Chiefs at Cardinals: Post Game Report

The Chiefs won this game by a final score of 17-to-10. For a preseason game, it was a good one with top performances from both teams for most of the game. WR Daurice Fountain looks like he’s locked up a spot on the 53 man roster. He had two very good long receptions and 3 total catches for 41 yards, and that’s on top of his team best performance in last week’s first preseason game. A good enough reason to begin this thread by mentioning him as the lead story.

.

3-and-Out Drill

The game became a 3-and-out fire drill for the Chiefs defense achieving a 3-and-out on three of the Cardinals first four drive. Mike Hughes looked good again and made the tackle that stopped the Cards second drive on 3^rd down. That kept the Cards offense off the field and in the end, the Chiefs won the Time of Possession (ToP) game: 38:34 to 21:26. Not very many teams are capable of beating the Chiefs with a ToP discrepancy like that so it’s surprising the game was that close in the end.

.

Narrowing down the wide receivers?

I thought this would be a WR battle of Marcus Kemp v Daurice Fountain. Kemp ended up with one reception but it was a 36 yarder, so that’s a plus for him. However, it looks like Fountain is winning that last WR job at this point. The order of the top 5 WRs remains the same for now: Tyreek Hill, Byron Pringle, Mecole Hardman, Demarcus Robinson and Cornell Powell. Pringle had a wonderful catch deep over the middle of the field and although Hardman appeared to be confused on a play in the red zone, he made up for it by catching a TD from Chad Henne while he was falling down backwards in the end zone.

.

.

The Offensive Line looks like they’re coming together and continue to gel. I’ll take zero sacks anytime. Nope, not even the second team gave up a sack. Here’s all of the first team’s OL snpas provded by Eddie High:

.

.

Patrick Mahomes played in the Chiefs first three series’ and was 10-of-18 for 48 yards, but a low 43.3 rating. Although Mahomes threw an interception, it was his fault, not the OL’s, because he could have stayed in the pocket on that play.

.

.

Defenders Along the Line

A bigger story than the OL (although there might not be a bigger story than the Chiefs OL this offseason) is the progress of the Chiefs defense and in particular the defensive line. Chris Jones had another sack and looked like he was swiping the arms of a high school left tackle away on his way to the QB. Jarran Reed also had a sack in this game. Further, this was the second week in a row that the DL had 5 sacks. Five… and the defense played a very good game overall.

.

Team Tacklers

Linebackers Omari Cobb and Darius Harris both had solid games. Harris had 2 tackles and a QB Hit. However, it was Austin Edwards, Zane Anderson, and Dicaprio Bootle who lead the team in tackles with 4 each. Many were wanting to see LB WIllie Gay in action but he didn’t have much of and impact in this contest, getting just one tackle. Here’s a list of all the Chiefs with at least two tackles in this game:

.

..

The Safety Dance

While I was awaiting to see which Safety might break (dance) out among: Will Parks, Armani Watts or Devon Key… it was Juan Thornhill who moonwalked back into our hearts on this evening. Much has been written about the possible slide step of Free Safety Juan Thornhill down the depth chart, but he made the most of his time in the game and laid out in the end zone to make what turned out to be a game saving interception. His interception near the end of the first half ended a drive the Cards were working on.

.

.

With a 10-to-0 half time score, the Chiefs starting defense was the big winner in the first half. DC Steve Spagnuolo was even dialing up a corner blitz with Zane Anderson doing the honors. Although Anderson laid a good lick on Cards backup QB Colt McCoy, McCoy had already released the ball fora a sizable gain. CB Dicaprio Bootle also had an effective blitz in this game:

.

.

.

Nick Jacobs offers the longest plays of the game:

.

.

As you can see none of these plays were passes from Patrick Mahomes, except one for 13 yards. He didn’t have one of his games where he was “on.” It didn’t seem to matter as the Chiefs nailed down their second Preseason game victory in a row.

.

Fullback Michael Burton looked the part once again and had an excellent reception and then run after the catch.

.

.

Darwin Thompson had his best game as a Chiefs player with 8 carries for 49 yards and a 6.1 YPC average. I still can’t figure out why he wants to jump as high as he can at the end of most of his runs. Here, if he stays on his feet, he could end up plowing ahead for two, three, or four extra yards.

.

.

.

.

Cornering the Market on Tackling and Rushing

What I noticed most about the Chiefs Cornerbacks was that they wrapped up while tackling and that helped a lot in keeping the Cards to 80 rushing yards total. The Chiefs won that battle as well by rushing for 141 yards. It seems that HC Andy Reid and OC Eric Bieniemy wanted to win the rushing battle. As we approach the regular season, the team needs to make sure they have a potent rushing attack because it opens up the RPO (run-pass-option) plays for Patrick Mahomes and makes everything he does in the passing game, including protections, much, much easier. If Mahomes and his RBs can get the opponents LBs to take an extra step in towards the line of scrimmage, it opens up a lot of other options. Looks like they accomplished that goal tonight.

.

What did you see that you liked… or disliked?

.

Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

.

If you are viewing this in Apple News and would like to join the Discussion, [GO HERE.](http://arrowheadone.com/chiefs-at-cardinals-post-game-report/#disqus_thread)

.