That was a horrible sports weekend if you live in Kansas City. I use the phrase “I’ve never met a sport I can’t get into” often, and my wife is more than happy to corroborate that truth. This means that September is a truly wonderful time for me every year. The month of September features a broad variety of sports for our viewing pleasure and I spend the month keyed in on these:
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MLB
I love baseball and have to mention it first. The drive to the playoffs and October is electrifying.
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European Football (Soccer)
Yes, I am one of those. I love the European game, and follow English Premier League most closely. September features a season in full swing. I will spare getting into too much detail here, but I watch a lot and have a team I love. There is also some personal focus on the Italian league, which I mention for the overall point, which I do promise to make.
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MLS
Yeah, I like soccer a ton. Sporting KC all the way!!
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NASCAR
Like I said, I watch everything.
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College Football
I’m not heavily invested in college football. The main reason has to be that KU is not either. I went to a DII sports school and I keep up with them, but KU has always been my rooting interest for college sports on TV. I live in Big 10 country and have kind of gotten into Badger football, but it is fleeting at best.
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Back to the Point
Getting back to the point I started to make and promised to finish: this weekend SUCKED. Almost every team I like lost. The only real win was the Milwaukee Brewers wrapping up the NL Central and avoiding that stupid play in game, which will most likely be against the Dodgers. No thanks. I hope the Cardinals lose by a dozen and Yadi retires during the press conference.
And One Quick Excuse
The past two weeks I put out a column called the Pre-cap, which is my review of the game I expect to watch. My plan was to get this written prior to all Sunday games kicking off and enjoy a weekend of football. That did not happen this week due to a crazy busy weekend in the wedding industry coupled with a crazy weekend of my kids’ sports. I had to pivot to focusing on watching and enjoying a rebound game at Arrowhead, and not as much on speculating about it.
Week 3 Recap
This was a bad game, and that may be an understatement. I was not able to key in until most of the way through the 2nd quarter, but my watch party caught me up quickly: we have been sloppy and should be up 14-6 or better. A few minutes later I had the pleasure of witnessing CEH put the ball on the ground for the second week in a row, and it was not any more fun to watch than against the Ravens.
Let me real quick close the loop on my Pre-cap predictions for that one:
- Kelce and Hill ball out: yes to Kelce, HELL NO to Hill
- CEH with 80 yds: NO, but he did add a key fumble
- Opportunistic D: they did take the ball away
- Special Teams: Pringle had a 33 yd return, so sort of.. I guess
Turnovers Galore
Going into week 2 Patrick Mahomes had ZERO INT in the month of September for his career. After week 3 he has 3. The week 2 INT was a dumb play on his part, and should not have happened. The first this week was not on Mahomes. I believe there should be a stat in place that ties this INT to Kemp as it was 100% his fault. Catch the ball or at the very least knock it down. The other week 3 INT looked like route miscommunication between Mahomes and Kelce. These things happen, but this was not a good time. The Hill fumble was a good play by the defender, but again, not a good time.
The last one was the CEH fumble, and this has to stop. Both of Clyde’s fumbles are due to lackadaisical mechanics that are normally ground into middle schoolers. The one against the Ravens was due to the ball being in the inside hand. In fairness Oweh made a play, but ball placement did matter. Had CEH switched to his right hand, which is fundamentally correct, Oweh would not have had the angle. Furthermore, a fumble would have most likely gone outside giving more CHIEFS players a chance to recover. The week 3 fumble was due to ball security.
Two hands on the ball, and this does not happen.
Offense Problem
At this point in the season I think we are pretty aware of what we do and do not have in the defense. The Chiefs are built and coached as an offensive-minded team, which is a perfectly acceptable way to build a team. A team like the Chiefs simply needs a D to be disruptive and opportunistic to thrive. The D did hold the Chargers rushing attack to 3.5 YPC overall, and they did force 4 punts. Our D did their job in week 3. Even though the O put the D back on the field 4 times due to the turnovers, the Chiefs still won the Time of Possession battle: 32:31 to 27:29. Only silver lining: the turnovers did not create really short fields. Still, not a good look.
The offense did not need to be perfect, but they did need to put up 30 points. That should happen in their sleep. Someone in the WR corps needs to consistently step up and put a stop to this Tyreek double teaming stuff. That, and don’t turn over the ball. Either 50 more yards from Tyreek or 1 less turnover probably gets us a week 3 win.
Reflection Time
So how does this get fixed? That is undoubtedly the conversation Reid and staff are having. I do want to take a quick moment to wish Coach Reid the best of health after his trip to the hospital. Hopefully it was merely caution as reported.
My initial thought was to look for trade scenarios, which seems to be where many others are right now. However, then something clicked when I saw a social media post: we have been here and it’s been fine. We don’t even have to look back far. Follow me on a journey back to our Super Bowl LIV winning 2019 season.
Starting Hot
The CHIEFS raced out the gate to a 4-0 record. This included the Red Out game in Jacksonville, a big win in Oakland, a home win against the Ravens, and a close one in Detroit. The Lions actually looked like they might be someone at that point of the season.
The Rough Middle
I actually kind of forgot how rough the middle portion of that season was. It’s funny how wining the Super Bowl drives a certain narrative. In 2019, weeks 5-10 saw the following things happen:
- 2 losses to AFC South’s Indy and Houston due to hard running attacks
- Patrick Mahomes dislocating his knee running up the middle on the goal line in Denver
- Matt Moore losing to the Packers at home, but handling the Vikings
- Mahomes making his return in time to blow a game to the 4-and-5 Titans in Nashville (yes at this point in the season the two teams that ended up in the AFC Championship game were 6-and-4 and 5-and-5)
Revisiting this stretch makes our current 1-2 record look a little different. The 2019 stretch felt like the sky was falling with the Mahomes injury.
Close It Out
Mahomes and Company finished the regular season winning 6 straight and the Patriots games was the only really dicey victory. They followed that with 3 straight playoff come-from-behind victories to hoist the first Lombardi trophy in 50 years. Great times!!
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Current State of Mind
I am feeling pretty good. Is there cause for concern? Hell yeah there is. We don’t appear to have a run D, a consistent run game, or a #2 WR… and… we could very easily be 0-3. However, we could also very easily be 3-0 with a couple of slightly different ball bounces. We have 4 tough games coming up, 3 of them are on the road, and the home game is against a stout looking Buffalo team. We very well may lose more games, and –> that will not make this a lost season… IF… it happens. I can assure you, that none of the 4 teams coming up are excited to play the Chiefs.
My prediction: we will get through this rough spot a better team, and we will be right there when the playoffs start. My advice: stay on board with this team. You will want to be saying “I told you so,” when this all ends well.
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Josh Kingsley — ArrowheadOne
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