Shawn Sorter
In what looks to be the most critical game of the Kansas City Chiefs season, they traveled to Los Angeles to face the Chargers. Not only was 1st place in the division going to the winner, but any hope of a 1st round Bye hinged on the outcome. The Chargers were missing star left tackle rookie Rashawn Slater due to Covid and the Chiefs were missing a number of key players, mostly to Covid as well, including Chris Jones, Willie Gay, L’Jarius Sneed (personal reasons), and Josh Gordon. The Chiefs avoided turnovers — for the most part — like their last matchup, so they were good.
The Good
An early goal line stand by the defense was huge. There were 2 plays where the Chargers hurt themselves, but still nice to stop them. Prayers for Donald Parham after that scary fall. He’s in the hospital undergoing testing and remains in stable condition.
Then here was the goal line stand to end the half, which was also critical. It’s nice to see the Chargers desire to go on 4th downs backfire on them.
Chiefs FB Michael Burton looked great in the first half, making several really nice plays. It’s interesting to see when Andy Reid decides to use the fullback, it only happens a couple of times per season.
Lord Bolton made a really nice tip that turned into an interception. It’s good to see some of those bounces going the other way.
Two more goal line stands down the way the defense did all they could do, especially missing 3 of their stars. Patrick Mahomes had some down moments in this game, but was good when he had to be good:
Travis Kelce. Just wow. I nearly passed out. That was by far the best run after the catch I’ve ever seen him do. I counted 6 Chargers that could have tackled him. He was putting on amazing moves.
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The Bad
The play calling and execution on the 3rd drive was really poor. Hey, let’s throw deep on 3rd and 7 to our garbage gadget receiver. Even if the throw was on target I don’t see a catch happening there.
RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire just lacks the ability to move the chains and always seems to lack the ability when close to the marker to make the moves needed to get that 1st down. Several times, he was stopped a yard short setting up the need to convert on 3rd down. It makes me want to have a joystick in my hand to control his movements, so often he goes the wrong way. We so badly need a good running back. I’d give quite a bit to take the Clyde draft pick back. He and Williams are both simply Jags. They have no speed, they have no moves, they seem to go down on first contact far too often.
Chiefs RBs = 86 rushing yards
I can’t at all get a handle on why our first drive looks so great most every game… but then we look average most of the time after that. I get scripted plays, but I don’t buy that that’s it. Sure teams adjust, but I don’t buy that either. We just go weird for some reason.
Mahomes seems to sometimes throw the ball before he needs to, it almost seems rushed, and often results in way off target passes. He’s still looks like something’s wrong.
The Chargers ran the ball at will (192 rushing yards). Do DT Chris Jones and LB Willie Gay make that much difference? Thankfully we stiffened up most of the time down by the goal line.
On the Travis Kelce non-fumble, I don’t get why the Chiefs didn’t hurry to the line and call a play. Even though it ended up not being overturned, why even give them an opportunity?
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The Ugly
Special teams was a disaster in this game. Failure to tackle on the opening kickoff that led to a huge return was the beginning of the issues. Then later Pringle brought the ball out which should never happen… as this column has discussed many times. Add on a holding call and we started at the 7 yard line. It got the crowd into it and made converting after the Chargers made the game 10-7 very difficult.
I’m not sure I can think of more than 1 time this year where bringing the ball out of the end zone has been a positive play for us. Just don’t do it. Then following that up Tommy Townsend must have thought we were in the Super Bowl shanking a punt badly.
I was totally mystified by the refs on the Mahomes fumble call. The ball looked to be still firmly in his hand, and his arm was moving forward. It looked like an incomplete pass live and still looked that way on review. Did an official review even happen?
The defense faced a 3rd and 6 and Frank Clark jumped offsides. I never understood players trying to time the snap. It’s so hard to stop a great QB like Justin Herbert, we don’t want to allow them to be able to run the ball easily to convert.
The play calling was also very poor. Having 4th and inches and not just letting Blake Bell do a QB sneak is baffling. If you can’t run there you will never be able to run. I believe it cost us 7 points, well that and Pat getting the ball only half way to a wide open Hardman.
The officiating call late that stopped the play was really bad. Ward ended up intercepting the ball. Maybe he doesn’t if it’s not blown dead, but who knows. I’d love to have known.
Not sure which play Sweeney is talking about, take your pick!
The Chiefs got really lucky holding the Chargers on their last possession of regulation. I don’t get why we didn’t run more clock. We had players running out of bounds, Mahomes could have slid on his long run instead of going out of bounds. We could have called 1 running play. We got lucky there by not giving up the winning field goal at that point.
Conclusion
First place still feels sweet. I’m so thankful the Chargers passed up 4 field goals. By the end of the weekend we could be in position for the Number 1 Seed. We’d need the Patriots to lose to the Colts in Indy and the Titans to lose to the Steelers in Pittsburgh. Both things very well could happen. Patrick Mahomes had some simply horrible plays in this game, but in crunch time he really stepped up.
Beyond that, 10-and-4 feels good. Very good.
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Shawn Sorter — ArrowheadOne
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