Buccaneers at Chiefs - Week 9 - Record: 8-0

Another primetime game. Ho-hum. Well, actually, it can't be any better. I can't help but think of the too many lean years when the Chiefs never saw a nationally televised evening game. This one is also on ABC, and that is nice as it is precisely where the traditional Monday Night Football game experience should be -- meaning it is not just on cable.

Since I can blog and watch this thing unfold at the same time I'm just going to track our drives with the score posted after each one. Make it simple tonight in a game we should win, but then... yeah...

1st drive - We moved the ball well, getting it nicely to Travis Kelce. We finally throw the ball deep and a wide-open Worthy near the goal line can't adjust and not go out of bounds on a sure TD. On 3rd down Mahomes lets himself get sacked to keep us from any points. We punt. 0-0.

2nd drive - We moved the ball well again this time with DeAndre Hopkins making the plays. Then we try a double-reverse to Worthy but an unblocked defender messes it up.  Big loss. We must settle for field goal. 3-0.

3rd drive - Matriculated well again. This time Justin Watson is the key receiver. A swing pass to Worthy goes nowhere -- just seems Worthy is playing like a rookie tonight. But then, DeAndre Hopkins. Dang. As Mahomes is getting hammered he drops a deep pass into Hopkins' breadbasket around three defenders. Then the TD pass to Hopkins in the back of the end zone. Dang what we're seeing from this guy is truly something the Chiefs have not had at wide receiver. He is looking like the future Hall-of-Famer that he is. 10-7.

4th drive - With two minutes left in the 1st half we started okay, but, well, turnovers. At midfield with a minute left Kelce had the ball knocked loose. Bucs recovered. 10-7.

5th drive - We got the ball once again but now with :30 left. Got nothin'. Halftime 10-7 us.

6th drive - Now in 2nd half, 1st possession. Fat zero. Three-&-out. Mahomes was totally flummoxed. Bucs just making plays tonight, on both offense and defense. 10-14.

7th drive - Worked Kareem Hunt much more. Also started raining more heavily. Matriculated well, yet again. Got down to 3rd-&-goal and Mahomes magic happened again with a run to the line-of-scrimmage then a quick flip to Perine for the TD. 17-17.

Except the magic came at a price.

Mahomes tossed that ball awkwardly, landing weird on his left leg, and it looked bad. He was helped across the field to the Chiefs sideline, but it did appear he straightened up when he got there, walking decently. At the time of this writing right this minute we have no idea what happened.

After the commercial break we saw that he came out of the medical tent and jogged along the sideline. Oh my. Apparently it was just an aggravation of the left ankle issue he'd been having. Major ::whew::

8th drive - Mahomes back in there, doing decent matriculating. Hunt getting called upon a lot again, and what a runner. He finds creases wonderfully. Thing is they simply don't take advantage of that workload, employing more play action off Hunt's success. But with about 4:00 left we get the pop slant at the goal line to who else, the guy who's going to for-sure make the clutch catch, D-Hop. 24-17.

9th drive - Now we have the seven-point lead with 2:30 left. It is pouring rain, and it is funny that the greatest downpour during an NFL game happened back on the last game of the 1979 season when, you guessed it, the Chiefs played the Bucs in Tampa. Thing is now we're just giving hand-offs to Hunt and they are predictably stuffing him. The only thing that really does is get the Bucs to burn timeouts. Yep. Erggh: Three-&-out.

10th drive - After the Bucs drove right down the field to score a game-tying TD -- something we could have done -- actually just run some decent plays on that drive just before to at least try to get some 1st downs -- derrp, we were left with :30 to try to get down to try to win it. We did squat. Had to punt to take the game to OT. 24-24.

11th drive - We get the ball to start OT. Matriculating the ball really well yet again. Now we're mixing it up brilliantly. Showing different looks -- giving it to Hunt sometimes, getting it to D-Hop, Travis other times.

Finally.

From the one, give to Kareem and he powers his way into the end zone.

Thuh end.

Still undefeated. 8-0. Now holding a 14-game winning streak, longest ever in Chiefs history. Before the game I happened to catch the odds for an undefeated season at 4%, and with the win tonight that goes up to 8%. That's pretty amazing actually -- just fun that it's even there. No big deal if we lose one though, take the pressure off really. Tonight it was pretty close to being the one.

Except this one should not have been this close. The Bucs were without their two best WRs, but give them credit, their other guys actually played extremely well. We kept messing up too many times. Even though Patrick did not have a pick for the first time in, how many games? It's been a few. 

Still there were too many things we did that got us derailed against what they said was a pretty weak pass defense. Again, kudos to them, their pass rush was stout, their heart was fully in it, their offense messed with our defense quite effectively -- I mean I watched our defense just get taken like it never had before.

But then for the Chiefs, what an addition is D-Hop. I honestly do not think we win this game without him, and we just got him a week-&-a-half ago. Yeah, I can only echo what so many are thinking -- they even mentioned it on the broadcast tonight, "It just isn't fair."

All good for us.

__

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

__

Chiefs at Buccaneers - Week 4 - Record: 3-1

To start, a couple of fun things Cris Collinsworth said on the TV broadcast tonight:

"These guys are just too good."

This was in specific reference to Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, shared right after Kelce made a critical catch off the turf while falling backwards to get a first down deep into Buccaneers territory. Both indeed had their typical great games, play from both that was pretty much expected after each just did not have their A-games out there last week against the Colts. They were actually still pretty good in that game, don't get me wrong, but tonight they were amazing.

Then there was this one:

"This is the Kansas City Chiefs and you have to be perfect."

Our defense managed to give up 31 points tonight, but the Bucs still have an outstanding QB-WR combo in Tom Brady and Mike Evans. After our protracted bendiness against those guys, our D-line actually started to get a bit more in Brady's face forcing enough errant throws to keep Tampa Bay from getting any real traction to keep up with us.

But yeah, what a statement about our Chiefs. 

This too after the Kansas City Star this week published a horrific character assassination piece on Patrick Mahomes. I did not read it, I do not care to, but the idea I got from those I happened to read say something about it was that it had disparaging things to say about those who may be associated with him, as if the alleged improprieties of others have any impact on who Mahomes is -- sounds very much like all the negative talk about his brother Jackson. It also had a take that Mahomes is really into himself -- and the point is? First of all we're all into ourselves to some extent, and secondly, one of the most team-players in Chiefs history is Patrick Mahomes. Errgh.

But then, it may have just been perfectly fine serving as one of those added motivations to get Mahomes to step up his game even more, which he did tonight in a big way. That play he made at the goal line spinning out of tackle after tackle and flipping the ball at the last second to CEH was just magical. ("Magical," have we used that term before? In reference to Mahomes' play? What? No fewer than 57,000 times already? Oh.)

Anyway, another thing I heard was about how this week Bucs pass rusher Shaq Barrett snickered something about the Chiefs O-line being no better than the injury-replacement one patched together to try to win the Super Bowl two years ago. Well, that Super Bowl defeat moved Brett Veach to put together one of the best O-lines in the league, and after a mediocre performance against the Colts last week, they mowed down the Bucs tonight.

One of the best things about their play was how much it elevated our running game. Clyde and Isiah Pacheco ran like crazy tonight, never getting off any huge runs but gaining large chunks every time they touched the ball. It was a joy to watch, again, especially seeing the O-line have their way with a very good Buccaneers defense. 

That we gave the beatdown we did to a really good team bodes well for us. And we'll soon be getting Willie Gay and Trent McDuffie back out there, and when we do... oh my.

__

The image of Mahomes' TD pass to CEH is from Maddie Washburn at the Chiefs website. The meme is from Benjamin Solak, plucked from his Twitter post. Thank you.

__

Chiefs at Bucs Preview

Just some thoughts I had to pound out in a Chiefs post.

First of all tonight I'm seeing all over the web how the Dolphins QB got severely crunched tonight. I didn't see it and I don't really want to see the replay. Apparently he had some concussive incident on Sunday as well, and the expressed concerns are that he was rushed back out there just four days later to more of a liability to be seriously injured. As I've heard so far they say he'll be okay.

Obviously the NFL absolutely has to do more to protect their quarterbacks. Whatever it is, they've got to do it. It blows my mind that they won't do more to protect players like Tua -- and our own Patrick for that matter, and all of them -- when they otherwise have a snit when a Chris Jones says to the other quarterback "Your momma" after a much nicer sack and the Chiefs lose the game because of it.

Please.

Now I believe the Chris Jones thing was just because the NFL loathes the Chiefs -- it is just one of those things we all have to live with. It was also one of those phenomenally stupid things that often enough seem to pile up against the Chiefs, especially when we play the Colts for some reason.

On my Twitter feed I have absolutely no Chiefs things showing up -- I deliberately make it that way -- but I do follow Seth Keysor who writes terrific things about the Chiefs on his Substack. One of his latest is an inventory of the 31 things that went wrong with the Chiefs offense on Sunday. 

Oh wow, did it ever. It just wasn't hard to see. I noted that Eric Bieniemy said the Colts kicked our butts so we should all just deal with it. Again, that's a fine attitude to take into next week, makes you work that much harder to prepare for the next game, that's great.

But no, Mr. Bieniemy, the Colts should've been smacked 38-20. Had little to do with the Colts. They won mostly because of, yes, the incredible legion of stupid Chiefs things.

Over and over and over again it seemed something weird or silly was happening with the Chiefs. Whether it was a ridiculous late ref's call or a goofy missed assignment or Mahomes just plain making the wrong throw or awkward scramble or the shadow-then-instant bright sunlight to mess with our vision a number of times in the 4th quarter -- over and over and over again.

31 times by Mr. Keysor's count. That's unreal.

This week we are at the Buccaneers place for a rematch of Super Bowl LV, again at their place, yet all week a massive hurricane was bearing down on Tampa. They'd actually made contingency plans to have the game in Minneapolis, but the storm ended up going a bit more south and devastating Fort Myers. The damage was pretty intense there, but it wasn't so bad in Tampa so they'll have the game there after all.

But yeah, wow.

Thing is, if you remember, the most famous major downpour regular season NFL game ever -- and no, I'm not exaggerating that it is indeed the most famous -- was in December of 1979 when a monsoon hit the game in Tampa between the Bucs and -- wait for it -- the Chiefs.

Go figure.

__

Super Bowl LV - Chiefs at Buccaneers

What a difference a depleted offensive line makes.

You have to remember, we lost five good starting offensive linemen at some point over the last year.

As you may know, I'm a Golden State Warriors basketball fan. When the Warriors were playing the Toronto Raptors for the 2019 NBA Title, they were going for back-to-back titles just as the Chiefs were. In that series they were holding their own and could have won, but they lost Kevin Durant to a torn Achilles, and then Klay Thompson to a torn ACL. As the series wound down it was obvious there was no way we could win.

We just didn't have the guns.

Those five offensive linemen we lost?

First, our fine looking just-drafted tackle Lucas Niang opted out because of the Covid hysteria. He was one of very few picks in that entire draft to do so, certainly the only one among the very top picks who didn't play a down for his team. He was the ninth tackle taken overall. The fourth tackle taken? Tristan Wirfs, who was right there tonight resolutely protecting Tom Brady.

Second, our very good guard Laurent Duverney-Tardif opted out also because of the Covid hysteria, but he felt he had to go to Canada and offer his fine medical services there for the entire year.

Third, Brett Veach did a great job picking up an excellent guard, Kelechi Osemele, and he was injured and out for the season in, what, the third or fourth game of the season?

Fourth, our All-Pro tackle Mitchell Schwartz had such severe back issues about half-way into the season, he was gone for the year.

Finally in the AFC Championship win two weeks ago our other All-Pro tackle Eric Fisher tore his Achilles.

That's an entire Super Bowl-caliber offensive line right there, and just plain not anywhere near the Super Bowl tonight.

It is nice to think Brett and Andy could fill those holes and get us a serviceable O-line, and by golly they tried hard, but against this outstanding Tampa Bay front four, it really was a hopeless effort. All Tampa Bay had to do was rush those four and flood the defensive backfield.

Even Patrick Mahomes was incapable of doing anything with that.

Really though, looking over what Mahomes did, in light of what he was facing, he was truly amazing.

We truly would have been in this game if we didn't drop so many of his incredible passes while scampering for his life back there, so it was clear the Bucs' dominance on the line affected the whole team's play.

Couple of other notes then I'm done. This is too difficult. Just going to leave it until I feel like coming back to it, whenever that may be.

Brady's luck. Not saying he isn't a great quarterback, but by golly he sure does get the breaks. It never stops. With about 3:30 left in the 3rd quarter and us down 28-9 and the Bucs facing a 3rd down in our territory, the snap went way over Brady's head. This was our one chance, a break going the Chiefs way for once, the time we could rev up that splendiforous comeback. Brady still recovered the ball. They kicked a field goal to make it 31-9. That just turned out to be the insurmountable score.

Then there were the ridiculous penalty calls against the Chiefs in the first half. 

It was like deja vu from the 2018 AFC Championship game.

So yeah, while it wasn't all the refs, I can blame the refs as much as I want in my blog. Others agree, there were in particular a number of calls that really cost us this game, yes, as early as in the first half.

The most egregious one was the Mathieu interception that was called back because they saw a phantom hold on Charvarius Ward. His physicality on Mike Evans was not any more than any coverage has always merited. They threw the flag anyway, nullifying the pick. The Bucs went on to score a touchdown. That to me just felt like the game.

I really thought we could get back in it, that Mahomes and Reid could just pull another rabbit out of the hat and get back in it to at least make it close. But frankly, let's face it, Reid just got outcoached -- neglecting to have the game plan for what we knew the Bucs were like. We simply didn't run the ball enough early or have Mahomes just make some deftly arranged quick strikes on short routes.

I have to add briefly that many have to believe that what happened with Reid's son Thursday night, the DUI related accident that left a little girl seriously injured, weighed on him. How is he going to effectively coach the biggest game of pro football with that. I'm sure there will be some meaningful things said about it in the next few days.

I'm done. I did actually think before this started, just like most everyone else, that Mahomes and company could really take it to them. But when you have those issues turning out to be that massive, especially that with the offensive line, it is just something you cannot overcome.

Even superheroes have their kryptonite.

But hey. Look at it this way.

Think of the motivation Mahomes will have. 

He's still got that incredibly bright future in front of him. 

And he's already a proven Super Bowl winning quarterback.

That's cool.

And hey.

We were in the Super Bowl.

That was awesome. It was an awesome season.

Nothing to be ashamed of. Proud of every single one of these players and everyone who's a part of making the Kingdom what it is.

Great job everyone, and a big thanks.

___

Chiefs at Buccaneers - Week 12 - Record: 10-1

I hadn't thought about this but looked it up real quick: We had not defeated a Buccaneers team since Joe Montana did it in his very first game as a Chief, way back on September 5th, 1993. Since then five straight losses to Tampa Bay. We broke that streak today on the amazing touchdown streaks of Tyreek Hill.

Hill was a blur today. He had three touchdowns and nearly 300 yards receiving. As the game went on the Bucs doubled him and Kelce, so Mahomes simply went to Robinson and Watkins more often. If we didn't stall so much it'd have been a blowout. On the other hand if we didn't get those clutch interceptions against Brady we could've just as easily lost this one.

One time close to the end zone Mahomes fumbled the ball away, very uncharacteristic of him. Another time right at the end of the half, and again close to the goal line, we could've had six but settled for a FG when on three straight plays Mahomes just threw the ball into the stands. What was that ugliness?

But you can't shake it. Mahomes was still brilliant. He stayed strong in the pocket and hit his marks when he needed to. He bobbed and weaved through the backfield to run for yardage or just chuck it to someone getting open. His most impressive play was in the 4th quarter with about ten minutes left in the game. He faced a 3rd down and with pressure coming on the right side he just backpedalled left, kept backpedalling, backpedalling as he scans the field -- he is essentially running backwards mind you -- and he then throws a strike 25 yards downfield to Mecole Hardman. 1st down.

I could say more about this game, but I just wanted to add a quick note about Thursday's game. Guh? Thursday's game? Yeah, the one in which Alex Smith made the Cowboys look silly. I was just thinking, really -- I do firmly believe Smith should be in the Hall-of-Fame. The dude not only suffered that horrific football injury two years ago, he not only almost lost the leg, he not only had to endure surgery after surgery after surgery -- he almost lost his life.

And yet now he has won the Washington football team's starting quarterback job, and is playing great. When he was with the 49ers in 2011 he almost led them to the Super Bowl. When he was with the Chiefs he never had a losing season and took the team to the playoffs four times. And this return to football after what happened -- the guy deserves a place in the Hall-of-Fame, he really does.

Oh, and he taught Patrick Mahomes much of what he knows as a quarterback. That should get him more than enough votes.

___

The photo is by Adam Parker at the official Chiefs website. Thank you.

___

Buccaneers at Chiefs - Week 11 - Record: 7-3

I can't help but start by saying how great it has been for Chiefs fans for quite some time. Just about every game since that last game of the 1-5 start from last year, that loss in Minnesota, has been pretty cool for us. 10 straight regular season wins after that. A long-awaited playoff win in Houston. Most recently a 5-game winning streak.

We've been able to start 7-2 and have everyone talk about us as if we're really an elite team, a team that could beat New England in a playoff game, a team placing highly in the power rankings. It's been fun. It's been hard to experience what it is like to lose, very fun.

But as it often happens, there's the wake-up call.

Today was that day.

It's time to wake up to the liabilities of this team.

Yes, we could say Marcus Peters was inactive, we've got serious injury issues on the D-line, Dee Ford left with an injury, Justin Houston looked tremendously rusty today. But I truly believe our issues go far deeper than that.

The Buccaneers had their way with us today, and ya know? This game looked very much the same as it did with Jacksonville and Carolina, two teams we also should've put away easily. We struggled against them too, and only won those games when we got some late game ferocity and clutch plays. Today the Bucs just ran the ball way better than we did. Their O-line played way better, not only with the run but keeping their QB well-protected for the pass.

Here's one thing to take away from this game that was major.

We simply can't beat a team with a world-beater wide receiver. Their Mike Evans had his way with us today. When you have a WR who is as good as he is, he can be the difference maker. He was phenomenal today, and again, our smallish D-backs simply could not stop him. Yes, Steven Nelson made a phenomenal play against Evans in the end zone. Yes, Nelson is a godsend making solid plays much more than we've ever expected. That's terrific.

But those fast oversized receivers we seem to face week after week after week... I'm very nervous right now.

This hurts a lot mostly because the Chiefs have had the worst wide receiver issues throughout their history. I made a special blog post about it a while back, might be worth looking at again if you have the emotional stamina.

At one point during today's broadcast they showed the 2014 draft class of wide receivers, and they showcased eight players on the screen. There they were, a whole batch of highly drafted, currently top-class wide-outs out there doing great things for their teams right now. Can you take a wild guess how many of them were Chiefs?

Ahem, yeah.

Now then we did use our first round pick that year to take Dee Ford, that's fine.

But when will the Chiefs themselves ever have that kind of a wide receiver?

As it is we've got Jeremy Maclin. Fantastic, but right now he's injured and isn't the long term solution. We've got Chris Conley who has potential but is still not all he could be -- I think everyone knows that. We've got Albert Wilson, he made a fine touchdown catch today, but he's not long term. Yes we've got Tyreek Hill and he has tons of potential, that's great, it really is, but dang it...

When in the world will we get that smart, agile, bigger-sized wide receiver?

Why did Jonathan Baldwin's name just pop into my head right now? Yeah, I know, what a nightmare.

Well, there's that, I know, but what about now.

Sure enough, there was Alex Smith in there doing something great like actually executing the play action beautifully to make an easy connection to Travis Kelce way down the field to get the ball to the Tampa Bay 10-yard line -- this was with the Chiefs behind 12-10 at the beginning of the 4th quarter. Here we were poised to get a touchdown and go up 17-12, take command, do that tough-it-out thing through the last few minutes of the game and go home.

Except that Smith did something that keeps me feeling like I did in this post.

He threw a pick -- again off play action -- in the end zone. The Bucs D-back took it all the way out the mid-field and they scored a touchdown a few plays later. 19-10 Bucs. That was the game. We did come back to score a touchdown but simply ran out of time.

We're now 7-3. They flexed the Chiefs-Broncos game into prime time next Sunday, when we'll play another 7-3 team. How are we going to do in any of the next six games? They're all against solid winning teams. There's Denver, then we get them again the second-to-last week of the season. There's an exceptional offensive team in Atlanta, in Atlanta in two weeks. Then there's Oakland again, then an improved Tennessee team. Then there's scary San Diego in San Diego to finish things up.

Sheee... We struggle so much against these last few teams we've played? I mean everyone says we're an opportunistically big-play team, but darned it you just don't win games on a regular basis ripping the ball from ball-carriers' hands. I'm taking nothing from Marcus Peters' great play last week, but you just can't do that very often. Playoff contending teams control things. They regularly move the football down the field. They make plays on a consistent basis -- and the Chiefs just don't do that, especially on offense. With the talent we have there, that is just inexcusable, it really is.

The Buccaneers' offense was something like 11-15 on 3rd down today. That shows our defense was pretty crappy -- yeah we stopped them enough down the field, but we're letting them get there too easily. Our offense, on the other hand, was still crappy on 3rd down. We are just not making those conversions, and yes, I believe a lot of it has to do with Alex Smith.

Not to belabor the point, but he just does too many goofy things that put our chances to be Super-Bowl-serious in serious jeopardy. It's the Alex Smith dilemma -- on one play he shocks you, as when he runs for a touchdown (as he did today) or he makes a fine strike for a touchdown (as he did today). But then what about all those other 3rd downs we had to convert to make sure we could secure this win way before it slipped away at the very end?

Errgh errgh errgh errgh errgh...

Meanwhile, it's yet another win by the Bucs over the Chiefs, their fifth in a row over us. Remember the last time the Chiefs beat the Buccaneers? Remember? It was Joe Montana's debut game way back at the beginning of 1993. How exciting was that win, if you remember it. It was really exciting, seeing Joe in a Chiefs uniform and doing his thing so well for us. Since then, though, Tampa Bay has had our number.

At least this loss was against an NFC opponent. If you're going to have a loss, might as well be against one of those teams.

Still, the Chiefs have a lot of work to do to show they can compete and be competitive against an NFC team in the Super Bowl. Come on, do you really think we could beat a Cowboys? A Seahawks? Any team in the NFC East?

::Ohh-ohhhh...:: We have a lot of work to do.
___

Chiefs at Buccaneers - Week 6 - Record: 1-5

Do you remember what happened the last time we played the Bucs? Back in 2008? I happened to see a replay of the play in the Chiefs Hall of Honor at Arrowhead when I was there last week. It was the very last play on the menu of a video feature there showing the greatest plays in Chiefs history.

On a flea-flicker Mark Bradley threw a long touchdown pass to quarterback Tyler Thigpen. It was a splendidly fun play, and you know something else about that play? It put us up 21-3. Yeah, a big Chiefs lead -- that we later squandered. We lost the game.

Well, that's about it for Chiefs highlights. A nifty play four years ago against the Buccaneers.

I will say that we actually do one thing really well. We actually have a terrific punt team, both kicking and returning. Today Colquitt blasted punts and our down guys pinned them within the 5 a couple of times. Our touchdown on the day was off a blocked punt. Yay!

But that's it. Kinda depressing when the one great Chiefs thing we have -- our punter -- is the exact same thing that was remotely great back in the woeful years of '07-'09.

This team is so miles from being in any playoff contention it isn't even funny. I'm back to hoping that we just don't win many more games so we can truly actually really have a shot at someone like Geno Smith. And ya know?

I just don't think it's going to be that hard to do that.

Top-to-bottom we stank.

I'd like to start at the top with Scott Pioli, who I'd heard during the gamecast was offered a new extension. I know that's going to rile a lot of Chiefs fans, but for me, I'd still like to see what the guy can do. Yes, his two major bonehead moves loom so gargantuously over this team: Taking Tyson Jackson with the third overall pick in the draft and sticking with Matt Cassel for eons and eons and eons of time. Just those moves alone are so huge that I just don't know if his reputation can recover, but that call is still for another day.

Then you've got Romeo Crennel. Sorry but I am getting more and more disillusioned with the guy. Today's offense was spittle, and our defense was worse. There were a few plays in which the ball just bounced their way, but we still looked timid and weak in all facets of the game. Our play-making is getting no separation on defenders at all, and our defense is still looking too much like the "Chinese fire drill" out there.

The stats were extraordinarily ugly, and they just don't stop. They mentioned it again -- forgive me I don't remember, I've lost count anyway, but it is something like 25 or 26 straight games now with no opening drive TD.  We have a turnover differential of something like -15, which after six games is phenomenally abysmal. We've won three games at Arrowhead in the last 13 -- can you even believe that. And how about this gem: The last time any team went this long without ever leading in any game at any point to open the season was in 1983. They didn't mention which team it was, but it must've been some really wretched team.

The key is that we just don't got it at the line on either side of the ball. The D-line has already been a bust. All those high draft picks? Just not getting it done. Their QB Josh Freeman had all day to throw, to wide receivers who just made our guys look silly. In fact, I've always sung the praises of our D-backs, and bless them they played hard out there, but have you noticed that teams with big strong receivers just overpower our guys who are just a bit smaller than they are? We've had that problem with the Chargers forever.

Our O-line was non-existent today. The Buccaneers front seven spent more time in our backfield than our quarterback's rear end did.

And then there's the quarterback. I could say they should keep Brady Quinn in there, and he did decently (hey, he threw to the tight ends! Yay!) but at this point it really doesn't matter. Go ahead, put Matt Cassel back in. Heck, put Brian Daboll in. Put in the guy from the stands who waves around the cotton candy palette. Who cares.

Quarterback Project, people.

It just won't matter until we get that guy.

So much of what we can do relies on having That Guy -- note: IN CAPS.

Even on defense it makes a major difference because the best QB's control the tempo of the game giving the defense the chance to rest and get a rhythm.

If we get That Guy in the draft next year, and he does what he should do, then Clark could pay Scott a trillion dollars a year for the next 57 years and it won't be enough.

So yeah, from now on -- until we can actually get him and watch him win Super Bowls for us -- That Guy will henceforth be known in its proper noun form, with the caps.

It's the only hope we got.
_

Buccaneers at Chiefs - Week 9 - Record: 1-7

To be honest with you, this one was no big deal. We are so hopeless this year that these kinds of losses just don't mean a whole lot. Sure I'm disappointed we supremely blew this one. Every Chiefs loss is crappy, especially these kind. It was bad enough last week, it happens again this week. How many times do we have to endure really crappy last-minute last-play kinds of losses like we did so often last year? Are they going to build our character or just wear us down? For next year we simply can't afford the latter.

The key though is that defense. When you're up 24-3 your defense still has to play. The way they plainly did not tackle, especially on that big play that got them into field goal range in overtime is just inexcusable. Okay, they're a young, weak defense now and we're all certainly hoping they'll get some licks in so they'll be experienced and studly someday, but it wasn't today. No surprise because it hasn't been much of anything all year.

But hey, how about that one notable bright spot, that flea-flicker thing they did with QB Tyler Thigpen catching the TD pass? Sure a good team can't rely on gimmicky plays, but still, it was fun.

It was also good to see that LJ seems to be seeing his behavior for what it is and wants to get back out and play with us. Don't know how much he'll help this year with this OL, but it'd be sure nice to have him back working at returning to his '05 and '06 form, at least for next year.

Maybe then we'll have a line on both sides of the ball that knows what bone-crunching is really about in there, and it's not our bones doing the crunching.