I’m gonna be honest, I did not see a win against the Oakland Raiders coming. As good as Kansas City Chiefs have been against the division, as bad as Carr has been in Arrowhead, this year’s team just felt different. Chiefs didn‘t look like a team with the talent on defense to stop the Raiders high-powered offense, before we knew Marcus Peters was suspended, let alone after. The offense had been up and down, but their only decent performance recently, had been against a Jets team that stubbornly refused to run zone coverage. When Chiefs won this game, they didn’t just look like they fixed some things, scheme-wise, they looked like a totally different team. You can thank Andy Reid and Eric Berry for that, because they noticed something that none of us did.
The Best Word I Know Is F-U-N, F-U-N, Spells Fun – Mary Moo Cow: As the grind of the season set in, and the losses piled up, a traditionally up-beat Chiefs team seemed dejected. Coaches talk about bad body language as a problem, and Chiefs had ton of it. Guys were hanging there heads after bad plays, and barely celebrating good ones. Andy Reid told players to boost their enthusiasm this week. Have fun, celebrate every good play and don‘t dwell too much on the bad. For a team like the Chiefs, having fun is way more important than any of us realized. Chiefs have never been an elite roster, but they’ve frequently fielded an elite team. All the talk about family isn’t just talk to the Chiefs, they play best as a family, and they do best when celebrating each others‘ successes. A little bit of fun on the field put a spark back in the pass rush, helped the CBs forget about the last play and gave a general energy boost to everyone on the team. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking. It’s so much easier to do your job when you feel good about it.
Eric Berry- Motivational Speaker: When the leaders you have can’t get the results you need, you go find the better leaders. Eric Berry has been the heart and soul of the defense ever since he came back from beating cancer to a pulp. This is one reason Chiefs were willing to give a huge contract to a Safety, which is, often, not a high priority position. Up until this week, Berry had been present with the team in a limited role, but Chiefs ramped up his presence and influence on the team. They took the rare step of having Berry lead the pre-game huddle, something that’s almost always done by someone actually playing in the game. When Berry speaks, guys listen, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a player in the locker room who doesn’t care what Berry has to say. The fact that Berry is someone Marcus Peters listens to should tell you just how special he is. I don’t know what Berry plans on doing after football, but on Sunday, he was the coach that Chiefs desperately needed to turn this defense around.
The margin of error in the NFL is razor thin. Elite teams like the Patriots can still lose to less talented division rivals late in the season. A Super Bowl favorite, like the Eagles, can be derailed by a single injury. For Chiefs, they once again let a bad loss snow-ball on them. It took a good coach, and a great player, to realize that Chiefs problem was less personnel and more personal. The Chiefs are going up against a Chargers team this weak that is flat out better than they are. On offense and defense, the Chargers have a better roster than the Chiefs right now. In a season defining moment, against a superior team, the only thing we can hope, for the Chiefs, is that they have fun, and play for Berry. If they do that, I feel like anything is possible, even if it isn’t likely. Go Chiefs.
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