Rams at Chiefs - Week 12 - Record: 9-2

At the end of last season I'd said we only have three defensive players who are keepers. Chris Jones, Nick Bolton, and Willie Gay. This year it is pretty much the same but I would add Trent McDuffie and L'Jarius Sneed to the keeper list. Maybe that's okay, that we have five guys who are "tagged" as so good they're among the best big-D guys.

Or is it bad that there are so few?

I mean, they showed a stat on the television that told us the Chiefs are 31st in the NFL in opponent quarterback rating as well as number of opponent touchdown passes.

That stinks.

McDuffie is a terrific find, very true. And there may be some promise with our very young defensive backfield -- I mean really, at any given time defensively we may have McDuffie as well as rookies Jaylen Watson, Joshua Williams, and Bryan Cook on the field at the same time. Danged... four rookies in an NFL crunch-time situation backfield. I think back to 1981 when the 49ers had three rookies in the backfield -- Ronnie Lott, Carlton Williamson, and Eric Wright -- and they did great, the team even went on to win the Super Bowl that year.

But still. Today we were facing the Rams third-string QB and an overall depleted offense.

This defense. Errrghnnckghcknnnnn...

Jones was a disrupter yet again. Bolton was getting his hits in. McDuffie was a smothering force on the back end. Sneed had a clutch pick late in the game.

But what about the bendiness of the overall? Yeah it's nice to have a Patrick Mahomes to match score with score, but then, against a pretty good Rams defense today, Mahomes was not at his best in the red zone today -- even once getting picked in the end zone.

We did get through today's game with a good win, not overwhelming, but expected -- jacking our record to a very nice 9-2.

Here's the thing. New thread here. Follow me on this...

We play at Cincinnati's place next week. As I noted in my last blog post, their stadium is one of the ugly six as far as that destructive turf goes. What do you think about this idea?

Here you go: We rest our best players.

Seriously. Some selected nine or ten of our top players just don't see the field, at all. Sure it is very likely we'll lose to a very good Bengals team, but that's exactly it. 

What happens when we throw our very best players and most laborious effort on that field, we lose the game with, really, not as much to gain with the record we've already compiled, and we lose a number of key players to injury?

A week ago the World Champion Golden State Warriors NBA basketball team had a road back-to-back. An NBA schedule is rather grueling -- a game every other day, flying all over the country -- when you have a road back-to-back it is very hard on the body. So what did coach Steve Kerr do?

He rested his best players on that back end of that series.

Against a fine New Orleans Pelican team he rested Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andrew Wiggins. That's the core of the team, all their very best players. Every one of them, sitting it out.

Exclusively playing the second-string, the Warriors lost by 40 points.

It was a gimme loss. New Orleans fans did not get to see the Warriors' best, much less enjoy the amazing handles of the best player in the game, Steph Curry. The game itself was predictably lousy.

But the Warriors are smart. They're World Champions for a reason.

They know come playoff time in April and May those guys absolutely have to have their legs underneath them.

Is the NBA unhappy about that? Most likely. But ya know? I only care about the Warriors (I've shared before they are my favorite basketball team.)

So yeah, I say rest those Chiefs guys. Pick any nine or ten. Patrick Mahomes leads the list. Let Chad Henne get some good in-game work. Get Ronald Jones a decent number of reps. Give JuJu a little more recovery time. Absolutely positively transcendently seriously. Make it an extra bye week for some of our guys -- hey there is a lot of talk about adding that extra bye week as a regular season feature anyway. 

I mean please, I can only think of that nasty facemask against our fine quarterback today. It looked really ugly, you know about it, a little after the 4th quarter started and the Chiefs were close to the Rams goal line. In fact Patrick Mahomes himself wouldn't like not playing, but ya know? Who's the boss? And what are we about as a team, overall, with the overall goal in mind?

And please, I wouldn't even really be as serious about this if it wasn't about us having to play on the ugly turf there in Cincinnati.

The only real drawback is the way the Bengals, and again the NFL itself, will think of this as some kind of slight against the Bengals. "What, you're not willing to play your very best against us? What's wrong with you?"

Nope. It's just we don't want our players injured on your ding-dong fake grass, and ya know what else? We don't think you should be playing on that yourselves -- for your players' sake -- so who're the greater fools?

So yeah Bengals and NFL, how about removing that turf, like, yesterday? A lot of players have been talking about it, not just me here in a cheezy little blog. They've been seeking formal action against it, for all the players' sake.

It'd be nice if the Chiefs made a bold move and rested their best next week.

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The pic of MVS is by Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Chiefs at Chargers - Week 11 - Record: 8-2

If I haven't shared this before, as a Chiefs fan -- well, I'm sure every fan feels this way about their team so it's not that unusual -- I'll share it again here. as a Chiefs fan I am perfectly happy with the Chiefs winning every game 56-0 on their way to 200 straight Super Bowl championships. Doesn't matter to me how few people are paying attention to anything NFL because everyone knows the Chiefs are so good. That's just fine. 

Thing is, the NFL and much of the anything-pro-American-football interests everywhere have to know that this team is so good that it may actually start to get bit frustrating to see them beat just about every team they play. Now we all must be careful about this because in the very first AFL game ever, back in 1960 when the Texans were playing, yes, the Chargers, Lamar Hunt watched his team blast out to a 20-point lead and blurted at the half, something like, "Maybe we shouldn't be so hard on this opponent." I'm sure he feared his Texans in his new league of full of teams he'd love to beat would be so good no one would pay attention to the league itself because his team would dominate without ever giving the other team and their fans a chance to enjoy any winning!

He needn't have worried. The Chargers came back and won 21-20. So that's what happened with that thinking.

It does look overwhelming for the other teams in the NFL with the Chiefs playing so well, particularly our star duo of Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. They connected on three touchdown passes tonight including the game-winner with half-a-minute left in the game. We're 8-2 right now and the team we beat tonight is in 2nd place at 5-5. Thing is I do think what we're going to be like if we're so far ahead so early before the regular season ends that we have nothing to play for, and we get flabby and go into the playoffs ill-prepared.

I know Mahomes and Kelce won't let that happen. Especially when there're still evidences that we simply are not running away with any game we play.

Tonight we still had to work very hard to beat a team without traditional Chiefs-killer WR Mike Williams and several key guys on their defensive line. Last week we won a one-score game against a pesky Jaguars team, and the week before that the Titans defense really stood us up. Tonight we also lost to injury Kadarius Toney, Clyde-Edwards Helaire, and Juan Thornhill. I have no idea at this point how serious they are, but at WR we were already down JuJu Smith-Schuster and Mecole Hardman.

Skyy Moore did great work out there to fill in, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Justin Watson, and Jody Fortson helped out too. I'll add that our running game was in gear tonight against a pretty weak run defense, with Isiah Pacheco pounding out a 100-yard running game.

But then, there was always Travis Kelce. We needed that good play from those other receivers to keep the defense honest, because really I don't know why teams don't triple-team the guy. Maybe they are doing that in some defensive schemes -- in fact Chargers safety Derwin James has always been one of the best defenders against Kelce -- but he still got free to make key plays and get touchdowns, just a testament to his greatness.

Crazy to think Mahomes has still never lost a divisional road game. Yep, every time the Chargers, Broncos, and Raiders have had the Chiefs in their place, every single game for the past four-plus years starting with Mahomes' first ever start in that final game of the 2017 season in Denver -- they've been beaten by the Chiefs.

Then there is the guy on the defensive side of the ball who is being regularly double-teamed, and that is Chris Jones. Dude could easily be Defensive Player of the Year. Even with the double-teams against him he still made plays and allowed our other guys to get to the quarterback. It is obvious our D-Backs are still very raw -- wow, how we're holding down the fort with those youngsters is amazing -- and our tackling can be spotty. Chris Jones makes things happen to keep us in games, especially as the game gets deep into the 3rd quarter and on into the 4th quarter, he always seems to raise his game to another level.

Anyway, what I was going to say when I first started talking about how much people perceive how good this non-media-darling non-super-large-market Chiefs team is, I still keep wondering about the refs calls. It was much worse in the first half but it really seemed the refs let anything close go when the Chargers did a penalty-worth thing, but they sure called the close ones against the Chiefs -- anything to slow down this team.

I feel like adding a note about the artificial turf field raising serious concerns. Several players have expressed their objections -- I don't remember the name of that brand of turf but they've openly insisted it causes more injuries. I looked up the six stadiums where they have that particular turf and sure enough, one of them is the hellhole that is the Indianapolis Colts stadium. But guess what.

That turf is at the Cincinnati Bengals stadium too, and the Chiefs play there in two weeks.

Sorry, but this stuff scares me. Of course a ton of it is I don't want my Chiefs to be lost to injury because of that turf, but really, no one should be injured because of it. Get rid of it, now.

Maybe it is good we build a huge cushion in the AFC particularly of the hazards like these that could detrimentally affect our team's success, much more the players' health.

We have a reeling Rams team next week, then the wonderment about how it will go against the Bengals, the only team we lost to last year after October, and we lost to them twice.

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The image of Travis Kelce is from Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Jaguars at Chiefs - Week 11 - Record: 7-2

One thing needs to be said here, but only for about the 57,239th time:

GET - SOME - OFFICIALS - IN - THE - BOOTH - LOOKING - AT - VIDEO - MONITORS - TO - MAKE - THE - CALLS - THE - FIELD - REFS - REFUSE - TO - MAKE.

Period. Thuh end. Get it done. Like ---- yesterday.

Today Ju-Ju got clocked by a Jaguars defender, hammered when he was in a totally defenseless position after trying to catch a short Mahomes pass across the middle of the field. He lay there incapacitated for a moment with his hands twitching. A yellow flag lay on the field nearby and we all felt a little better that at least there was the penalty on that hit.

Not. The officials picked it up.

No foul.

Guh???

Ju-Ju was helped off the field and while he did walk back to the locker room he was assisted by two trainers to help him get there.

The officials that should have been in the booth but weren't because the NFL is still too stupid to do such a thing did nothing, because, well, ::glurrp:: they weren't there to do anything. In fact, I do realize that they do have people in New York looking at monitors who are supposed to help with these decisions, so they effectively could be those officials in the booth at the stadium. That might work, buuut, it really doesn't because they did nothing about the Ju-Ju incident. Or they just don't like the Chiefs, which is always very likely.

In the evening game a similar incident happened when a Niners linebacker just tried a simple stop against the Chargers QB, nothing really meriting a targeting consideration, and the QB got something of a head snap when the linebacker's helmet collided with his. The penalty was called on that play, and the linebacker was even ejected from the game.

Guh???

Do you know what the officially documented reason from the head official in the Chiefs game was, as to why they didn't flag the Jaguars defender for his hit on Ju-Ju? Do you know? 

It was because he led with his shoulder, not his helmet.

Please.

Please please please please please please infinity.

This is why Roger Goodell and the NFL are a bunch of really ugly nasty words I just don't feel like putting down here, I'm just too tired. It is late on a Sunday night, forgive me.

I would think that a league that does really care about the very real instances of CTE among its former players not to mention losing their prime product because of concussions would make sure that any player who has anything like what happened to Ju-Ju is prevented. And today's game proved they just don't care enough, I'm sorry.

Or again, they just don't like the Chiefs.

Speaking of the game itself, as usual lots could be said about it. The Jaguars actually played exceptionally well, but our defense held the fort with lots of kudos to any number of our defenders. Kelce came through for clutch catches when we needed them most, as usual. Kadarius Toney has already established a firm place for himself in the offense, scoring the first of our four touchdowns today. And our running game got back on track a bit with Isiah Pacheco and Jerick McKinnon getting things done there.

We're up to 7-2 already and running away with the AFC West. All the other teams in the division lost today, with the Chargers up next who tonight played mightily against the Niners but simply couldn't get it done with such a decimated roster.

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The photo of Kadarius Toney skipping to his touchdown today was from Andrew Mather at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Titans at Chiefs - Week 9 - Record: 6-2

I was so rattled by this game I don't know if I really know what to write here.

I don't think I was as rattled, however, as Patrick Mahomes was through most of this game.

Give the Titans' defense credit. They played a smart and ferocious brand of football, and had it in their minds to intimidate our offense as much as they could. They got a ton of penalties called against them, and a few penalties they had that weren't called. They just proficiently made every move and every play they needed to win this game.

After all, the Titans are just one of those teams the Chiefs have always really struggled against. I don't know how in the world the oddsmakers had the Chiefs as 12-point favorites. A 12-point spread? Against this defense? I really didn't know anything about the Titans before this game, but they were absolutely stuffing us throughout.

The Titans D was not only standing up our O-line on our running plays -- our backs had, what two total yards rushing? -- but they were doing a phenomenal job against Mahomes in the pocket. Their D-line was terrific and their pass coverage was smothering.

And I'm sorry, but Mahomes just looked way more rattled out there than he ever had. After scoring just nine points to start, we had seven straight possessions with no points. Zippo. He got pressured, he got sacked, he threw passes into the dirt -- it was miserable.

But when we got the ball with, I think it was five or six minutes left and behind 17-9, Mahomes went off. And it wasn't that he suddenly stopped being rattled, he just used that energy to make the key completions and then scramble. On one play he scrambled for a 1st down on a 3rd-&-17. He then capped the drive with a wild scramble TD run, and then topped that off with another scramble jet-sweep left to get the two-point conversion right at the pylon. Tie party 17-17 with a minute left.

The Titans were stopped but when we got the ball back we couldn't get down the field far enough to kick a game-winner in regulation, so in OT we were able to matriculate the ball down the field with the help of some amazing catches by our two tight ends, Kelce and Gray, and at least bang through the go-ahead field goal.

Our defense kept playing well throughout the entire latter part of this game, and sure enough we were able to stop the Titans on four straight plays to end it.

Yeah, it looked like there'd be enough of the standard number of ding-dong things that always seem to happen when we play this team that'd keep us from winning. Our offense just could not get untracked, but when it came down to it Patrick just took things into his own hands, and running like a madman seemed to be what it took to get the job done.

It was just enough for us to barely eek out this one.

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The image of Noah Gray's amazing catch to set up the game-winning FG was by Gavin Liddell at the official Chiefs website. Thank you.

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