Chiefs at Dolphins - Week 3 - Record: 3-0

Well that was ugly. We should have dominated in this game, but, well, Any Given Sunday.

Give the Dolphins credit, they played well considering they lost their fine running back to an injury early, and they lost their backup later when he was doing well in his place. They did as much as they needed to do to slow our offense and make plays against our defense to be in this one for most of the game.

We got a couple of early touchdowns from Kenneth Walker, but they stuffed him for much of the rest of the game. Our defense did just enough to keep the Dolphins from doing any damage, they were always playing from behind but proudly close enough throughout.

We had too many dropped passes, on both offense and defense. One of the drops was Rashee allowing the ball to bounce off his hands up into the hands of their guy. They didn't get points from that turnover, but we also didn't get the points we should have gotten in continuing that drive. Our D dropped a couple of easy picks that would've represented more of the capacity we should have had stopping them.

We also had too many dumb penalties. And I do concede, they were all pretty-much legit. One was early, a ding-dong holding call when we had the Dolphins at 3rd-&-18. 3rd-&-18. That is a major fine for somebody in the kangaroo court. They went on to score their only touchdown.

Even though we beat a team we should've had no trouble with, there'll definitely be some heavy-duty assessments of what happened.

Our pass rush was not good, but got a little better later as the game wore on, so that was okay -- Karlaftis got a nice pick off a Jones tip to seal it late. Our receiving core needs to get better separation to help out Patrick, but they did make some key catches when we needed it. Yet still, where is Xavier Worthy? Why isn't he getting untracked? His vanishing act is getting to be more and more discouraging.

And let's hope Patrick is healthy -- he got hammered after completing a pass from the middle of the end zone, so bad they called a roughing the passer penalty for dropping the body on the guy -- also very legit even though some will say it isn't! Errgh.

He stayed in the game and seemed to be okay, but we'll have to see how he is this week.

As it is we're off to a very nice start this season.

Next week we're at the Raiders, a team that itself has started well this year.

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The photograph is from Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Colts at Chiefs - Week 2 - Record: 2-0

Every time we play the Colts, it is a slog. There've been only two games that I really know about, in my immediate memory, that we handled the Colts well. One was that second Monday Night Football game ever in 1970, when the then World Champion Chiefs blasted the eventual World Champion Colts team that year. The other was our handling of the Colts in that 2018 divisional playoff game when Patrick just made sure we were not going to lose to this team in the playoffs again.

Otherwise we've either been shocked losing to them (how we all want to forget all those playoff losses to this team) or they've given us the worst time. We did win last year for our last win of the season, but it was at home and we barely did, in OT. Other losses I remember are our first loss of our 2019 Super Bowl winning year, that one on Sunday night, remember that one? Also at home? Uggh.

How about in the agony dome in Indianapolis? Another recent Super Bowl winning year for us a few years ago featured a very silly early loss when Chris Jones mouthed off something, no one knows what, yet we got seriously penalized and the Colts went on to win in part because of that incident.

How many more instances must we endure in dealing with this Colts insanity?

Right now I'm writing this with us up 27-20 and having to rassle too much with this thing. There are six minutes left in the game and just now our pass rush is all over their QB Daniel Jones, and he still completes the pass. Too insane. Annnd, now they score the touchdown to tie it.

I know NFL teams, all of them, really, are good enough that the veritable reality is indeed Any Given Sunday. I know.

But this Colts things is just exasperating because more than half the time we are just a better team than they are, and, and... seems every single game...

In fact a number of times the officiating is messing with us again. It is indeed helping keep them in the game. The Colts offensive lineman was holding our guy on one key play in that last drive, very obviously. No call. Meanwhile on our last drive working it working it working it to try to get that touchdown to give us more breathing room, our tackle Kahlil Benson was called for a hold which plainly wasn't. It didn't look good, but it wasn't a hold. We only got a field goal.

To be fair, I will say that earlier in the game Kristian Fulton was called for a pass interference when he barely grabbed the receiver's jersey. But you know. That was indeed a PI! I agree! Good call! I'm not going to be unfair or inaccurate in my assessment. Thing is, earlier Fulton was called for a PI that wasn't! This is the kind of stuff that keeps this Colts team in this game. They are just making the charmed plays.

But yeah, that is NFL football.

More of the Colts weirdness, just now on 3rd down the second string cornerback just barely got his hand in the way of Mahomes' super-nice pass to Rice which would have been a 1st down. He can't handle it. With three minutes left we must punt instead of move a bit further down the field at least kick the go-ahead field goal.

We are playing well enough to have 27 points so far. We are making some fine plays, I could list them.

But one of the key not-good things is, whereas last week against the Broncos Mahomes was way more over center to take advantage of Kenneth Walker's talents, tonight he was over center not even half the time -- mostly shotgun. This just stunts our running game and our ability to use play action. And because of this I just believe we really should have at least another touchdown score in our favor.

Right now at the two-minute warning the Colts are at midfield, and if they get a bit more yardage and run clock, they'll just bang through the game-winning field goal. Sorry, it just should not have gotten to this point.

Earlier we had one touchdown drive that was amazing, the one that finished with Worthy's TD catch. I mean it was wonderful, mixing it up, running unique plays, keeping the D on its heels. It was nice to see us matriculate the ball so easily, so nice to see Eric administer the offensive attack like that -- we never saw anything like that last year. We just need to do that more often over the course of the season, we should be fine.

Okay on 3rd-&-4 our pass rush got to Jones. They punted. Still 27-27 with 22 seconds left...

Now OT. Should have never come to this...

We start with the ball, yet sure enough, Mahomes not over center hands the ball to Walker, and he goes nowhere. Then he is over center and tries to pass, and gets sacked.

Except an amazing catch on a deep pass to Thornton saves us on 3rd-&-long. Right after the catch he gets clobbered. Goodness. Thornton has been really clutch for us tonight.

We get the ball in the red zone, but Patrick right now just threw the ball in the dirt. He has done that a number of times in this game. I think he just needs more time to get into his rhythm. He is definitely showing he's got it, don't get me wrong. When he can make a play, he's been at his amazing best. Tonight when he's passing comfortably, straight up, not so much pressure, he is making laser beam throws.

As it is we have to kick a field goal. There is that. But this team should be scoring touchdowns. Standard procedure tonight: One play we do exceptionally well, then other plays in the mix are just duds.

We get the field goal to go up 30-27, but the Colts get the ball.

Okay, now a crazy play. The Colts receiver makes a deep-pass catch, he goes down, then gets up again and gets the ball punched out and the Chiefs recover the fumble. If that holds we win.

The question is, is he ruled down by contact because of the bare touch by a Chiefs defender.

Right now as I write this they are reviewing it, yet the television official says the barely barest of bare touches means he is down before he gets up to then fumble.

Yepp. Down by contact, Colts 1st down at about the 20. It is this insane Colts thing. Yet again again again...

But yeah, as ludicrously silly is this yet again going against the Chiefs in Colts games, the official made the right call. I promised I wouldn't get as much into the officiating stuff this year, not that anything shared before is invalid at all, still... so, I won't write any more about any of this, so yeah.

They get the game-tying field goal, and with three minutes left in OT, Patrick does get the ball back. All we need is a field goal and we can finally sock this thing away.

After the modest kick return:

Play One. Walker with good yardage.

Play Two. Walker for the first down.

Play Three. Walker again for decent yardage.

Play Four. Mahomes looks to pass, must scramble right and gets a few yards. 3rd-&-1.

Play Five. Yes! Patrick over center! Play action! Float pass to Walker in the left flat and he runs to the 20.

Play Six. Walker for a couple.

Play Seven. Butker in for the field goal. He gets it.

We win.

Going to bed right now.

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The photograph is by Sam Lutz at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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Broncos at Chiefs - Week 1 - Record: 1-0 - The Take

Okay a few thoughts about last night's delightful beatdown of the Broncos.

First, I did catch on my radar that everyone was saying the Broncos were supposed to whup us and whup us bad. I got a little nervous myself just wondering how our tackles would hold up.

Didn't have to worry at all. Kenneth Walker took care of all of that. Before the draft everyone's draft crush seemed to be Jeremiyah Love, but good thing Brett Veach is running this team and not anyone else. He knew it'd be unlikely he'd get Love even drafting as high as the Chiefs were, so right away he went after Walker, and got him.

Wow.

What a difference maker he has already shown himself to be. A good friend with whom I occasionally converse about Chiefs things told me to just wait until teams start putting nine men in the box. With Mahomes matriculation abilities, look out.

Some may consider our wide receiver groups stinks. Not. They may look at Mahomes' pick deep in our own end and think, "Worthy sucks." Not really. Yeah on that one play they were not in sync. And overall it did seem the WR effort was underwhelming.

But remember, this Denver defense is really good. They have an excellent secondary, and I just believe that contributed to our WRs not getting the best separation they could. Give the other team credit.

Just let things play out. Let them all work out getting on the same page, Eric will definitely make sure of that. Let Patrick get back into his old self, remember he hadn't played a real game for almost a year. It did seem last night he bailed on the pocket a tick too soon, but again, let him get his feet back under him.

I was wondering, with Walker running up and down the field like a madman, why they didn't do play action more often. But you know? Why? Keep setting up things for later when they will really mean something. You don't need to play your whole hand in one night.

And that leads to Andy Reid doing precisely what I know everyone is thrilled he is doing.

Starting plays with Patrick over center.

When Walker arrived he clearly announced he runs best that way. So Reid adjusted, set his offense that way, and voila. Instant offensive dominance. Again when teams start having to account for a beast of a running back now, then comes the play action, then come the shots Patrick can take down field.

Real quick our D was solid too, and sure enough, people just forget about what a defensive mastermind Spags is. We also got great contributions from our rookies, and we have to hope our nice new corner Mansoor Delane will heal from his shoulder injury soon. He got a pick on the third play of the season. I remember it took Trent McDuffie, what, 57 games before he got his first one? I'm exaggerating, but it was forever.

So yeah, what a super fun win, and you know -- you may certainly know -- this was our first win since last November 23rd when we barely beat the Colts, remember that game? After that we lost six straight to close the season. We'll be playing the Colts again next week, and fortunately again at Arrowhead.

Let's keep this train rolling!

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The posted photograph is by Sam Lutz from the official Chiefs website. Thank you.

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

Ahh the old Chiefs look to be back.

I could pound out a decent length post with all the great things about our win tonight, but really, you know it -- you could make a full, rich, complete blog post about this game in just four words. 

Four, that's it.

You know what they are.

Kenneth Walker the Third.

I mean.

Oh my.

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I may certainly put in something more tomorrow, that's cool, but for now it's bedtime and tomorrow a day of work. For tonight, sweet dreams of K9 galloping across the Arrowhead tundra!

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The photo was by Steve Sanders at the official Chiefs website. Thank you.

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