Titans at Chiefs: Hummer or Ferrari , Brown v Montana, 1965 or 1985? – I regularly tell my daughter and grandkids that I grew up in the best era and experienced my elementary school years during the 1950s. These days, that makes me old, but it also means I grew up in a time when Cleveland running back (called a fullback back then) Jim Brown was God on the football field. As a young teen we’d smash in to each other playing football at the beach, the yard, in the living room, in parking lots, and anywhere we could find the space. I even created a pencil and paper game of “Straight Line Football” out of the weekly church bulletins. I recall, in tee front yard, my younger brother and his friends would attach themselves to each of my legs and I’d drag them from one end of the yard to the other… like I was Jim Brown, who we all were attempting to imitate. By then of course it was the mid-60s and Mr. Jim Brown had established himself as the G.O.A.T. — which he remains in my mind to this day. Mostly.
Admittedly, some days I would play like I was Mike Garrett, or Jim Taylor or Paul Horning, or most any other RB… even those from our local high school. The point is I almost never pretended like I was a QB… except for Gary Beban from UCLA… because the most powerful player in football, at that time, was always the guy carrying the ball.
Two decades later, I was infantilized by the Bill Walsh West Coast offense and with Joe Montana, especially since those were also some very lean years for the Chiefs. The passing game was exciting and much of that was due to a sensibility of so many NFL fans who were raised on the beefy, bash your brains out style of football that was pounded out on the ground and had been that way for decades.
What Joe Montana and Dan Marino and yes, John Elway, all brought to the game, was due to an elegance and risk of putting the ball in the air so often. Or at least that’s what I thought about an aerial attack.
Joe Montana was decidedly effective and the timing routes, along with the talent of Jerry Rice (the true GOAT for all positions) gave the 49ers a real advantage that lasted what seemed like an eternity in football years (his perfect record in Super Bowls had me believing he was the GOAT for a long time).
There’s a dichotomy: in the way these two players won or how teams won in those two eras, has marked the current game from the way things were done ages ago.
That difference will be on full display when the Tennessee Titans visit the Kansas City Chiefs this weekend and they attempt to run the ball down the Chiefs collective throats with Derrick Henry… while the Chiefs attempt to stretch pigskin reality beyond all recognition with the speed, timing, and accuracy with a souped up passing game.
The question is: will the Chiefs defense be able to slow the Titans RB Derrick Henry down enough to get a higher number of stops than the Titans defense can slow the Chiefs offense down?
Earlier in the year, Derrick Henry had some games in which he didn’t produce very well. Some fans think he’s been Superman and invincible but here’s his output in weeks 5-through-9 this season:
Derrick Henry averaged 67 yards per game over that span so he’s not always going to run for a kazillion yards each game. Plus, Henry averaged more than 17 carries per game during that time so it’s not that he wasn’t involved i the Titans offense. He was only getting 3.88 yards per carry too so he can be held to a minimum. He’s not unstoppable.
It’s going to be a unique confluence of offensive styles that the Chiefs and the Titans bring to this contest. One team has one of the best running backs to ever perform in the postseason, plus they can pass the ball a little bit… while the other team has one of the best passing attacks the postseason has ever seen, and they can run the ball a little bit. One team is very 1965 and very Jim Brown-ish and the other team is very 1985 and very Joe Montana-esk. In fact, a comparison of those players is rather early in their commonalities:
Brown and Henry have very similar stats: the number of rushes, the total yards, the TDs, the Average per carry, the Yards per game… all reflect a dominant player.
The same is true for Joe Montana and Patrick Mahomes:
Here, their games, total passing yards, TDs, Attempts, and Yards per game are all very comparable.
I’ve also used the analogy of a tank-like Hummer for the Titans attack vs the breakneck pace of a Ferrari for the Chiefs.
Head coach Andy Reid has often said that a game comes down to few plays and that the team which makes the least mistakes will usually win. That’s what appears to be the case here. In the past few… or 50… years, the Chiefs haven’t held up well under big game pressure. Now is the time for them to step up and play a flawless game, because I think that just might be what it will take to move past the Titans in this one.
Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne
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