Chiefs at 49ers - Week 7 - Record: 6-0

Just some notes on this one, another win in one of the most anticipated games of the year, that Super Bowl rematch.

It was very fun to watch Carson Wentz come in for one of those patently wild Chiefs red zone formations. They ran a nice misdirection run play that got a few yards just before our first touchdown.

How about Mecole Hardman. People forget that two seasons ago in the regular season game we had against the Niners, he scored three touchdowns. Today he played well again, getting a super nice long punt return and a dagger touchdown late in the game on one of those jet sweeps.

And then there is our other major reclamation player, Kareem Hunt, who with the help of our pounding O-line got good yardage just about every time he got the handoff.

Our run defense in the 1st half was stout -- in the 2nd half it let their RB get some decent runs, but for the most part it was solid. As far as the defense as a whole, their QB Purdy just looked flustered all day. He got picked a couple times that were critical to stopping any Niner threats.

While I challenge all the naysayers who diss people like Clyde Edwards-Helaire, I join them in asking why Skyy Moore is still on the team. I guess with our wide receiver room a bit in flux, especially now that JuJu seems to be dealing with a hamstring issue, you have to keep him around. But after Moore dropped another pass I wondered why we weren't just throwing to people like Justin Watson. They did get it to him nicely in next series, and started targeting the guy they certainly need to go to more: Travis Kelce.

George Karlaftis was having a day. Noah Gray was having a day. Trent McDuffie was having a day. Samaje Perine helped close it out late with some runs and a 1st down catch. And please, Andy and Matt had a day for the brilliant set-ups for later crazy take-down plays when they needed it.

At the end of the 3rd quarter was the play of the game. With the Niners playing well enough to get back in it, the magic of Patrick Mahomes was exhibited once again. He went back to pass and after scrambling left he faked a couple forward pitches, got about 10 yards, then at the sideline stopped, juked, and ran down the sideline for another 20 yards.

A few plays later with the ball an inch from the goal line facing a 4th down, Mahomes got everyone split out wide and he stepped back... only to run a nifty QB draw right into the end zone. 

Finally I have to add how much fun it was to listen to Tom Brady speak so glowingly about Mahomes throughout the game. I've heard people say Brady wasn't doing very well as a color announcer, but from what I heard, I think he did great, and not just in the way he raved about Mahomes' play.

The Chiefs locomotive won't stop! We've not only got two straight Super Bowls, three in the last five years, but with the Vikings loss today we're now the only remaining undefeated team in the NFL!

Chiefs rule!

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The photo is from Mikayla Schlosser at the official Chiefs site. Thank you.

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49ers at Chiefs - Super Bowl LVIII - The Take

I have been peeking around at things people have been saying about this Super Bowl, and I could make remarks about a dozen of them. I may, I may not.

What I do want to do here is remark about a piece over at Arrowhead Pride from a guy who's essentially saying because he couldn't figure out how the Chiefs could be any good earlier in the season, and because they did end up winning the Super Bowl anyway, that anything related to analytics is worthless.

Sorry, what a misguided take. It isn't the analytics that are wrong, it is how they are interpreted and what people presume about them.

For instance the Chiefs receivers were doing poorly in the regular season because they dropped a lot of passes. What does this mean? It may just mean a difference of winning a couple more games or beating opponents by more if they did make those catches. But it may mean nothing about their overall ability to come through when they needed to such as in postseason action. Those earlier instances may have just been uncharacteristic of them and liabilities that could be easily overcome.

The key to winning is doing what you're good at for sustained periods of time. Sometimes the talent you have on your team doesn't get it done, we all have bad days. The worst teams sometimes beat the best teams because on a given gameday their skill sets come through more often and the better team's doesn't.

Patrick Mahomes isn't miles ahead of other quarterbacks, he's really only slightly ahead. This may be news to many people who believe him to be the GOAT. Oh I do agree he is the GOAT, even over Brady. But that helps make the case. Brady messed up way more than Mahomes ever did (and not because he had more years to mess up), yet Brady got so many lucky breaks to keep his teams in games that he had the advantage of executing his excellent play when he otherwise wouldn't've if, say, again, that Chargers defensive back hadn't foolishly fumbled when the Patriots were beaten in that one playoff game.

The best take advantage of those things. You can look at the most spectacular highlight reel plays from any quarterback, and Mahomes has more because he is indeed better, but it is mostly because he has the ability to make a play even one more time than the next guy. That one-more-time is the difference between a Super Bowl championship and your team dumped into the second-tier power rankings.

With all the punditry and analytics and all the rest of it, it does really come down to two things required for an NFL team to win. It has always been this way no matter what the numbers say or what people blap about.

Those two things:

One, your quarterback.

Two, your defense.

I could add things like "Thuh End," or "Period," or "Mic Drop," sure.

But these do need elaboration, mostly related to what I just shared.

In this Super Bowl the Chiefs made mistakes. Their fine running back fumbled, but so did theirs, really, and each time nothing happened as a result except both teams lost scoring opportunities. Mahomes threw a terrible interception, but again, the Niners could not capitalize. We even had a bad dropped pass... and yet, after all the bad things, our guys had the talent to just make that one-more-play.

I'd heard some say the Niners failure to convert those two critical 3rd downs (one just before the end of regulation and the other in overtime) was because they didn't get the ball to their players. They just wanted to run a particular play that worked. Again, terribly misguided.

Just getting the ball to Christian McCaffrey wasn't a guarantee only because the Chiefs defense had stepped up their game in the 2nd half and were regularly stuffing him. The point is, the Chiefs defense was generally very good, and playing even better in the 2nd half. I did hear people give them credit, justifiably so, but again we have to remember that it isn't that it was anything other than it was that one-more-play better. 

In the game our best defensive players did get pushed around, beaten for touchdowns, all of that. And yes, in some ways the game did turn on very critical single plays, such as the blocked PAT and the muffed punt. 

But that is largely the point. Just like the whole insanely-charmed Tom Brady factor, when those things happen for your team as they did for the Chiefs last night, does your team have the Got-It factor that enables them -- whether from their raw talent or their intense desire or their football intelligence or their fine preparation or any combination of those things -- to get that one-more-play that the other team cannot get.

And that is why you must do all the things the Chiefs organization has done so well in getting those kinds of players (and coaches and front office personnel) on board with their professional football efforts. As much as we admire the Mahomeses and Kelces and Reids and yes, sorry, again, my favorite Chief Brett Veach for having the genius ability to get those guys and assemble the team as it is now, they are really not that much better than any of the other excellent players and personnel on other NFL teams working hard to win.

It is funny, just how much all those other teams are now racking their brains trying to figure out how to replicate what the Chiefs are doing. That's great. The truth is there is just not any ethereal formula for how it works. Every team is doing their best to form their version of this organism we like to call The Chiefs Kingdom. Yeah we've got a Patrick Mahomes, but someday there'll be someone who will be just as good, or better. That's great. That's what makes the whole pro football thing fun.

But for right now?

The Chiefs are the ones who are simply one-more-play better.

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The photo of Patrick Mahomes is from David Gray at the official Chiefs website. Thank you. The photo of Brett Veach is from David Eulitt at Getty Images. Thank you.

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CHIEFS SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS YET AGAIN!

Well, we are officially now a dynasty. They all said if the Chiefs won tonight, they'd be a dynasty. Well, we won. As usual there are a million things that can be said about this game, and so far I'm sure all the pundits in every corner of the broadcasting world and across the cybersphere have already touched on most of it.

I'm not going to say anything right now because it is late, but I do want to make one remark about the two most critical plays of the game in my view. I think many others share this.

With two minutes left the Niners had the ball in field goal range and faced a 3rd down. If they made that 1st down, the game would've been over. The Niners could have just let the clock run down and kick the game-winning field goal with no time left for the Chiefs to do anything in response.

But the Chiefs D held. On 4th down the Niners had to kick that field goal and lament having to leave enough time for Mahomes and company to march down the field and kick their own game-tying FG to send the contest into overtime. This is precisely what happened.

That was major defensive stop No. 1.

In OT the Niners got the ball first and did their own methodical march down the field, and with the new postseason overtime rules in effect whereupon both teams get a possession no matter what happens with the score, the Niners could have scored a touchdown to make it difficult for the Chiefs to have to match it or fail altogether handing the win to the Niners. 

So, with a 3rd down again in the red zone Niners QB Brock Purdy went back to pass and could have thrown an easy touchdown pass to the open receiver in the right flat, but the pass rush was so ferocious -- I'm pretty sure it was Chris Jones yet again -- that he had to ditch his pass.

4th down. Niners FG. This meant the Chiefs could go down and at worst kick a game-tying FG. But at the very best they could score the game-winning touchdown. 

This is precisely what happened.

Those two defensive plays were the ones. Just like it happened for much of the year, when the Chiefs were successful they had an adjusted, adapted, and just plain more robust defensive effort as the game wore on, and sure enough, that precise thing happened in this one.

Those two defensive stops on plays that could have led to certain game-winners for the Niners were stuffed by our D, enabling the Chiefs to become, yes, in the voice the late great John Facenda...

WORLD CHAMPIONS OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL!

I'm certainly thinking about blogging more at some later time, but for tonight...

Chiefs Kingdom rocks!

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

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Super Bowl Chiefs Sunday!

It blows my mind that we do indeed get to do this whole thing again. To put on our Chiefs jerseys and jackets, load up all the Chiefs pennants and chips bowls, and head out to our watch parties and enjoy our beloved team vying yet again for the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL. 

In fact, when I wrote those words did you hear John Facenda's voice saying them? I did.

Most excellently fun.

Anyway, we're off to the wife's cousin's place where, as I shared in my last post, as Rams and Cowboys fans they'll be rooting against the Niners as intensely as we'll be rooting for the Chiefs. I don't know when I'll pound out a post-Super-Bowl post here, but in the meantime, just one note I thought about.

Everyone knows about our inadequate wide receiver play over the regular season, something that did pick up a bit during the playoffs, fortunately. The one receiver who you really couldn't say anything against over that time was our fine rookie, Rashee Rice. While everyone has been raving about Travis (for good reason) as well as his stratospherically electric relationship with Taylor (also understandable reason), I just haven't seen much about Rashee. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe that'll keep him focused on the game as such a young player in the biggest spotlight.

Just this one note, however. Remember what school he came from.

Southern Methodist. 

Remember too, this was the very beloved alma mater of Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt, as well his son and current Chiefs owner Clark!

Just sayin.'

GO CHIEFS!

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The photo is from Rob Carr at Getty Images. Thank you.

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Super Bowl Preview - 49ers at Chiefs

Not going to spend a lot of time analyzing all of this to death. It always comes back around to this simple truth.

If the Chiefs don't have some crazy-ass stupid thing happen to them at the most inopportune time, they will win.

Period.

The main reason is shown in the posted image, one I clipped from a fine video a guy did about the worst drafting NFL team since 2012. The video was mostly about that particular team (the Jets) and its epic drafting failures, but right at the beginning he showed the graphic related to what it takes to have a championship team.

Thus, the Chiefs.

That we have Patrick Mahomes who simply refuses to lose and a defense that is not overwhelmingly muscular but is very skilled and extraordinarily strategic. Really, if you have a quarterback like we do and a defense like we do, as long as proper business is carried out, we have nothing to worry about.

(And I love how one of the featured key players in the graphic is our fine punter. Definitely though, Tommy Townsend is fantastic, he should get the credit he deserves!)

The game is played in Las Vegas, and the only thing that is splendid about that is it is the new Raiders home. How sweet is that, the Chiefs are playing in the Super Bowl on the Raiders home turf. Ahhh... Nice...

The thing that is very bad is this, yet another article describing the wretched problems with gambling into which the NFL has embroiled itself. Yeah it makes sense. So many get interested in the thing when they can bet on it, and the NFL tried to get a piece of that action by making quite specious relationships with the Draft Kings and Fan Duels and the Bet MGMs and all the things that makes Vegas just the most splandacularly spliniferous place anywhere.

Excccept... there's their part in destroying the lives of all those they've encouraged to hand over rent money because they just have to bet the over. There are all the questionable relationships among players and other NFL personnel with the nefarious elements who can easily give them a call, text, poke, anything that compromises the integrity of the game.

Yeah, I so want my Chiefs to win, be a dynasty, be "America's Team," engender the fandom of every person on the planet, be the greatest anything of all athletic endeavors in all time, space, and dimension -- all the rest of it. 

But wow.

The gambling associations, the alcohol promotions, the racialist browbeating, the unchecked promiscuity of many of the athletes, the ugly vulgarity spewed everywhere -- so many facets of the game just make it so difficult to fully champion.

I'll be watching with family, it'll be fun. I'll be proudly sporting my Mahomes jersey with some of my favorite people, several of whom are Rams fans or Cowboys fans who'd like nothing other than to see Patrick take apart the 49ers defense. That'll make it extra fun, for sure. So yeah...

Just got to keep it in perspective, and no matter what be proud of what Clark, Brett, Andy, and the rest of the major players in the Chiefs Kingdom have done to work as hard and as well as they have, simply be an inspiration. Maybe that's just the best thing of all in this, and hopefully those good things will be the best Chiefs thing there could be.

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Chiefs at 49ers - Week 7 - Record: 5-2

I have to admit, very sheepishly, that I thought the Chiefs were toast in this one. I confess I doubted our offensive firepower to get the job done today. Indeed, I'm ashamed of that when we do have the best quarterback in NFL history on our team, right now, today.

Last week Mahomes had a bit of a subpar game, and this week we were facing a team that I thought was too daunting, with its Nick Bosa-led defense and newly acquired Christian McCaffrey-led offense. I was convinced our line would get overpowered on both sides of the ball, and when the Niners opened with a very imposing effort and a 10-0 lead, I thought the rout was on.

But we not only have Patrick Mahomes, but we also have...

Mecole Hardman.

Yes, I agree, Hardman is tremendously aggravating when he doesn't course through or cut off or even improvise his routes when he must, I get it. But when Andy Reid uses him as he did today, it is easy to forget Tyreek Hill. Hardman had three touchdowns on the day, all on jet sweep type action. They were saying on the television broadcast that he's the only WR in the Super Bowl era to have two rushing TDs and a receiving TD in the same game. Very nice.

Our defensive line started out limp, but stiffened later and started to shut down McCaffrey. Having Willie Gay back in there made a difference. We also got the Niners line on both sides shook up and committing a lot of penalties that kept them from really finding their rhythm as the game wore on.

When the score was still relatively close there at the beginning of the 4th quarter, 28-16, the Niners were deep in Chiefs territory when L'Jarius Sneed had a pick-six right in his hands, and dropped it. I'm always thinking about the points lost when a defender just drops any easy pick. Sure enough the Niners scored shortly after that -- and there it is: a 14-point swing. Aagh.

Right after that, however, Mahomes connected with MVS on a long pass play, then slung another nice pass to JuJu to get closer to paydirt, then Mecole got his 3rd TD.

Never mind -- we're up 35-23 after all.

Add to that a nice TD catch-&-run from JuJu, a safety, and it's suddenly 44-23 us with only about six or seven minutes left of game time.

Mahomes had 400+ yards passing in this one, his highest total of the year so far. There was also a stat they showed on the television that I have to reproduce here. The Chiefs are successful at a 48% clip when facing 3rd-&-7+, in other words 3rd-&-long. That is actually really really good, especially when noting the league average is 25%. 

Indeed, apologies please for not giving these guys enough credit. Mahomes may indeed have a subpar game here and there, but not often. He is just so good. Another incredible television-broadcast stat: in his first 70 starts he has 56 wins. Wow.

Bye next week, then the Titans on another Sunday night prime time affair.

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

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CHIEFS - ARE - SUPER - BOWL - CHAMPIONS

It - is - a - dream.

All those years when we had stratospheric hopes and came up short. And here today when we finally got it done, when we had all the got-it in the world in a game when Patrick Mahomes was not on his game.

The Kingdom picked him up.

Oh my.

And we did it AGAIN.

We were down 10, in the 4th quarter no less. And we scored 21 freeking points in the 4th quarter. In the last 6 freeking minutes of the game no less.

I simply cannot blog too much right now because I want to spend this moment with my family and just watching the Kingdom celebrate. More later.

For now...

THIS IS INCREDIBLE!
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Photo from the official Chiefs website, thank you.
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Chiefs in the Super Bowl - At Halftime

I don't think I've ever blogged at halftime. But this is the Super Bowl. And because these silly halftime shows last forever, I can pound out a few thoughts.

It is 10-10, and the Chiefs are perfectly capable of getting the lead and pulling away. The Niners are very tough, but there are a lot of positives here.

Adjustment ideas.

Hand the ball to Damien Williams straight up the field. Go ahead and do some misdirection, but give the ball to Damien. The guy is a beast and several times he's seen seams and stayed up for extra yardage.

Stop the reverses. The Niners defense is too smart and fast for those. Again, matriculate the ball downfield straight upfield.

Use that to keep the Niners D-backs in their heels. They can be exploited. Please please please just let Mahomes step back and fire the ball down the field to his receivers. Also always have a receiver go underneath the coverage -- too often Andy sends everyone up field and all Mahomes has is dump-offs to his backs and that's been ineffective like crazy so far.

Just let Patrick and his exceptional receiving core do their job.

On defense we started the game too nervous about their downfield passing game. Please. We were way too soft up front. Good thing after a while they got more aggressive at the line and that helped a lot slow the Niners offense.

For as good as Daniel Sorensen has been, the Niners have totally exploited his weaknesses. This is why on defense it'll be tricky for us to rely totally on our D-backfield.

This is why our offense is our best defense. We're able to have nice long drives, and we can always get the big play to keep us right in it. I like that Andy was aggressive and made first downs on two different 4th-&-shorts.

Yet this is also why this one could come down to the last minute with whoever has the ball in a close one. The Chiefs can explode here, but will Andy's adjustments best Kyle's adjustments?

One more half of Chiefs Super Bowl excitement this go-round!
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49ers at Chiefs - Week 3 - Record: 3-0, Addendum

I'd already made my "Chiefs Game Today" post for this one, but right now at almost 7:00 pm I saw this article. Sure enough, just like last week when the Pittsburgh stadium was about half-full for the Chiefs game, today most stadiums had far too many empty seats.

Notice the article did not feature a shot of Arrowhead.

That's because when they showed the panorama of our stadium at one point during the game's telecast today, it was full.

It was genuinely a sea of red.

Now yes it was the first home game for the Chiefs. Yes Arrowhead is generally a fine place to see a football game. And yes the Chiefs explosive offense is quite the attraction.

But still.

The Chiefs fans are the best in football.

In spite of the idiotic things the NFL is doing to shoot themselves in the foot -- I notice Roger Goodell has not been fired yet, hmm, maybe some day -- the Chiefs still draw because of the superlative passion in The Chiefs Kingdom. The NFL and its competitive duplicity can eviscerate attendance and very justifiably so, but we'll still support our Chiefs.

Just a pretty fine marvelous thing I wanted to add.

Again, here's my take on the game itself.
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49ers at Chiefs - Week 3 - Record: 3-0

Do you feel the same way I do about this team? Please. Let's be honest. When the offense is on the field life is wonderful -- we thrill to watching all the talent do its thing, particularly in the passing game. When the defense is on the field life is miserable -- bar the doors Nellie because no gargantuan lead is safe.

Let's first just revel in the phenomenal first half of this Chiefs offense. Five possessions, five touchdowns. One of those touchdowns was a tremendous Mahomes scramble concluded with a bullet strike to Chris Conley in the back corner of the end zone. As Conley pulled in the pass the TV announcer exclaimed "Are you kidding me?!" This was the third touchdown of that five touchdown first-half performance.

The last touchdown of that half came at the end of a tremendous drive featuring amazing catches by Ware, Williams, and Kelce who grasped the ball with one-hand. The touchdown was a pass to Watkins who powered his way into the end zone. It was beautiful.

We should indeed marvel at it all -- wonderfully splendidly marvelous.

Then there is our defense.

About halfway through the 3rd quarter I thought, hmm, I'm going to start noting all the fine defensive plays we make. See how many we actually make. Here's what I wrote:

- Nnadi and Ragland stop runner for no gain.

- Bailey and Ragland stop runner for no gain.

- Bailey sack with 49ers in red zone and us holding a mere 14-point lead.

- Houston sack on the next play.

That's it. That is really all I could write about our defense. Our D really looked like butter as the 49ers just rammed the ball down our throats on the ground. Here, look at this -- 1st half score: 35-10 Chiefs. 2nd half score: 17-3 49ers.

With about 5 or 6 minutes left their starting QB got hurt, and they put in their backup. He promptly threw a TD pass to cut the lead to a single score, but a very questionable offensive pass interference call negated it. That call essentially secured the win for us because on the next possession Kareem Hunt and our O-line did decently enough running the ball to close it out.

We also got bailed out by a ton of 49ers penalties, so, yeah...

Really it is simple. We have no push at the line. We have poor pursuit. We miss tackles all over the place. Our smallish defenders are getting manhandled at the point of attack. Every 4th or 5th play we have some gruesomely ugly blown coverage. The announcers said at one point that defensive coordinator Bob Sutton will get it all cleaned up, that we're getting better.

Ha.

I don't believe it. It's just not happening, at least without Eric Berry in there. I mean, seriously, we cannot acquire Earl Thomas soon enough.

Watching Patrick Mahomes run this offense with all those weapons is pure joy.

The defense...

Very very scary. We all knew this would be the case, but it doesn't make it any less scary.
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Chiefs at 49ers - Week Five - Record: 2-3

This was indeed a game we could have won, we should have won against a very good team.

It was showcased as Alex Smith's return against his old team, and for much of the game he did pretty decently. But let's just be honest about two key things.

1. Alex Smith does need to make the accurate throw when he needs to. Sure there was that ugly overthrow in the last minute, the pass intended for Anthony Fasano that was intercepted sealing the Niners victory. But there were several other passes that were just thrown low or wide when the Chiefs needed to make those connections. He completes those passes and this game is ours, one that for quite some time really looked like was ours.

2. Alex Smith does not have the receivers to make things happen like they should. We were without Donnie Avery because of injury, but even with him this is not a receiving core that'll get us to the next level -- it just isn't. It is scary that it isn't. I'd even heard the announcers relay some stat, I don't remember what it was, but it was indicative that this is the worst receiving core in the league. I think the stat was something like, our receivers do not have a touchdown all season. Sorry, but this is a tremendous liability. Ready for the start of The Wide Receiver Project? After all it is Halloween season, I should get that going to make things especially scary.

Again, this was a game we had. I liked our running game, it was solid and on-track like it should. I liked our pass rush, for a time we really hogtied their QB Colin Kaepernick. And who can't be thrilled with De'Anthony Thomas finally getting in the mix, even scoring a screen-pass touchdown with some extra power running to get into the endzone.

What concerns me are a few things, things that are pretty major.

First of all, I think the play of the game was a clutch Niners play that no one could do anything about. We had the Niners on a 3rd-and-long and under a fierce rush Kaepernick threw up a long duck, and their receiver Brandon Lloyd makes a fantastic catch with Sean Smith draped all over him. (But there ya go, that's a play their receiver makes. Errgck.)

Our D-backs were good sometimes, but then there's Marcus Cooper. Sometimes he's terrific, like when he contributed big-time to disrupting the Peyton Manning pick-passes a few weeks ago, but today he was roasted. How much longer do we have to wait for him to take advantage of his raw physical ability and shut down the guy he's covering?

Our run defense wilted when it got late. The Niners were able to run effectively, get those late field goals, run clock in the process, and keep our offense on its heels.

Regarding both of these critical breakdowns, it must be pointed out that those injuries we've had to key defensive players hurt. Eric Berry is still not in there. Mike Devito and Derrick Johnson are key run stuffers and they're gone for the year. They mentioned how well we've done to make up for them, but sorry, their absence really hurt us late today.

And what about that 12-men-on-the-field penalty when the Niners were punting, giving them a 1st down. Incredible. That one penalty was even worse for the Chiefs than the Brandon Lloyd catch, and it was a mistake contending teams don't make.

After a breakout game Monday night and a chance to show up in the top ten of all the sports network/sites "Power Rankings", now we have to settle for still wallowing around in the bottom half again, and it'll be for a while because the Chiefs have a bye next week.
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I can't finish this post without making mention of the amazing sports week it has been for all things Kansas City in the sports world. After the Chiefs destroyed the Patriots at Arrowhead last Monday night, the major league's Royals hosted the A's at Kauffman in the one-game wild-card playoff game, and they won it in thrilling fashion, 9-8 in 12 innings. The Royals have gone on to win the first two games of their ALDS contest against the Angels.

Indeed, on Wednesday when I presume the soccer team Sporting KC was playing in the Washington D.C. area, they visited the White House where the president welcomed the, yes,

 

World Champion Kansas City professional soccer team.

What a week for Kansas City, who as a city had gone 48 straight combined team-years without a playoff win by the pro football team and an appearance in a playoff series by the pro baseball team.

With their strong pitching, stifling defense, tenacious hitting, and rich enthusiasm, the Royals have gone a long way to make things up-to-date in Kansas City once again.

Now the Chiefs just need to keep moving forward and get to their next level.
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49ers at Chiefs - Week 3 - Record: 3-0

Is this team fun or what?

For all the crazy Chiefs gymnastics out there that made Arrowhead -- err, 'scuze me, the NEW Arrowhead -- the place to be Sunday, I will tell you that the most satisfying thing was simply that

We got our first long sustained drive to result in a touchdown.

This offense is showing promise. Now yes, everything fell into place in this game. That just won't happen every game. We also benefitted from some spectacular big plays, so let's just get right into them.

- A phenomenal interception by Brandon Flowers -- the tip, the bounce off the foot, then into his hands while lying flat on his back.

- The screen pass to Dexter McCluster -- this guy in the open field is unbelievable. And the flyyy-ing into the end zone. How great is this! This is not even to mention his scintillating punt returns to set up great field position.

- The flea flicker out of that wildcat formation. Thomas Jones to Dexter McCluster to Matt Cassel coming from the wide receiver position. And Bowe with the nifty catch in the end zone -- too much!

- The one handed grab in the back of the end zone by Tony Moeaki. Please know that no Chiefs fan will every say "Tony who?" when it comes to Tony Gonzalez -- in fact he had a nice TD of his own for Atlanta today I found myself cheering for -- but is our new Tony great or what?!

I always glow about good Chiefs things in my classroom, and last week one of my students mentioned that we are getting great work from our rookies. No kidding. And we haven't even heard much from Eric Berry yet. Thing is, he is still part of a defense that thoroughly shut down San Francisco. Frank Gore, nothing until the second the last play of the game when it was meaningless. Victor Davis, one catch on the day. Alex Smith, every other pass an incompletion and he was constantly pressured. In fact I'm pretty sure we are already getting close to the number of sacks we had all of the season two years ago.

And our offense really shined today. Yes, again, those big plays were a part of it, but Haley is coaching this team to have a tremendous amount of confidence in their athletic abilities. He's really taking advantage of it. The key is our running game. Jones and Charles each had over 90 yards, and that tandem is gelling wonderfully. The Chiefs offense had 16 -- count 'em -- 16 plays of ten yards or more. What a splendid change from all those three-and-outs we've suffered through for years.

That means, yes, finally, we can give a rousing cheer for the offensive line! Hurray! Ahhhh... Not since the Willie Roaf Will Shields days can we do that. This new guy Ryan Lilja, what an addition. Brian Waters is still a stud. Branden Albert coming into his own. And how sweet is it to have Casey Weigmann back anchoring the line and standing people up.

All around, just a wonderful day for the Chiefs.

3-0 baby!

Bye week next week, so we can relish this for an extra week! We got Indy the week after, at Indy, so we'll see then if we're really for real. For now...

This was just pure fun.
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49ers at Chiefs - Week 4 - Record: 1-2

This is one of those games in which the more you dominate the more unfulfilled you feel because you know that last week you lost a really really really stupid game that you now so know you should have really really really won.

I don't think there was any question that Herm Edwards heard it from everyone about what a chintzy game he coached last week. Now yes, the Niners are not the Broncos, but he finally put it in fifth gear and let our boys play.

Damon Huard had a spectacular game. In the first half he was something like 13 for 15 with two touchdowns before he let the running game take more of the load to put it away. Dustin Colquitt, yes, the punter!-- had another terrific game, getting a 59 yarder off late. Dante Hall ran a punt back for a TD, ahhh, it felt like the glory days of 2003. And our defense was phenomenal again. Is this for real? Is our defense really this good?

All this with Larry Johnson having a way sub-par game. He got off a nifty 28 yard run when it was all but over to get over 100 for the day, but again, the main reason for concern is our offensive line. Can it get us where we want to go?

Also disturbing was hearing about Jared Allen's DUI arrest. All kinds of arguments can be made for why he should or should not be in there playing. Whatever the case, this just can't help our cause.

So yeah, after three games, among the key questions is not, believe it or not, when Trent Green will return. We just want him to be really really really healthy. They are (a) Will our defense continue to be as good? (b) Will our OL get any better? and (c) (Erghh...) Can we keep our noses clean?