Kansas City Chiefs

ARROWHEADONE CHIEFS WEEK 14: GAME THREAD

LadnerMorse December 8, 2016 No Comments

ARROWHEADONE CHIEFS WEEK 14: GAME THREAD

 

The Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Oakland Raiders: the rivalry is back, and back in a big way. If you’ve been around long enough to remember the great Chiefs and Raiders teams of the 1960s and 1970s then you know what “rivalry” really means. If not, no worries, you’re about to find out because… it’s hard to think of a game in recent memory as big as this game is for each organization — or the league — especially with the NFL’s diminishing TV ratings. Pete Sweeney of kcchiefs.com has made his case that: this game is the biggest Thursday Night Football game of all time. Both teams are ascending, so why not? The question is: how high will each of these teams rise? In the 1960’s, each team seemed to take turns grasping that ring at the top in the AFC (and what was once the AFL). Now, answering that question will go a long way in telling who represents the AFC in the Super Bowl this year because the New England Patriots look as vulnerable as ever and whoever wins this game will likely take the first game bye in the playoffs and more importantly, get a home game to decide who goes to the AFC championship game. So, is this game huge?  Maybe we should define “huge.”

H = Heart-stopping

The Chiefs have been nothing but heart-stopping this year. There are AO Writers who have invested their life savings into stocks in Personal AED devices that Chiefs fans can wear like iWatches. If you have heart issues, better to party with paramedics.

U = Unfinished business

As much as the Chiefs have accomplished this year, they still have to make sure they not only win this game but, stay focused on the rest of their games to put themselves in the best position to make it to the big dance this year.

G = Gauntlet

The Chiefs must “throw down the gauntlet” early in this game. If the Raiders are able to take the crowd out of the game by scoring their first couple of times down the field it will be bad for the home team.

E = Earsplitting

Seattle, as well as some other cities with claims to the loudest NFL stadiums, all take a back seat when it comes to elevated decibels of earsplitting support for their team. In fact, it’s no contest. The Chiefs will need the Arrowhead crowd to be as loud and proud as they’ve ever been.

As ArrowheadOne’s own Ransom Hawthorne so adeptly pointed out in his weekly Tuesday column:

“It dawned on me after reading lots of commentary on many boards before and after games that many commentators base their opinion of which team will win on a comparison of an offense and a defense. Defense A is better than Offense B or something of the like. I think the game is so much more complex than that, so even allowing for some simplification of purposes for discussion: it is still over-simplified. Impacts of injuries, the right play call at the right time, individual match-ups, second level comparisons (Offense A vs Defense B for example). We really need to take a more holistic approach in the evaluation….”

Pointing out just how good, or bad, a team’s offense is and then projecting how they might, or might not, do against a Chiefs defense that’s had at least 100 different line-ups in 2016, has to be a futile venture, to say the least. So, point taken Mr. Leggio.

Now is the time to make those predictions and mine is: Chiefs 31, Raiders 21.

Don’t miss this Tonight Show “Superlatives’ bit on the Chiefs and Raiders players.

 

 

Now, let’s get it on… and… GO CHIEFS!!!!