Ten Things About Today's Game Week 9: KC 37 Brownouts 21

[gblowfish]

Ten Things About Today’s Game: Week 9: KC 37 CLE 21

10. It was so nice to be able to sleep in today on a wet and cold KC November morning. I went up to my favorite neighborhood diner, the Englewood Cafe, got some carry out breakfast, settled in and watched the game through a fog of Vicks Vapo-Rub, the voice of Mitch Holthaus on the radio and the nasty NyQuil hangover from the overnight. We’ve had a lot of weird games in Cleveland. We've lost crazy overtime games there, we had the Rudd Helmet Tossing Game, and I was afraid this might be a classic “trap game,” with the "Win One For Dorsey" factor. Gregg Williams is a dirty coach, so I was afraid a bunch of our guys -including Mahomes- would have targets on their backs. Except for a foot injury to Sammy Watkins, looks like it was Cleveland that had the injury problems. Their entire defensive secondary was on a conveyor belt to the locker room. That just made things extra easy for Mahomes picking apart Cleveland’s backup secondary, as he threw for 375 yards, his eighth straight 300 yard game.

9. This team may be immune to trap games, as Andy seems to have established a formula that works. We win the coin toss, defer, stop the other team’s first possession, score on our first possession, then make the other team play catch up until they make mistakes that seal the deal. Except for the Pats and Denver game in Denver, that’s been the script, and it works. It’s hard to be picky when the team is 8-1, but there’s a lot of things that can be improved, and really must be improved, if we’re going to make it to the Big Show this February.

8. First big problem is penalties. KC has been Raideresque in their penalties this year. Just too many, and a lot of them have been stupid unsportsmanlike penalties. And it’s been affecting both offense and defense. Today was 11 penalties for 86 yards. That's three times as many as the Browns had. The Chiefs offense had three penalties on ONE PLAY. Defense had Cleveland in a 3rd and 23 at a critical point in the game, made a play and had the Browns stopped to force a 4th and long. Hitchens had to lose his mind with an unsportsmanlike penalty, gives the Browns a first down which allowed them to score. Look, the Browns are a dumpster fire, that’s obvious. But they have a decent offense. If we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot by having double digit penalties, that’s going to be a killer in the playoffs against a good team like the Steelers or Pats. We must get some penalty discipline, and get it soon.

7. Second big problem is tackling. Chubb broke tackle after tackle after tackle. He didn’t make 100 yards but was close enough with 85 yards and a TD. Cleveland averaged over four yards per rush. That’s not good. A team that can stop the run should hold that to three yards or less. We spent a lot of money to STOP THE RUN. C'mon Grandpa Bob, may have to mix in some run blitzes on first down.

6. Third big problem is pass coverage. Defense gave up two passing TDs, and got burned especially on passes to Johnson out of the backfield. Defense gave up just under 400 offensive yards to Cleveland, so once again, the KC offense had to put up big points to run away and hide. One thing I will say, Nelson showed me some heart. In the fourth quarter he got toasted on a bomb to Callaway for 38 yards. After giving up that play he picked Mayfield to kill the drive. Except for his boneheaded unsportsmanlike penalty, Hitchens gutted it up and played with bad ribs - and tied with Nelson for most tackles. Chris Jones got a gift sack when he blew through unblocked with a straight line to Mayfield. Other sack was on a blitz by Lucas, which was his only tackle in the whole game. Kudos to Grandpa Bob for dialing that up. Dee Ford was neutralized, he had one tackle and no sacks. Speaks blew a pass coverage that gave up a first down, but otherwise had some nice plays including stopping the Browns final attempt on fourth and two. That stop sealed the game.

5. Final big problem is clock management. The Chiefs scored on every first half possession except the freaking fiasco at the end of the first half. How can you get an intentional grounding penalty on a spike? I don’t know if that mess was on Mahomes or on Andy or on Bienemy, but if we get in a tight game where we need every point we can get, we can’t be knocking ourselves out of field goal range on something self inflicted like that. And if you’re going to throw a pick on the last play of the half, why not go full Hail Mary? Mahomes can certainly reach the end zone. Run Harris down there and let him go jump ball. Luckily, we got the ball right back to start the second half and drove down and scored seven, so in this case, it didn’t affect the outcome. Again, don’t mean to nit pick, but these are all things we can improve on.

4. This game statistically was pretty even. Chiefs had about 100 yards more total offense. TOP was within a minute on both sides. First downs were basically even, turnovers were even. Chiefs had a lot more penalty yards. Browns missed all three two point conversions. Both QBs were sacked twice, Chiefs were a little better on third down conversions. Williams blocked punt was the turning point in the game. Once that punt was blocked and KC scored another TD immediately afterwards, you could see the air go right out of the Browns sideline. Kudos to the special teams, as that was a big contribution at that point of the game.

3 Today was a great example of how players love to play in front of their hometown friends and family. Kareem Hunt bought 110 tickets to the game for his old high school football team in Cleveland to attend the game. He responds with 141 all purpose yards and three TD. Kelce -who is also from Cleveland- was a dollar short of a Benjamin and scored 2 TDs. Special nod to Spencer Ware, who had a couple of nice catches to sustain drives on third down. Ware reminds me of a back the Chiefs had back in the 90’s named Todd McNair, who was a great back on third down. You could run him between the tackles, or throw the ball to him in the flat. Mahomes and Mayfield both did a nice job of distributing the ball to multiple receivers.

2. Kudos to the offensive line, which was four Cleveland castoffs and Fisher. Fisher only gave up one sack to Garrett, who’s arguably the best pass rusher in the NFL. Mahomes had all day to throw for most of the game. When we get Morse and the Canadian Doc back -IF we get the Doc back- This line should be just fine. No Berry, Dirty Dan or Houston again this week. Hopefully we’ll see at least one and maybe two of them next week. I’m convinced we’ll be lucky to see Berry until sometime in December, if at all.

1. So, 8-1 is fabulous, and at the time of this writing the Bolts are in a tussle with the Seahags. The Fade is a giant sewage pit -like their stadium. Donks are losing to the Texans and they’re done as well. Right now the focus is to try stay ahead of the Pats for a number one seed in the playoffs. If we can get a first round bye, and make teams come to Arrowhead in January, we may have a fighting chance. We have a QB that doesn’t check down and miss wide open receivers 30 yards downfield now. We need the same kind of focus next week as we received this week, as we don’t want to overlook Arizona. I know that’s tempting with a trip to Meh-i-co then the bye the week after, but if things keep rolling we could hit the bye at 10-1. The Holidays could be extra jolly this year, and extra expensive. Better start stashing away some playoff bucks now. You’re gonna need them in January.

[eDave]

Hey man, Kissel is stealing your schtick.

[TribalElder]

IN!

[gblowfish]

Originally Posted by eDave

Hey man, Kissel is stealing your schtick.

He's the Mister Pibb to my Doctor Pepper...

[displacedinMN]

Hichens got baited.

Then end of half fiasco may have been on the refs. They were the true dumpster fire today.

[Discuss Thrower]

Where's MeeshMeesh?

[eDave]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

Hichens got baited.

Then end of the fiasco may have been on the refs. They were the true dumpster fire today.

Like Andy said, nobody is going to push us around. But he's gotta be smarter there. Show him the scoreboard.

[eDave]

Originally Posted by gblowfish

He's the Mister Pibb to my Doctor Pepper...

Na man. You are a nice, cold, refreshing Sprite.

[gblowfish]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

Where's MeeshMeesh?

He's napping right now, but thanks for asking.

[Red Dawg]

Way harsh on the defense today. 21 points is nothing. Penalties handed them 14.

[TwistedChief]

If Mahomes can play like he did today, it can cure almost all other ills. He was outstanding and made it look so easy.

I actually thought the defense was better today than usual. They made some big tackles and didn't have many horrible defensive lapses. Today they played the role of a below average defense instead of a horrifically horrible defense. I think we can work with that.

Great write-up otherwise and hope your recovery is going better than Berry's.

[TribalElder]

That intentional grounding penalty on the spike was dogshit and the wrong call

The replay later showed the playclock running when the snap happened

[Randallflagg]

Originally Posted by eDave

Na man. You are a nice, cold, refreshing Sprite.

[rabblerouser]

Originally Posted by TribalElder

That intentional grounding penalty on the spike was dogshit and the wrong call

The replay later showed the playclock running when the snap happened

Play clock running, game clock was not - correct call, and on Reid/Mahomes.

Great reading, as usual, g - hope you and the Mrs had a great weekend!

[Flying High D]

Thank you for sharing your writing and observational talents.