Chiefs: A Palimpsest View of Week One

Chiefs: A Palimpsest View of Week One – I’m following streams of thought as if waves along a coast had left winding trails of water and sand, irregular, but regularly so. It’s as if I am seeing the now quiet and dark stadium at Jacksonville in the light darkness with no high illumination, the field is swirling dark greens with white marks struck here and there, beneath Van Gogh’s nite sky with stars.

It seems like that is my view, the coastal bend view through quasi-tropical palms, in high relief as I sit on a beach near a jetty as the sun departs over Copano Bay.

Visitations follow:

Dirty Football

I am calmer now. We have a win under our belt and the first week nervous stomach is gone. It arose again after Hill’s injury and then Mahomes close call. I was quite jack at the visible dirty play by the Jacksonville defense. Obviously, Jalen Ramsey and Myles Jack topped the list. I then recalled last year’s game and the nastiness that we witnessed then. It’s a dirty team, with dirty players and that must mean they are at the very least not discouraged by their HC. I’ll leave it there.

Chiefs Penalties

The Chiefs had 5 penalties for 55 yards. That’s really good, especially considering what we have witnessed the past 2 seasons. Consider all the calls against the Chiefs over the past 2 seasons, from motion penalties to Interference calls… it has been awful. This needs to continue, game-to-game, with 5 or less calls per game.

Chiefs Offense

Any time an offense scores 40 points, and this with at least 3 garbage possessions at the end of the game, where they worked to control the clock and didn’t worry about scoring, is a very good result. Well, actually, that could be said of “30 points” as well. The Chiefs got out front and controlled the tempo of the game from the start with 3 quick scores that should have been 21 points, not 17 if not for Patrick Mahomes fooligan “No Look Pass” which cost Travis Kelce a TD.

When you think about that, the score should have been 44 not 40. Point being? The Chiefs controlled play calling by the opposition, the clock (time of possession) and the number of plays. Those numbers were key to the win, and usually are.

One Third and Two Thirds:

Mahomes Before and After

Seth Keyser called it before and after — two halves. One half before the injury, and one after, and you get a full game. Well, actually it was closer to 1/3rd to 2/3rds. I observed the same thing on Sunday and Monday. Andy Reid made adjustments to accommodate Pat Mahomes inhibited mobility. Keysor wrote on Thursday:

“The game against Jacksonville can be divided into two halves: pre-injury and post-injury. Prior to being hobbled, Mahomes threw the ball 13 times. Of those, six passes (46.1 percent) were 11-plus yards in the air and only two (15.4 percent) went 5 or fewer yards in the air. He didn’t target a receiver behind the line of scrimmage once. After the ankle sprain, Mahomes threw another 23 passes. Of those, only three (13 percent) traveled farther than 11 yards in the air and a whopping 16 (69.6 percent) traveled 5 or fewer yards. Seven throws were to a player behind the line of scrimmage.

In short, as colleague Nate Taylor referred to in his postgame story, Reid adjusted on the fly to Mahomes’ newfound lack of mobility and shifted the offense back to the pre-2017 era in Kansas City….”

These remarks dovetail perfectly with what my thoughts were Sunday and Monday. There is more to this story as well and I cover that below in the topic on the offensive line.

Defensive About Lack of “Defensiveness”

I  stroll, in my mind, casually over to here to the sideline, thinking about what we witnessed with our defense. I am standing next to Steve Spagnuolo, watching him watch what was going on out on the field of play during the game. He was studying what his players did and didn’t do. He has adjustments to make and we will see what happens due to that.

Watching the defense is a particular vanity point to the game for me Let’s wander over to that outlook… for a brief moment.

The upside was that the offense scored enough so that the Jaguars could not mount a running game with Leonard Fournette. That’s goodness as the Chiefs held the Jaguars to 81 rushing yards. This was more easily occurred due to the Chiefs getting out front and staying there.

The downside? The Chiefs front end did not get after either QB but allowed a rookie to have a magnificent start to a career where he set an NFL record. The Chiefs did not get hits on the QB with sacks, expect for one. They did get hurries but both opposing QBs handled the pressure well.

The defense also gave up 413 yards. That is really bad considering the run game was held to 81 total. This aspect of the defense must improve, ASAP. It is, a work in progress.

Chiefs Secondary

Another topic is the play of the cornerbacks. Charvarius Ward pass defense suffered. Of course he was targeted more than other CBs and our Safeties were late giving him help.

That is something that will get worked out as we get the secondary working in unison. This wasn’t present for much of the game, which went aerial for the 2nd quarter. Ward gave up 120 yards on 9 successful targets and that is not good. Ward, of course, is my call for getting the starting role at CB and getting broken in early. Let’s hope he sees improvement in week two. At Safety, Thornhill was also tested. Both players did well in run support. Again, I like that both players got the starts and feel that the hard knock approach is the best way to get the players on the board with how to be an NFL Defender.

Meandering Over to the OL

I have another view of the offense, this time with a lot of thought given to the how well the Offensive Line actually played. My overall is that the Chiefs scored 40 points even with 2 garbage possessions in the 4th quarter. On the other hand, in the game, PM2 had to pick himself up from many knockdowns. It was observed that most of that occurred after Pat went out to the injury tent to have a sprained ankle taped. On the flip side, the Offensive Line, blocking for the run game, was very good and the play action pass helped.

However, the pass protection blocking was not good, especially in straight drop situations and no play action. Something about this was out of sync and part of that was caused by a good defense. It was as if a well tuned machine that worked for 4 possessions suddenly started missing on a cylinder… at times.

The OL allowed penetration too often and that can be dangerous for Pat Mahomes. However, the OL was facing a pretty good defensive outfit of the Jaguars. This was bound to be a heavy duty contest. At the same time though, I anticipated that the offensive line would play much more effectively in 2019, so I am unhappy with this part of their performance.

It was not a breakdown where Pat Mahomes got happy feet, he had none of that. Nor was he flushed from the pocket: I think there were 2 of those. What was happening is that the Jaguars who have a very talented defense, apparently, schooled on the Brady led Patriots: as Seth Keyser has observed. The Jags used stunts to get pressure on Mahomes. Often the stunts were to the Chiefs left side of the offensive line and Eric Bieniemy and Co. have got to address this.

Eric Fisher’s weakness is blocking for the pass rush, especially when confronted with stunts — where he has to move his feet to pick up the actual pass rusher he must effectively block. I still think the OL is going to be better than it’s 2018 ranking of 16 or 17 (ie, PFF or PFR ratings). How much better… is what I am interested in seeing.

The game against the Raiders should fall to the Chiefs. I suspect the score will be something like 36-24. I think Carr showed something in the Raiders first outing and they will test the Chiefs, after all, it is a road game in the AFC West. The Chiefs cannot afford mistakes, costly penalties, plus they’re playing without Tyreek Hill.

The Injury Report

• • Hill, out
  • Collarbone — out 4 weeks
  • Allen,  FP – Thumb
  • Clark, FP – Neck
  • Lucas, FP – Back
  • Mahomes, FP – Ankle
  • Mathieu, FP – Shoulder
  • Yelder, FP – Ankle

Forward Looking

Looking forward to week two, I am just pleased that there is NFL Football to watch. I was “Starved.” I will say 3 games on Sunday and 2 on Monday? I had a lot of football to digest — and had to go for the aspirin and tums.

See more this weekend with the Chiefs at Raiders

David Bell — ArrowheadOne

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