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

Well put together.

Oh and I forgot to mention - the timeout before kicking an XP because they couldn't get the personnel right - they need to have a hard practice this week

Pacheco was better when you factor in the passing game 4 for 31 yards vs CEH 1 for 7.

Also - I don't know what to make of Chris Jones being at the game to watch - I feel like this level of petty is becoming other worldly.

Be a little more level headed and admit they both sucked. 7.8 vs 7 YPC in the passing game isn't a deciding factor in greatness.

There was no "bright spot" in the running game or passing game. The entire offense was a ****ing shit show tonight.

They only scored 14 on offense. Not that great by Detroit. Pretty good performance from the Chiefs defense. The game-deciding play was Toney’s butterfingers tip ball for a Pick 6.

Clyde's not going to **** you mate.

I thought Pacheco looked slow. Maybe the Lions DL is just a lot better than what the Chiefs were expecting?

Chiefs forgot how to run a QB sneak or a simple trap, or how to catch the ball. Basic football. It's on the coach, assistants and the OC .

I can't argue with the rest of it, but it was not humid and very comfortable out there tonight.

Another guy that really missed the offseason. I expect it to take time for him to get back to full speed and strength.

I better understand why the Patriots were more suspect in the early season now. All the extra games and events and attention eventually shows on the field.

Overall, I agree with the OP.

Basically it was a perfect storm of bad by the offense. None of the WRs could catch the ball consistently. Then Pat missed some open guys entirely, and threw a few inaccurate passes. And at least one that was just poorly timed. Then a few of the play calls were poor decisions.

The defense actually played better than I thought they would. Though, DET was rolling inside the 20 on that drive in the first half when they fumbled. Otherwise they would've probably scored another TD.

And DET could've run the ball a lot more than they did. Nnadi and Tershawn were getting their shit pushed in most of the game when DET ran it. On a couple of early drives, they were running it for 5-6 yards/carry, but then tried to pass several times in a row and ended up having to punt. Pretty sure they could've just run it 3-4 times and gotten those 1st downs. Bottom line, we need Chris Jones back in the middle of that DL.

It sucks KC lost, but it happens. Pat is human, and he can have a bad day. At least he got it out of his system in Week 1. The WRs . . . had a bad day as well. Guys weren't getting open, some ran bad routes, some didn't adjust to the ball very well. and it wasn't just the WRs. you know guys aren't getting open when Pat is our leading rusher at HT.

The OL's performance was spotty. Early they looked pretty good, but as the game went on, they had some odd gaffes, several of which resulted in TFLs.

anyway, no need to dwell; it was always going to take time for this WR room to get comfortable, not having Travis out there just exposed the issue. Better now, than 12 weeks from now.

I also think it's all fixable, just a matter of how long will it take.

Agree about McKinnon. Figured without Kelce, tonight would at least semi-feature McKinnon. What did he get, one touch? He was one of our biggest threats during the second half of the season last year.

2 tgts, 1 cth.



Here's a fun fact: Isiah Pacheco was our leading receiver with 4 catches on 4 tgts.

We were terrible, not much more to say than that I think. D had some moments of encouragement but the offense was abysmal against a Lions D I don't think is all that good.

That and Toney dropping the easy pass on the last drive. We likely would have pushed down for the winning field goal there.

Thank you captain obvious for that riveting analysis

I'm pretty sure most of the offensive kinks will be ironed out by next week Andy and Pat are going to make sure of that.

My bad. I just assumed you missed the obvious after you said the lone "bright spot" was Pacheco last night in the OP. I should have known you weren't a dumbass.

Yeah that was frustrating to say the least - I'm sure he will be taking extra reps in practice this week

LMAO

Detroit has drafted in the top 5 for most of my life. They should have talent everywhere.

Couburn looks so much better clogging the middle than Nnadi does. I hope Farrell plays next week and Nnadi is the healthy scratch.

I also thought Dickerson was more disruptive than Wharton. But I’ve never been a big Wharton fan. Always thought he has been overrated. For whatever his rating is?

Oh. No. Just no.


This isn't some sit-com, where every problem is solved neatly in a half hour weekly episode. this isn't going to get fixed by next week.

As some of us noted last season, this is a problem that's been going on for awhile. And it's obviously still a real problem.

Getting Travis back will hide a lot of these issues, yes. And I won't be surprised if the offense looks competent, even good, when he does get back on the field, because Travis receives so much attention from defenses that some WR/RB just pops wide the **** open on a fairly regular basis.

But again, our WRs spent a ton of snaps just not getting open. Any of them. go back and look at that cutup someone posted. It's not good.



How many times does Pat hit his back foot, his hands separate in anticipation of throwing the ball on time, and then he has to reload and start looking for another receiver? At least a half dozen times in the first half alone. I stopped counting after that. And at least 4 times in just the first half he had to take off and run for the sticks. Considering that Pat only averages 2-3 scrambles like that per game for his career is just another indicator of a problem.

Now, in defense of the WRs, there was at least a couple times that a WR did come open and Pat missed him, or he threw a poor pass, or he was late throwing the ball.




But mostly the WRs as a unit couldn't get open on those snaps. And there were too many of them. I knew it was a problem when Pat took off on his 3rd run of the first half, as I'm sure many others did. Didn't even have to see the look of annoyance on Pat's face to see that.




Look, Skyy is still having trouble deciphering what to do/where to settle in zone. As some young WRs do in the NFL. We've seen guys take a couple full seasons (sometimes more) to figure out zone. We hope that it doesn't take Skyy until the end of this season, but right now that's his level of competence vs. zone.

MVS did in fact get open a couple times downfield and Pat just missed seeing him. But mostly, MVS is just who he is.

James . . . way back when we first picked him up, some analyst called him "decent rotational depth." Well, after watching him struggle last night, that may have been a more accurate assessment of Richie than we knew. Oh, and please take him off return duties.

Justin Watson played a decent game. But the fact that Watson was our 2nd leading WR is not a good sign.

Nothing really to say about Rice/Ross. Effectively they're both rooks, so in that regard, they were fine.

And Toney had a terrible game catching the ball. I think after the 2nd drop it really got into his head and shit just fell off a cliff after that. He did get open fairly regularly, something the rest of the WRs struggled with, but KT also ran some poor routes as well. Regardless, KT had a shitty game. Fortunately, we know he can play much better than he did last night, so probably that was an outlier performance, and he'll bounce back just fine.

But overall, that's a lot of problems in one room. We aren't fixing that in a week.


I said after the draft that it could take a couple months for this group to get squared away. Didn't see anything last night to change my mind about how long it might take for these guys to get their shit figured out.

That was a very well thought out rundown, DC

Overall I don’t disagree. But problems that can be corrected? Toney not catching passes that changed the game - the pick six that bounced off his hands and a drive killing drop on the last drive of the game. That can be corrected. More reps for Rice to help with the drops. More reps for Pacheco to get back into game shape. Not sure who to blame on the James/Toney crosser but that is something that can be fixed in practice. Arguably those things change the course of the game.

Last night was not a good showing by these WRs, but let’s wait until week 16-18 to revisit these evaluations before pronouncing them as the worst WRs in the league.

Time to talk about the elephant in the room….Reid belongs on the hot seat.

Tommy Townsend tried to put a helmet on, but found he was already wearing one.

https://twitter.com/highlightheaven/...51337914446310

Tommy knows the importance of protecting yourself against CTE.

Great Break Down of the James/Toney crosser mixup - Mahomes needs to let the play develop a bit more and James ran the route too deep.

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Reread my post to be sure, and now I'm 100% certain that I never called them "the worst WRs in the league."

I also stated that there were play-calling issues, and that Pat himself didn't have a great game, so I spread the blame around beyond the WR room.

And the last thing I wrote was that it would probably take about two months for them to get squared away.

The drops costed us the game 100%. There's no other way to put it. We win if every drop was caught.

Hell - I'd take two - the last drive Toney drop and the pick 6 tip/drop - those alone win us the game

Without the pick 6, the rest is moot.

I am not usually a fan of "the team needed a lesson" speculation, but Patrick's own words convinced me that the team needed a wakeup call. You are going to get every teams super bowl energy, and you need to be prepared for that every week. That reality is news to the first and second year players, and we have a lot of them in some key roles. The good news is that the team is a couple drops away from winning anyway, without the second and third best players in the game. Patrick will be riding his offense hard this week, and I am here for it.

Did not read any of this so my opinion is this...
There is no reason for concern, we LOST against the Colts last season and still WON THE SB! Panic flags right now are just plain foolish! WE ARE THE KANSAS CITY CHIEFS! Oh gee we lost to the Lions by 1 ****ing point. I am glad it was against an NFC team. We will learn from this and move forward! GEAUX CHIEFS! :thumb:

Do you guys ever look at the all-22? I watched part of it. Mahomes missed easy deep throws to MVS who was open by at least 5 yards 3 times on two drives in the 3rd quarter. And Watson was open deep several times.

Is it always like that? He’s the best ever and still miss taking those throws when he’s looking that way?

They were out of synch. First action with live bullets, so to speak, with a lot of new faces. It's going to be ok, they'll get it together.

Didn't jaawan lead the NFL in holding penalties out of any other OL last year?

Had and still have a bad feeling about him being on the team.

Man Donovan Smith is not the answer, Jesus

Clyde still has an uncanny way of running right into the pile. I will give him this… the guy does tend to gain more than he loses. And that includes short yardage. I guess he’s adequate enough since a lot of his role is really to keep our other RBs a little fresher for when we hit our run.

I mentioned it in another thread actually. I thought Pacheco looked like he was running timid. It looked like him and Toney both were trying to avoid getting injured. He wasn’t running as hard as last year imop.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow, it looks like McKinnon should have been the first read and he probably walks in...

Nothing wrong with the play based on the likely line call. Hutchinson was lined up on that side and Smith knows he has help on the inside so he makes sure he takes care of the outside speed rush, Hutchinson comes back inside and Thuney cleans him up.

Here's the thing I don't understand.....

MVS is much better than everyone gives him credit for on this board. The guy has been more than what we expected. Without him in the playoffs we are all spending the offseason bitching about what could have been. And I also don't understand why Pat isn't going to him more....

Watson is the guy everyone wanted on this team the least if you read the preseason posts on here. But somehow he always manages to do some good thing with Pat.

With Kelce out, Pat (and Andy) should have depended on them more.

Well done OP. I agree with most of your post. Maybe not as confident in the potential for this WR group. Also not as high on bushman. But most of this was spot on.

catch the damn ball

After 1 game? LMAO

Both of which are pathetic. This RB Corp is the worst I can remember as a Chiefs fan. Pacheco at least looks like he may have a future in the league.

The all-22 doesn't lie. We missed so many deep routes that were wide open, its a problem. I don't understand why there was no adjustment at halftime. They see the plays right after they get off the field. Those deep routes were wide open more than not.

And if its going to be a contested catch route, get Ross in there.

This is now officially the DUMBEST POST in the history of Chiefsplanet. You win.

One loss without two of his best three players in game one, and you want to put the coach who's won two of the last four Super Bowls on the hot seat?

GET THE **** OUT.

IMO, there are still some clear miscommunications occurring on the oline. Watching the tape, it looked like a lot of it was on the tackles, which makes sense given two new faces there. A number of, at least what I perceive to be blown assignments were a prevalent factor in both the pass and run game, especially on the sweeps.

The best TEAM won buddy. You need a lesson in basic little league sportsmanship.

You tip your hat to the Lions, show some damn respect. So lucky Hutch didn't disassemble Mahomes, cheating Jawaan saved his bacon. And the whole league is laughing at you. The Lions are America's team now. Get with the program.

America's Team. What a laugh. ROFL

Clown.

Eh, I'm going to have to disagree somewhat. On one of those plays, yeah two guys get wide open, in particular MVS deep down the middle, but when you look at the play and how it develops, it's pretty obvious it's a screen; Pat never even looks downfield.

Then another one where Watson gets wide open, but the pressure gets in there early (54 was a pita all night) and Pat never gets to look that far down the field.

In fact, we ran a lot of one-read plays in the second half.

We also ran a lot of plays where no receiver ran more than 10 yards downfield.

Btw, Skyy gets wide open down the boundary on that play where MVS slides to catch the ball (fantastic catch). he might've walked into the EZ. He has another play where he finds a great soft spot to sit down in, but Pat throws it underneath instead, but as he was getting pressured, I can't fault him for that.

But I just watched the A-22, just the Chiefs passing plays, and really, I don't see our WRs getting open a bunch of times deep. I see maybe 3-4 times. And one of those was the screen play, so it really doesn't count. A few times when someone got open in the intermediate range, say 10-15 yards deep, between the numbers. Mostly Gray, I think.

But, when DET decided to lock up our WRs, they were pretty good at it. I stopped keeping count at 6 plays when the DET secondary was in the hip pocket of every Chiefs WR. Most of those were in the first half. If you want to take a look, just find those plays when Pat takes off for a first down or whatever. Every Chiefs WR is wearing a Lions DB. Like they could be wearing the same jersey.

Another note: Pat threw into double and triple coverage several times. Okay, to be more precise, he threw into double coverage multiple times, into triple coverage once. But I was surprised he tried to thread the needle like that when most of the time there was a good option underneath. Frustration, maybe?


I could be wrong, but watching the A-22, there were several plays where Pat was practically staring his receiver down, a couple times when it feels like he predetermined pre-snap who was getting the ball (Ross on the hitch along the sideline, for example), some plays where it really looks like Pat completely ignores one side of the field (maybe a two- or three-read to that side?), etc.

If those were executed the way they were practiced, I kind of wonder why?

Anyway, I agree that there were some plays and probably points left on the field, but "bunches." Maybe 2-3 legitimate missed opportunities, and maybe 2 possibles at most.


Also, and I haven't watched all of the Lions A-22 plays, but there's a play in the 2nd half when 14 was streaking down the left hash all by himself, but Goff inexplicably throws the ball underneath to 0. No Chief within 15 yards of 14, so that was a TD.

Then one other a little later that might've gone for a TD, but probably Cook tackles the guy unless Goff throws a perfect 30-yd dime in stride, which isn't really his forte. But the catch would've put them in FG range, so worst case they probably get at least 3 there.

So, they left points on the field as well.

:spock:

You mean the crappy defense that held them to only 14 points?

you are wrong. Check the QB school vid that’s posted on here in many spots. It walks you through way more than your 3 times you see on the all-22.

Where do you watch the all-22?

NFL+

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F5onuKhW...jpg&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F5onvyGW...jpg&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F5onwuNX...jpg&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F5onxtpX...jpg&name=large

And if you want to draw another parallel they didn’t have pippen to start the season due to a contract dispute

The tackles sucked at protecting Pat all night and hopefully that will be remedied but how much remains to be seen. Pat was running for his life all night it seemed. Like watching SBLV. You could tell it caught Pat off guard as well because I'm sure he was expecting much better protection from the edges. Just one more thing on his plate to deal with on top of knowing you don't have your "BINKY"(Kelce) to throw to expecting your young WR group to step up and get separation and bail you out but rather instead proving they 'are not ready for prime time' not making easy clutch catches.

Right now Veach and his 2 tackles acquisition and not acquiring a legit FA WR looks foolish. Smith has a holding problem coming in here and Taylor sucks at run blocking to begin with but now looks like he sucks at pass blocking against good talent as well. I realize creating a new game plan without Kelce less than 48hrs to game time IS a challenge BUT you have to at least be able to pass block and catch the ball regardless. You know the fundamentals?! Hopefully chemistry in due time and good coaching fix the o-line issues(thus Pat would have time to attack the deep routes with MVS and Ross) and our young WRs pursue redemption with a passion with some humility(speaking about Toney i.e. to humility-kid deserved to be humbled IMO).

I know it's only one game and I will just chalk this up to SB hangover, unexpected Kelce injury, playing the Lions, nervous young WRs and tackles with no chemistry for now. This will be our Ooops game getting it out of the way early in the season. Last year it was the Colts game that was our Ooops game.

What my gut tells me is.......I don't want to go there for now.:shake: