Shawn Sorter
One big positive, as I went into this game was my heart rate would not be high regardless. When you have come back down to low expectations and knowing that if you lose this game your season was pretty much over, so the pressure just isn’t that great as a fan, and even in winning it just seems like a band aid on a team that most fans don’t expect to go far this season.
The Gore
RB Derrick Gore ran strong and had 4.4 yards per carry. The amateurs among us could see Derrick Gore’s ability in preseason. We were told he was running against 3rd and 4th string defenses, but he was also running behind a 3rd and 4th string line. At that time he looked like the Chiefs best back by quite a large margin. Perhaps he didn’t know enough of the playbook or wasn’t good enough at picking up blitzes, but the fact that it took till the 7th game in a thus far forgettable season to get him involved is a bit baffling. He has vision, hits holes, seems to have more speed than either of our top 2 backs and has some power as well.
The early play calling was appealing. Short and fast routes and throws. We seemed to get away from it quickly for some reason.
Willie Gay looked great in coverage tonight and got his 2nd interception in as many weeks. He also had a great stick on Daniel Jones to stop the Giants on a 3rd and short. I’m beginning to see why he has excited his coaches.
We started to use our backs out of the backfield in the flat. Check downs are there so very often. We need to do it more. Darrel Williams with 6 catches for 61 yards would be there every week.
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The Bad
I could never see a great replay of this play, but it appeared the ball went off Jerick McKinnon’s helmet on Mahomes early interception. Was it a good throw? Likely not and it appeared other receivers were open, but once again, a receiver is part of the issue in Pat’s interception bonanza.
Twice in the first half number 97 didn’t know whether he was supposed to be on the field or not. I’m not sure if this was Alex Okafor’s fault or some issue with coaching, but it was enough to notice either way.
We had a chance at a goal line stand when on 4th down on the Giants 1st touchdown Ben Niemann once again had no idea who he was supposed to cover. It appeared that the run defense would have been fine without him but he read it wrong and crashed the line leaving the tight end wide open for an easy score. It’s hard to watch winning 3 downs only to mess up like that on the down that would have given the Chiefs the ball.
Patrick Mahomes just seems off. Watching with the family and my wife said, “Patrick seems more worried about razzle-dazzle than quality throws.”
He’s still skipping passes, and tonight had several more really off target throws. He could have had a couple more interceptions than he had. He’s throwing behind receivers and other than the beginning of the game where he was 8 for 8 he was just very inaccurate. This goes back to my point about liking the early play calling. Pat also seems to frequently still leave the pocket when there is no reason to. Sure he can make amazing throws when he does that, but he lessens the area of the field he can easily throw to and it seems to mess up his tackles more often than not.
Add another fumble to Mahomes’ resume and he’s just not the same as he has been in the past. What teams have been doing on defense is well stated. But something not said enough is how much the delayed blitz’s have been affecting Pat when he rolls anywhere at all, especially on 3rd down it just really messes up his progression. It seemed to start first in the Baltimore game and other teams have picked up on it. Chris Simms said recently that he has a source who told him Pat’s foot is still bothering him. After a play where he ran for a first down he started jumping up and down a bit, then seemed to walk awkwardly when he came back onto the field. It would be nice to know there was a legit reason for his struggles and to be confident that he will find his mojo again.
The Chiefs defense seems to continue to struggle to recognize screens. Not being able to quickly diagnose those ends up resulting in a lot of large gains.
On the 4th quarter non-catch with Mecole Hardman if you are going to call a timeout anyway, you might as well be prepared to throw the challenge flag. You are not going to win the challenge but you get 2 and have not used 1 at that point and you will lose the timeout either way.
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The Ugly
Sorry, but Dirty Dan Sorenson can’t even interfere effectively. Poor guy had both hands on the ball after interfering and it still goes through his hands right to the receiver.
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LB Ben Niemann had another bad game and forgot to cover the TE on this NYG TD.
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The officials seemed to consistently give us about a half yard to a yard short from where we gained on the spots must of the game. I’m not sure it made any difference, but it just seemed like something to mention.
A stat during the game stated that the Chiefs were plus 83 on turnovers from 2013 when Andy Reid first got to Kansas City until 2020. This year they are negative 11.
Maybe the only star this year who has not been responsible for a loss was Travis Kelce. His fumble in the 3rd quarter perhaps was because he felt sorry for his teammates who had made massive gaffes and it gave the Giants 7 points and was somewhere between a 10 and 14 point swing. Without that fumble I think the Chiefs pull away in this game.
Chiefs Chris Jones with back-to-back penalties was unacceptable.
The number of penalties in the game overall tonight was also unacceptable, 12 which was even more than the last Super Bowl.
Lajarius Sneed falling when he had a chance for a pick 6 to take control of the game is a pretty good example of the Chiefs overall season so far.
Crowd noise was not normal, but can you blame them? We almost lost to a team of backups. That is all.
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Shawn Sorter — ArrowheadOne
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