I want you to know, when I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong. So, let me be clear, “I may be wrong.” Of course I predicted that our Kansas City Chiefs would beat the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday by a score of 31-to-16 but, that’s not what I may be wrong about. Obviously, I was dead wrong about that one. What I may have been wrong about is that the Chiefs have gotten significantly better this past offseason, specifically through the draft.
Allow me to quote a familiar blogger here at ArrowheadOne,
“Laddie will disagree with me as he said I should not base the team on only one loss. But, I fail to see where the Chiefs really addressed the reasons they lost to Pittsburgh in the playoffs. You build your team in two ways. Al Davis said you build to win your division. But, I believe it is more as the NBA in that you build your team to win the playoffs. When, the better teams in the playoffs make you look deficient, you do not build your team to beat the patsies.”
I “may” have to concede that this person is correct. After yesterday’s 19-to-13 debacle, the Chiefs deserve to be under hot scrutiny for producing the nearly identical outcome against the most recent team to oust them from the playoffs.
It raises the ugly question: are the Chiefs any more equipped now than they were last season to handle the level of talent they’ll most certainly be confronted with when the playoffs roll around?
For the moment, the answer to that appears to be a rather blunt, no.
So, let’s break down where the Chiefs went wrong in this game and there’s no better place to start than with both lines. I don’t think you’ll find many people who would disagree with the perception that the Pittsburgh Steelers dominated the K.C. Chiefs along both the offensive and defensive lines on Sunday. The Steelers looked bigger and stronger and in almost every encounter, Alex Smith was under constant pressure, Pitt rushed for 194 yards while the Chiefs had 28 yards rushing. In the playoff game in January, the difference was 171 to 61 so, the margin has widened.
That’s not a good sign that things have gotten better.
Some fans will argue that the ebb-n-flow of this game was different and the Chiefs were driving down the field this time with a chance to win. If that’s your view I understand, but it doesn’t tell a very different story from January’s playoffs loss.
The statistics tell a truly hideous tale but it doesn’t take stats to know that this game was monopolized by Pittsburgh, the optics were bad from the beginning to the end. Replacement center Zach Fulton looked rattled from the beginning and hiked the ball over QB Alex Smith’s head and out the back of the end zone to give the Steelers an early 2-to-nothing lead and it just got worse from there.
The leading rusher in the league, RB Kareem Hunt, was shut down so many times and ended up with 21 yards on 9 carries for a 2.3 average. Not the walk in the park the Chiefs might have been planning.
In the meantime, Le’Veon Bell gained 179 yards on 32 carries and a 5.6 average. However, it was clear from the get-go, the Chiefs were not going to be able to stop Bell and the Chiefs defense looked like they’d been practicing “bad tackling” and had perfected it.
The one turnover the Chiefs got was on a Marcus Peters INT but the offense couldn’t do anything with the possession which became the real story for the Chiefs… so many possessions… so little production.
There is a flip side to every coin. The Chiefs didn’t get the bounces in this game. Had this following bounce gone their way, they could have won:
https://twitter.com/ChiefsReporter/status/919699426226008065
Some fans want to blame QB Alex Smith for this loss because they think he played poorly. You could site the missed opportunity when Demarcus Robinson was wide open in the end zone and Smith over threw him. However, you’d probably be wrong to do that because Smith was being pressured and had arched his body away from the pressure just to get the pass off to begin with. So, if Alex does find a way to hit Robinson… that might also have led to a Chiefs win.
Yes, a loss is a loss but Alex Smith went down playing hard and almost led the team back from a horrible first three quarters. Still, let’s not pretend, this was a bad loss… and it’s my belief that the problem was the match-ups, up front, on both sides of the LOS. Simply put, the Chiefs were manhandled in the trenches.
Concerning that flip side… think about it… at least we’re not a Packer’s fan right now. Nor a Raider’s fan… or even a Broncos’ fan (God forbid).
Now, about the 2017 draft.
No one would question whether or not the Chiefs should have drafted RB Kareem Hunt. He’s special but now we can see he can’t do it all by himself. He needs better blocking in front of him (or ANY blocking in front of him would have been helpful on Sunday).
Like our quoted guest blogger, I do question the second round pick on Tanoh Passagnon because the Chiefs could have picked up a number of prospects who could have helped right away. However, here’s the reason for my, “may” have been wrong: look at the 52 players drafted right after KPass:
For the life of me, I can’t find one of those players who would have made a difference Sunday against the Steelers.
Do the Chiefs need to address their offensive and defensive lines? Yes. However, that’s not something that can happen in one or even two offseasons. The way I “may” agree with our guest blogger… is that the Chiefs should have been working on putting a team together (which is capable of beating a team like the Steelers) for the past five seasons… ever since Reid and Dorsey arrived.
I’m not the only one to call for the construction of a juggernaut offensive line. I’ve been writing about that for years. However, now it appears that the defensive side of the ball must be addressed as well.
Sure, we were missing three starters along the offensive line but it’s hard to see how they would have made a big difference. Especially when the Chiefs had those 5 for their match-up last October 18 when they suffered a huge loss in Pittsburgh, 43-to-14.
Am I suggesting that the Chiefs blow any part of the team up? Not at all. I think a big part of the problem is that Andy Reid has gathered the kinds of players who can win in his system, against 80% of the teams in the NFL. The problem is, it’s not those kinds of teams that they’ll face in January or February.
Until they start planning for January, there’s not likely to be a February.
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