The Good
This game was so fun to watch. A 36-to-10 trouncing of the Pittsburgh Steelers, why wouldn’t it be? Very few teams can run on us any longer. When you take that away, it helps the rest of the team in so many ways, and that was a big part of the story of this game.
ClydeEdwards-Helaire’s touchdown run was all him. Two Steelers burst through our line and smacked him, but he bounced off like a bowling ball and scampered into the end zone. It may have been the best play of his young career.
Ward’s pick was instrumental in getting off to a good start. Hanging onto the ball with 1 hand was impressive.
The Offensive line protected well all day. Patrick had an eternity on the touchdown throw to Pringle. RT Andrew Wylie did an amazing job on TJ Watt. On the second touchdown to Pringle, he made a couple of incredible moves to get into he end zone.
The running game looked solid overall. In addition to Clyde’s one nice run, Williams and Gore ran really well. I still think our depth chart is backwards, but it’s working. It was good to see Gore getting in the game early. Whether that signifies a change in philosophy or simply because the Chiefs felt really good about how they were controlling the game, I’m not sure. Gore’s catch was great to see.
Fry hitting a 44 yard field goal with strong winds in the first half was nice. Needed him to do that. I was expecting to go for it a lot on 4th down with both our punter and kicker out. It would have seemed that Butker was still there from a strategy standpoint.
At the end of the half when Pittsburgh went for it on 4th and 1, the Chiefs defense just stepped up and showed how dominant they have become. Ingram read the play from the start and strung it out. I’m betting the Steelers are wishing they had just kept Ingram on their bench instead of trading him to us..
Patrick Mahomes was nearly perfect in this game. It was as good as he has played all year.
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The Bad
You can still see that Mahomes doesn’t trust Hardman. You rarely see him chastising his teammates the way he does to Hardman. I just have zero faith that he will ever be good enough upstairs to be a difference maker consistently.
Pringle had another drop. Gordon had 2 drops in the first half. One cost the team 7 points and should have been caught at this level. He’s been such a disappointment in the receiving game. Thankfully he is contributing as a blocker. I still hope he can turn it on down the stretch.
Robinson again turned a 1st down catch into not a 1st down by running backwards. There is likely not a Chief I more hate to watch with the ball in his hands than Robinson.
Fry left 4 points on the field in the first half. Sure he’s a practice player pickup, but come on now.
Chris Jones having back to back offsides called on him when he returned to the game in the 2nd half, the last of which being lining up in the neutral zone, should not be happening.
Clyde being out for the year is unfortunate. I feel bad for him. It definitely affects our RB depth, but there is little to no drop off between he and our other two backs.
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The Ugly
The officials called a mostly solid game. One major exception was not calling a clear pass interference call that should have gone on a Steelers defender who was guarding against Hardman that stopped a Chiefs drive.
Ray-Ray McCloud was comical down the stretch getting a taunting call when he was down 30-0 after he got his team a first down. Really embarrassing for your family Ray-Ray.
Chad Henne coming in and promptly fumbling on his first 2 plays was definitely one of the few lowlights of the day. Get that stuff out of your system Chad.
Perhaps the most puzzling decision of the game was Mike Tomlin deciding to call timeouts down 36-10 with 2 minutes in the game. He had already kicked a field goal down 30-0 earlier, most likely to assure he was not shut out. Genius Coach you are, you do realize you are still in the running for a playoff spot and you did nothing but risk injury to your team as well? Not impressed at that move by a normally solid coach.
8 straight wins and 6 straight division titles in a row makes for a great Sunday afternoon. The Chargers losing helped to wrap that up. The Patriots losing means we are only 1 Titans loss away from not having to even win both of our last 2 games in order to get the first week playoff Bye. It would be fantastic if we were able to go into our last game giving Henne and the gang more practice, Lord knows he needs it.
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Shawn Sorter — ArrowheadOne
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