Bears at Chiefs - Week 3 - Record: 2-1 - Second Take

Everyone is abuzz about the main thing related to the Chiefs game yesterday, besides the Chiefs quickly regaining the top spot in the AFC West standings for yet another time.

You know what it is.

The Taylor-Travis buzzorama.

I am not going spend more than about four seconds mentioning it. It is all over the place in replays, reviews, remarks, and the ginormous number of memes spewed into the cybersphere.

Thing is, as splendidly splendid as all of this is, I don't know what is going on with Kelce and his now stratospherically elevated stature. It was pretty high before, but this is ridiculous.

The main thing that gets me is he recently appeared in a Covid "vaccine" advertisement, encouraging people to get this wretched injection. He is now just one of the most celebrated parts of the narrative this Covid thing and that Covid thing when all it has done -- the whole thing, the lockdowns and the shots and the distancing and the flat-out discrimination -- is utterly wreck people's lives and livelihoods.

I could add volumes and volumes about the actual true real reality of the Covid situation, and it is indeed heartbreaking to see Kelce hawking this snake oil.

But you know? For one, he is just a prominently featured member of the whole NFL thing, and the NFL thing is just as much a part of the hegemonic mythology makers as anything. It may be reasonably assumed that just about every footballer got the shot or else they'd face the NFLers' wrath, and those few conscientious objectors like Aaron Rodgers wouldn't have been treated like a such pariahs. 

So what of it? Kelce is just a part of the System.

For two, it indeed makes me wrestle with my own emotionally-packed commitment to my own fine young football team, I've said this a number of times, there is a very unhealthy and hopefully very small part of my psyche that genuinely feels I don't care if he's a convicted serial killer, I hope he scores a hundred touchdowns for my team.

Of course, right now there are too many who don't give a rip about the drug, they just want to wallow in the Swiftie spectacle.

This is kind of amazing: just now I saw a television commercial at the two-minute warning of the Rams-Bengals' first half, here on the Monday Night Football game.

It was for -- oh my, it was for the power of institutionally influenced tobacco addiction. The showcased group was "Undo," with the website undo.org I believe it was -- simply to let you know about how much you should break yourself of the habit of smoking or vaping or whatever those things are.

Meanwhile all the Covid protocol poisoning is perfectly fine. All the utterly wicked gambling activity fully sanctioned by these sports leagues -- perfectly fine. All the racialist filth about how intractably racist you must be, that's all perfectly fine.

The irony.

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The photo of Travis Kelce is from the AP website. Thank you. The cartoon was just clipped from the wonderful "Memes to Make Your Day" page over at Off-Guardian.

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Bears at Chiefs - Week 3 - Record: 2-1

With about seven minutes left in the first half, the Chiefs had the ball at around their own 15, and Patrick Mahomes took the snap, ran around a bit, and just before getting plastered flicked the ball 40 yards downfield dropping it right in the breadbasket of a laser-focused Justin Watson right at the sideline.

40 yards down the field.

It.

Was.

Amazing.

Go ahead, go back to your DVR'd copy and look at it again. We can talk all about the no-looks and behind-the-backs and the dipsy-doodlidoos or whatever incredibleness we see from the guy. This one will likely get lost in a blowout game we all knew was inevitable, and lost in the endless highlight reel of Mahomes' plays, but wow. Maybe it won't be recognized as much, but maybe that's not such a bad thing in that the dude is, just like they called the NBA's premiere slamdunker Dominique Wilkins, the human highlight film.

It is just what it is.

And we can just always enjoy it, over and over and over -- we are indeed too spoiled right now in the Chiefs Kingdom.

As for a more full examination of this one, it was that blowout and everyone was in on the fun, and I'm really not going to get much more into it. We had a family event for most the afternoon and evening, and it is late right now and I must work tomorrow. I'm hoping to remark a bit more tomorrow, hopefully. I wanted to add some remarks about other Chiefs things that transpired this week, things that were quite notable. But that's for later.

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The photo of Skyy Moore is by Mikayla Schmidt at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Chiefs at Jaguars - Week 2 - Record: 1-1

This was easily quite the ugly win, what with the turnovers and penalties and just too many mess-ups. We didn't score a point until about a minute left in the first half. But here are some of the good things that earned us the 17-9 win.

We converted on two clutch 4th-&-very-short when it seemed like the Chiefs couldn't do squat in those situations. You absolutely have to give some cred to CEH who never gets any cred these days. On a 4th-&-short in the middle of our first touchdown drive late in the first half he caught a poor Mahomes pass right at the marker and muscled his way not only for the first down but for ten extra yards. Please, don't be dissing this guy.

Our defense was stout. A really pretty good Jaguars team, one that really gave us two tough games last year (regular season and divisional playoff game), did not score a single touchdown. Jacksonville moved the ball on us, but when we needed clutch stops, we got them.

Patrick Mahomes would not let us lose. Especially in the second half and especially on that final game-clock chewing close-out drive, he matriculated and matriculated and matriculated that ball. 

Last year the NFL Network showcased its top 100 players, you know, the ones voted on by the players themselves, and while Mahomes was No. 1, of course, Travis Kelce and Chris Jones made the top ten. Well, you know what I'm going to say here, naturally -- they were both back in there today after missing last week's game. And yes, they did make a difference. Kelce caught some passes, including one for a touchdown, and Jones had two sacks and was his standard disrupter self.

But again, just a kudos to a defense that has shown its mettle in the first two games of the season, and may just be not only the second-best strength of this team but emerging as one of the best in the NFL.

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The photo is courtesy of Mikayla Schmidt at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Lions at Chiefs - Week 1 - Record: 0-1 - Addendum

Just had a couple of thoughts, that this game reminded me of three different games in Chiefs history. Thought I'd share them with you now. In chronological order:

1. 1972, Eagles over the Chiefs, 21-20. It was a home game, in fact the third game ever at Arrowhead and after three home games (of six games altogether) we still had not won a game at our brand new state-of-the-art stadium. We opened the season with a home loss to, yes, the eventual undefeated champion Dolphins.

But this particular game, just the score. It was exactly the same score as last night's game, and one of the Eagles touchdowns that mid-October day was ridiculously silly. The Eagles QB, the immortal Pete Liske, threw up a deep duck that was a certain interception, going right into the hands of our D-back. He not only muffed it, but he let it drop right onto his foot, upon which it was booted right into the hands of their receiver who took it to the house.

We had no business losing that game -- we were actually a pretty good team that year finishing at 8-6. For their part the Eagles won only two games that season, one of them this one -- double ouch.

2. 2017, Chiefs over the Patriots, 42-27. The Patriots had just come off a Super Bowl season and they were having their banner reveal night, and believe it or not, it was not just a Thursday night NFL opener but it was also on September 7th, the same date as last night's game.

The Chiefs led by Alex Smith with a young Patrick Mahomes taking it all in from the bench, destroyed the Patriots and it was thought the Chiefs would take over as the AFC's dominant team. Well, the Chiefs stumbled midway through that season and lost a heartbreaker to the Titans in the playoffs, while, sure enough, the Patriots went on to yet another Super Bowl.

Maybe the Chiefs' loss to the Lions was good for the NFL, keep people watching. People like seeing Davids beat Goliaths, though it is not unusual that every fan wants their team to win every game 84-0. The problem is if the Chiefs did that no one would enjoy the great Chiefsitude we want everyone to enjoy. On the other hand I know we all like a good game, I get it, but I'm sorry I hate losing close games especially like the one we lost last night.

But then my point here is that, I do think the Chiefs could blow out every opponent. They still looked really good last night even without Chris Jones and Travis Kelce. They just did tremendously stupid things that cost them.

So take heart that perhaps just like the Patriots of 2017, one game does not a season make. In fact remember, we did the same thing to the Patriots in 2014, blowing them out at our place where the fan-noise decibel level reached a record for loudness, remember that? And sure enough, after all the postmortem talk about Tom Brady and the Patriots, they went on to win the Super Bowl that year and they won two more after that. Brady himself even won three more.

I think we're pretty good with Mahomes at the helm.

3. 2022, Colts over Chiefs, 20-17. This was just another game we had no business losing, one that featured just so many stupid things happening to the Chiefs to make it hurt.

The reason I mention this one is because the Colts just somehow got a late touchdown drive to put them ahead and it was very much like last night's late Detroit touchdown that put them barely ahead. Thing is, again, in each of these games, there was no reason to believe we couldn't then matriculate the ball down the field enough to get at least a field goal. But yeah, ughh, stupid things happening.

Again, one game does not a season make. Even the best teams have dumb things happen in some games, even the undefeated 1972 Dolphins endured barely squeaking out some wins that year. Ultimately the only way this Chiefs team isn't as successful as they've been over the past five years is if they themselves mess things up as they did last night. With Andy and Brett reviewing everything this week and Patrick making sure everyone stays hungry and positive, we'll be just fine.

Even with a silly loss to the woeful Colts early in the season, let's see if I can remember... who won the Super Bowl last year?

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Lions at Chiefs - Week 1 - Record: 0-1

Okay okay okay, I guess we should all confess right now.

Preseason games are meaningful.

Really, I don't know if there have been many NFL football players in the history of NFLitude who have had a more rotten game than Kadarius Toney did tonight. He was barely at practice for all of training camp because of a nagging injury, and he did not play a single snap in a preseason game -- everyone was wondering if he'd be ready for opening day and the Chiefs always said "We really think so."

And boy was he ready.

He was all ready, set, and well-prepared to play absolutely atrociously.

If I remember correctly he had three targets, and he dropped them all. The first was thrown right on his numbers and he let the ball bounce right off them and into the hands of the Detroit D-back for a pick-six. We were up 14-7 and playing pretty well. Now it's a ballgame when it really never needed to be.

The second was a drop that may have been affected by Richie James crossing in front of him. We were deep in Lions territory and had to settle for a FG. That may have been on the coaching staff, and ya know? It was kind of that way all night. Kind of a clown circus show out there among our receivers, did you get that feeling? I think the seven-deep WR room may be a bit problematic if you ask me.

The third was when it was very late and we were down by one with the ball at around midfield. Ideal Patrick Mahomes conditions! Mahomes throws a strike right at the numbers of the jersey on the gnat camped out there between the numbers on Toney's jersey.

Drop.

We imploded from there and Detroit ends up winning 21-20.

This was a very tough one to take, even though, really, we showed we were still a pretty good team. We just had a number of dumb things happen, the exact number of dumb things that lose a team a game like this. 

It was only the first game of the season, however, so it may actually be not-so-bad because these guys will have a good ten days to look at what happened and fix it. And yeah, I know I'm being redundant, but please guys, get that receiver situation fixed. I mean, it was just ugly out there.

Oh, and did missing Chris Jones and Travis Kelce have any negative impact? Actually, I don't think so. Having them back in there would be really really really good, but our defense played pretty well, and tonight Noah Gray was a capable fill-in there at tight end. Blake Bell even caught a touchdown pass.

A couple more things. Those interminably hating on Clyde Edwards-Helaire? Sorry but the dude balled out tonight. He's not Jim Brown or Gale Sayers, so back off already. Let him do well with what he's got.

And our very short-yardage game. Still really ugly. That play on 3rd-&-very-very-very short on our second-to-last possession was extraordinarily ugly. We make that and we could, really, if we scored there, pretty easily have salted this one away.

We've got a good Jacksonville team at their place for our next game, so let's hope the wake-up call that was this game will get us ready for that one.

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