Ten Things About Tonight's Game: Christmas Week 16

[gblowfish]

Ten Things About Tonight’s Game: Week 16 Christmas Edition

10. On the Ten Things For Christmas, My Chiefies Gave to Me:
Ten Points to Denver
Nine First Downs Passing
Eight Denver Miscues
Seventh Loss For Denver
Six Points for Harris
Five Wilson Stops
Four Colquitt Punts
Three Maclin Grabs
Two Big Field Goals
and a Bitch Slap
for Aqib Talib!

9. It’s been a very long day for yours truly. It’s currently after 2 AM, so the Ten Things will surely ramble a bit, because I’m a little crispy from a full and memorable day. Much sensory overload. This morning I woke up and had a dilemma: Should I have my morning coffee in my Santa coffee mug that I’ve used every Christmas Day for as long as I remember, or have it in my lucky Chiefs Coffee Mug that I’ve used every morning on Chiefs game days for about twenty years? What to do? So I had the first cup of the morning in Santa, the second in the Chiefs mug, just to make sure all my bases were covered. I hung the Chiefs flag from the front porch, got dressed, and while my wifey was at Christmas Mass, loaded the car up with presents, beer and rain gear. As soon as Mrs. Blowfish returned from church, we were off to Crown Center to pick up Scho63 for the pageantry that is Christmas Day in Ooooooolathe. We went to my sister in law’s house for Christmas dinner, wild frenzied opening of presents by my nieces and nephews, and watching the pre-game for the Steelers-Ravens game with a piece of pie. At 4pm we headed out to Arrowhead, almost got in a car wreck, escaped to the Draft Room Bar in the Stadium, and watched the end of the Steelers game. A big cheer went up in the bar when the Steelers won in the last minute, clinching a playoff spot for the Chiefs. We waited right up to kickoff to go to the seats because it was raining sideways, and there was plenty of time to get wet. The rain was persistent, but not terrible. It was warm enough where it wasn’t a big deal. After the front blew through the wind calmed down where it wasn’t howling like it was during pre-game warm ups. Scho63 stood for most of the game without his coat on, getting wet, but he was pretty much oblivious to anything but the game. I’m glad I was able to take him to see a rare thing; the first KC home victory over the Donks in six years.

8. Game stuff: It was great to get out to an early lead. Hill gets a 70-yard run from scrimmage He was five short of running for 100 tonight. He was targeted five times for passes but couldn’t catch one. That’s much better usage of his skills. Bravo.

7. Alex re-discovered that he indeed has legs and feet. He ran for the first KC TD, ended up with 46 yards rushing; something that’s been sorely missing in his game this year. His early pick was a bad one, but he got hit when he threw, and the ball just kind of sailed on him and died in the wind. It was an easy pick for Denver. Luckily that was his only mis-fire of the night. He ended up completing almost 70% of his passes in poor passing weather. The only QB with a better completion percentage was Poe. More on that later.

6. Kelce set the single game record for yardage by a Chiefs TE with 11 catches for 160 yards, half of that yardage on a run after catch on a basic Tight End Screen. He wore the Donks out. As we said in the rubble of last weeks loss, you need your play makers to make plays. Hill, Alex and Kelce all did that tonight. Kudos to all. Well done. Just what the doctor ordered.

5. The KC defense was outstanding. They basically gave up one TD on a five yard drive after the Donks Pick, and they gave up a 52 yard field goal in the rain. Pitched a shutout in the second half. That’s Championship Defense. That’s what good teams do; make adjustments at halftime, and snuff out the will of the other team and just frustrate their offensive efforts. Spunky Semen wasn’t throwing for over 300 yards tonight. No sir. Not when Bob Sutton has previous game film on him, and not with Phillip Gaines in street clothes. Kudos to Terrance Mitchell, Mister “Who Dat” for the Chiefs secondary. He tied for most tackles -five- and didn’t get burned. Sanders had one catch. One. Great night shutting down Denver’s passing game.

4. Other Unsung heroes for KC tonight: Daniel Sorensen hits like a truck on special teams, recovers two fumbles. Stone Hands Harris gets six catches, next best to Kelce for the night, and gets one TD, just like Kelce did. Harris’ TD was the dagger. Who threw the dagger? The Hungry Poe Pig did! Great call by Andy. Really unexpected, which is exactly what they needed at that point. Chris Jones was a monster on the defensive line. He pushed his guy back in the pocket relentlessly, and had a couple of tipped passes. He’s just gotten better week by week. And it was fitting that Berry got the final pick to end the game. He’s had a storybook season, and it couldn’t have happened to a better guy.

3. I really don’t want to say much negative. My Festivus grievances are minor. Bothered me that the Midget missed a field goal and a PAT. Hope he doesn’t get the yips going into the playoffs. Schwartz was drawn offsides trying to stay in front of Von Miller, but in his defense, Miller did basically nothing important. He had seven tackles, but no sacks or forced fumbles. KC's Defense and Special Teams did not contribute any points, and when KC went scoreless in the third quarter, that was concerning. I was afraid we’d have another scoreless second half for the third game in a row, but luckily the offense was able to put up 12 big points in the fourth quarter to put it out of reach. Santos made up for his field goal miss by hitting two important ones in the fourth quarter. That made it a three possession lead, which helped the defense tremendously.

2. On injuries, Conley tweaked an ankle, went down before halftime and got it taped up, an finished the game; but he looked pained when the game was over. Ware went down in the second half to the locker room. Looked like he had a bad rib cage injury or upper chest bruise. The trainer was smacking him around and trying to pry a football out of his hands. They put West in for the remainder of the fourth quarter, and we didn’t see Ware again. Hope he’ll be OK for San Diego, or we’re going to have to activate Knile Davis. The Donks got a little chippy in the final five minutes. Donald Stephenson jumped offsides three times in one game, thanks to crowd noise. He got an unsportsmanlike penalty for getting lippy with somebody; and Talib came over to the Chiefs bench and was running his yap at somebody. He’s a total flaming asshole…. sorry Jayhawk fans.

1. Kudos to the team for battling hard on a rainy, windy night after they already knew they had made the playoffs. Now it’s still possible to win the AFC West and grab back that number two position in the seeding. I’m worried about two things: a) The Donks mailing it in vs. Oakland next week; and b) The Chiefs mailing it in vs. San Diego. I think the Donks will play hard because they’re at home, and they hate the Raiders as much as we do. They’d like nothing better than to bounce the Raiders on the road to have to play as a wild card team, without their starting QB. I worry about KC in San Diego, because since the Bolts lost to the lowly Cleveland Browns -ruining their Cleveland futility parade- they’re gonna be extra pissed, and wanting to deny us an AFC West Title. They should have beat us in Arrowhead on opening day, and I’m sure they’ll be reminding themselves of that over and over as this week slides by. At least the weather in San Diego should be nice, and hopefully the Chiefs will apply the lesson they learned from being a Wild Card vagabond last year, and take care of bidness.

It was a blast being able to show Scho63 some genuine KC hospitality for Christmas, and glad he got to see a win. As for me personally, it’s been a rough year. But I’m counting my blessings. I have front row, 50 yard line seats for the Chiefs games, I got my sight back in my left eye after a detached retina surgery in July, my wife still loves me and I have three little kitties who I fed tuna and gave cat toys to this morning. I’m blessed beyond measure. I hope you are blessed as well.

Merry Christmas to All.
And to all a
Good Night.