A Level Headed Review Week 1 2023
 

1. WR's - Specifically Kadarius Toney - you can tell missing training camp has hurt him. Timing is off for the WR's and Patrick. Several throws behind receivers and just route confusion (James running in front of Toney causing him to lose the ball). This is the part about not playing starters more in the pre-season that concerns me. Have got to get a rhythm down on offense. Missing in action was Richie James (1 Catch on 2 Targets), Skyy Moore (0 for 3), Toney (1 for 5). MVS was 2 for 2 but disappeared after halftime. Somebody has to step up and be the guy when Kelce can't.

2. Jawaan Taylor and that early jump finally got called. Gotta figure that out - that is going to bite us hard later in the season. The OL did a decent job protecting Patrick but there were a few drives Hutchinson was just terrorizing the OL. Trey Smith looked completely overmatched by Hutchinson a few times.

3. The Defense only gave up 14 points - quite an accomplishment missing Chris Jones. I would argue the bigger missing factor was Kelce. The defense was gassed by the end of the game because the offense couldn't stay on the field. I was impressed by FAU, Bolton and Danna. Less impressive was tackling lots of guys trying to arm tackle instead of wrapping up - gotta get that cleaned up. Some of the open over the middle stuff was because we had to stack the box to stop the run. Without Jones able to clog it up the linebackers have to play closer to the line and that opens the middle window up.

4. Patrick lost his first season opener - was bound to happen sometime - glad it's just the first game of 16 more to be played.

5. The Pick 6 was all on Toney - ball just bricked in his hands. Gotta hit the jugs machine and make those hands soft again.

6. Running Backs - never gave McKinnon the chance to run the ball and CEH was once again 2-3 yards running the ball. Incredibly frustrating. Pacheco was the lone bright spot - don't understand why they don't feed him the ball more when It's working. He was ripping off 4,5,6,7 yard runs. Then there was the trick play on 3rd and 1 late in the game. Just give it to Pacheco - they read the ****ery before we even snapped the ball (and should have snapped it when they jumped offsides).

7. I firmly believe all of this is correctable. There isn't one thing that can't be ironed out with repetition and timing. I am not worried one bit this will be a season long trend. I am just frustrated there isn't more focus on letting the starters gel. I know the 3rd pre-season game is to help the bubble players but what does it hurt to give the starters a full quarter to play and feel things out.

8. I know Noah Grey is a fan favorite but I wonder how Bushman would have fared - he seemed to be really good at finding the holes in the D in the preseason. TE needs to be more productive.

9. Patrick was frustrated - you could see it in his face all night, if it wasn't receivers dropping balls it was being harassed in the pocket - by one guy. I thought for sure he would turn that frustration into focus and get the team on the same page and it seemed like it worked for a while but it fell apart in the 4th quarter. Maybe more conditioning is needed, seemed like a very hot a humid night in KC.

10. Next week at Jacksonville isn't going to get any easier - gotta turn this loss into focus and motivation. IF it goes how I think it will - there will be no mercy on JAX.

In the grand scheme of things, a loss to an NFC team is likely to mean very little.

There's a lot of mistakes that need to be corrected.

Overall, I'm not worried.

Possible Headlines:


Chiefs Gift-Wrap Opening Day Victory for Undeserving Lions

Chiefs Receivers Drop Game Vs. Lions

Moronic Play Calls on Short Yardage Doom Chiefs

I know that CEH looks less impressive than Pacheco, but CEH actually had a less abysmal ypc. He had 6 runs for 22 yards (3.7 ypc) and Pacheco had 8 runs for 23 yards (2.9 ypc).

100% agreed - shouldn't hav lost but if I was to pick a game to lose that wouldn't hurt us later it would be this one.

I'd go with


Chiefs Drop Home Opener

The game really came down to 2 aspects...

1. Catch the ****ing ball

2. Line up and get 1 yard by knocking the piss out of the guy in front of you


It's really that ****ing simple


Dropped passes cost us at least 10 points and the game

Trickery bullshit turned the need to get 1 yard into the need to get 3.

The lions are a good team and they were going against are crappy defense.

Nice catch - I may have been thinking about him catching the ball - he seems to have improved in that area from last year.

That's very clever, Rain.

Overreaction Planet

Our defense did a really good job against the Lions - only 14 points given up.

Extra time to prepare for the Jags.

This reeked of not taking Detroit seriously. Not going for it on 4th n 2 up 3 points really ****ing annoyed me. The dumb playcalling, routes short of the sticks, stupid Mahomes at RB bullshit, all while struggling to move the football.

Clyde should be healthy scratch, just to save Andy from his addiction to wasting first down on this turd.

When you lose the focal point of your offense 2 days before the game, it can be tough. But it just didn't feel like we wanted the game more than Dan Campbell and his lions.

A lucky gaffe by Toney won them the game, but that fake punt call early took some big ol balls that clank to call that shit that deep in your own end that early. Fortunately he caught Toub and his boys sleeping.

I see some long ugly practices for these receivers this week.

I like how CEH can be bad while Pacheco had a good game of ripping off solid gains... while gaining less yards than CEH.

Chiefs prolapse worse than Big Bill’s sphincter