT.

I'd love to say "I can't wait until this is over" but I just can't. These people should've figured this out over a year ago, but they still have their heads not where they should be, I'll just leave it at that. And that could go on for a very long time about some other variant scare or medical crisis or faux-catastrophe over which they may virtue-signal. Who knows?

While the NBA is itself still too much into the Covid silliness, at least they're making progress in moving on. I'd read that Adam Silver, the NBA Commissioner, has decided to dial way back all that stuff. They initially said they may cancel the Christmas Day games, but wiser heads prevailed and we got to enjoy pro basketball on the holiday. They're still putting players on the shelf, so that's not good, but maybe, just maybe there is a tiny sliver of hope.

As for the game, the uncharacteristically weak lines the Steelers put on the field allowed us to have our way with them. For once against the Steelers, it was us who looked like we had 14 guys on the field against their 9. In fact this is the second win in a row we've had against Pittsburgh -- the last time we did that was in our very first two games ever against them in 1970 and 1971. Otherwise the Steelers have pretty much had their way with us on a regular basis.

Melvin Ingram was clutch against his former team the Chargers last week, today he was clutch against his other former team the Steelers. Again he is a difference-maker out there and has helped make our defense pretty stout. Having Chris Jones back was also instrumental, our defense today was just all over the place.

And I have to put in a good word for Mecole Hardman, who made some fine catches, nice returns, and scored a nifty touchdown. Byron Pringle was a beast scoring two touchdowns himself. What is the deal with Josh Gordon? I hear so much about how not-good Hardman is, but today Gordon had two passes dropped. I'm not necessarily saying he's not-good because apparently he's good for blocking and route running, and I too hope for the world he'll have a breakout game.

So we've won the West for a sixth year in a row. I believe that has never been done, not in the Raiders heydays, not in the Broncos heydays.

Next week we've got a decent playoff preview game against the very good Bengals at their place. Maybe, just maybe we'll be at full strength so we can see how we look as we head into the post-season.

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

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