Shawn Sorter
Covid has affected so many things in our lives. This game may have been the last chance we would have gotten to see Patrick Mahomes versus Aaron Rogers. The last time these two teams met, Mahomes was hurt. I believe the Kansas City Chiefs will be set up to face the Green Bay Packers in a couple of years again when they play the NFC North, but since this was just a bonus game, who knows where Rogers will play next year. On the bright side it set the game up to be much more winnable, especially with how poorly the Chiefs have been playing.
The Good
DE Melvin Ingram made an immediate impact. He got his hands on Jordan Love on the Packers first drive on 3rd down to force a punt. His name was called later for assisting on stopping a back behind the line of scrimmage.
Can one player really make that much of a difference? I think they can, when pressuring the quarterback affects every other part of the defense. Hopefully he can be in on more plays each week.
On the Chiefs first scoring drive RB Darrel Williams had a really nice effort play near the goal line on a 3rd down to extend the drive.
It was the difference in 4 points early on.
Frank Clark just looks different these past 2 weeks. One play he got into the backfield so fast and put his hands up to help create an incompletion that it appeared he may have been teleported there. If we can get Clark, Ingram and Jones all rolling after the quarterback it could really turn our season around.
Our defense and special teams were really solid. Shutting a team out even one with a backup quarterback is not easy to do and we did it until very late in the 4th quarter. Butker hitting a 55 yard field goal at the end of the first half was huge. I liked how the defense attacked so frequently. I know you can do it too much, but the times we just rushed 4 seemed to be the only times we struggled.
Tommy Townsend was huge in this game. Multiple punts inside the 10 yard line really helped the defense to step up. Without Tommy, the Chiefs may not get the win.
L’Jarius Sneed had a super impressive interception, literally taking the ball away from Davante Adams.
Both he and fellow CB Charvarius Ward locked down WR Davante Adams and pretty much every other receiver they went up against all night. The Packers ended up with 19 receptions for 190 yards.
Patrick Mahomes was clutch on his last throw of the game. When crunch time was needed he stayed in the pocket, rolled out when pressure came, had a defender hanging all over him, and threw a great pass to Tyreek Hill.
Interestingly enough Hill was both held and later pushed on the route but neither was called, thankfully it didn’t matter.
Perhaps the best take away from this game was the absence of a turnover. See what I did there?
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The Pack
I’m concerned about our inability to run the ball when the other team knows we want to run. Our goal line and short yardage runs were largely ineffective, only working one time out of four tries, that I recall.
Jerrick McKinnon had a catch in the 1st quarter and we badly needed to convert the 3rd down play.
He went down like a limp noodle when it seemed he could have made a move or even easier just dove for the 1st down.
Travis Kelce had 2 drops today and a false start. You can see he’s frustrated by the struggles of the offense. We need him to be perfect like he normally is.
Mecole Hardman had a critical 3rd down drop. We kept doing things to keep us from extending drives. Our only successful drive was our 1st one. I don’t ever believe Mecole will be a real receiver, and the little things he needed to do, he rarely does. He had a couple of nice runs with the ball, but muffed one punt and misplayed another. He often seems to be off or on, not much in between.
The Chiefs seemed to really miss Lucas Niang and Mike Remmers. Andrew Wiley struggled.
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The Ugly
One of the worst plays of the game was again Dirty Dan. It was a 4th and 5 late in the game and the Chiefs could likely have ended the game there if they got a stop. Here it is again, first in regular speed, then slo-mo.
Not only did Dan give his receiver an ocean of space, but then he charged in and totally whiffed on the tackle to also allow the touchdown. It seems that he has a downright horrible play every week now.
There are still a number of things that concern me with this Chiefs team, but none so much as the play of our all time great quarterback. Patrick Mahomes is simply messed up right now. My wife mentioned that lately his eyes just don’t look right. Women’s intuition and all of that, but either way he’s just so far off. From still hopping balls to receivers to downright missing them. I don’t recall the last time he had a deep shot that was completed. Thankfully the ball he threw right at a defender tonight was dropped. There were a number of times that Mahomes didn’t see the wide open receiver, while he seems hell bent on still throwing the ball 50 yards down the field. Is it just stubborn pride? Maybe an injury? The bone headed plays by other players on the offense including, drops and penalties, surely does matter, but Mahomes used to overcome these things. I noticed that he didn’t run at all in the game, which he normally does when the offense struggles to this degree.
The coaches also don’t help Mahomes by running the ball 7 times on our opening touchdown drive and then largely going away from it the rest of the game. And when we did run, we gave the ball to the clearly inferior back in Darrel Williams. Give Derrick Gore the ball 25 times and he would have 125 yards and a touchdown, and I’m also convinced that Mahomes would do much better than he did not even hitting 200 yards in this one. One sequence of three plays resulted in Mahomes not seeing Kelce wide open in the middle of the field, then Kelce dropping a likely 20 yard game, and then Hill slipping on a play where the ball seemed to still be thrown behind him.
Summary
The Chiefs got the win. We beat the team with the best record in football and the number 1 seed in the NFC going into Sunday. They are not just Aaron Rogers and a bunch of nobodies, their defense was really good. Their offensive line was very good. Their backs were good. We likely don’t win this game if Aaron Rogers was in there, however as I don’t have faith that our offense could have done much more and we know our defense would not have held the Packers to 7 points. Next week we play the Raiders with a chance at a piece of first place depending on what the Chargers do. Here’s to hoping that the Chiefs flag buried under the stadium in Las Vegas can give us a little extra juice.
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Shawn Sorter — ArrowheadOne
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