A Vanguard Victory With a Radiation Afterglow

A Vanguard Victory With a Radiation Afterglow

A lot of things have already been said… and felt… about the Kansas City Chiefs victory over the San Diego Charger on Sunday at Arrowhead stadium. It was what could be termed as a seminal victory and now we’re sorting out what it all means in the radiation afterglow.

In what started out as a Chernobyl meltdown through most of three-quarters, turned out to actually be the setup story for the best game day reclamation scenario and victory to ever grace this organization. Not just for the salvation of one game… but perhaps a whole season, and beyond.

Have these Chiefs been there before? Well, yes and no. No, they have never been down by 21 points and then come back but they have been down with a record of 1-5 and then reeled off 10 straight regular season victories in one year.

Now, we all know this is/was “just” the first game of the season. However, ask yourself: did that game “feel” like a significant game? At the half? No. At the end of OT? Absolutely yes.

I believe there are a number of aspects about the way this game turned out, which may make this game… more than… just one game, or just another game. Remember that game when Joe Montana hit Willie Davis at the goal line who then side-stepped his way into the end zone? Remember that game when Franco Harris caught the ball off the turf and took it for a TD with time running out against the Raiders? Remember the Kirk Gibson limping homer game?  Remember that game when Alex Smith ran the ball in to beat the Chargers in overtime to cap a three touchdown come from behind victory? Yep… for me, it’ll be that kind of memory.

Hearts on Fire

After waiting and watching every hour of the offseason while the Chiefs were pimping, primping and prepping for this season, to watch them out-hustled and outperformed was upsetting and that would be an understatement. However, what was disturbing was that many of the players looked, for all intents and purposes, like they were fighting their hearts out to win the game. In the trenches and in the backfield the game was a battle. Merely a battle they were losing. You could tell Marcus Peters was into the contest but Chargers WR Keenan Allen was unstoppable and made every Chiefs DB pay. Still most the Chiefs on offense tried their hearts out. In year’s past, I’ve written about the visible lack of effort as the cause for losses. Here, I knew that would not be the reason for a loss. Heart wins the day. Heart shall propel this team. That’s something you can bank on. They just have to stop starting ugly.

From Hysteria to Historical

Some numbers stick out about this game still. The San Diego Chargers scored 24 straight unanswered points before Rumplestiltskin woke up. Alex Smith threw for 363 yards and a pair of touchdowns in a record-breaking come from behind victory for the organization. Now, the Chiefs have an 11 game regular winning streak. Eric Fisher was the highest rated tackle in the NFL in week one (see below).

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“Time” for Chili Fries

Co-offensive coordinator Brad Childress could be having a positive effect on Andy Reid in the region clock management. I thought this and expressed it prior to the season. Well have to keep our fingers on the pulse of the wristwatch to see if this personal flaw of Andy Reid’s has been healed by the presence of Bryan Cranston… err… I mean Brad Childress.

“It was the Best of Times… It was the Worst of Times”

I was sitting and thinking for most of the first half, and much of the third quarter, that I’d waited all offseason for THIS!? How could Dontari Poe, Jaye Howard and Allen Bailey look like such a bunch of high schoolers and then suddenly turn into the attack dogs of war in the fourth quarter? That gave this game a bizarre feeling of The Great Train Robbery (the Bolts being the thieves… the Chiefs being the runaway train)… A Tale of Two Cities (it’s the Chiefs who portray Charles Darnay so clearly and are sentenced to death but on the eve of the Revolution — at the last minute — it’s another man, Sydney Carton — or the Chargers — who are put to death by guillotine… and The Greatest Story Ever Told (with the Chiefs all but left for dead then resurrecting in the end). In other words, this game had everything to make a great piece of remarkable literature. It even had a twist at the end: a Chiefs victory.

The Ware Wolf

K.C. Wolf is dead. There’s a new Wolf in town: RB Spencer Ware Wolf. He’s a beast… a gladiator… a hurt locker for the opposition. Call him what you will but, he’s a Chief and I can’t wait to see him lay some more hurt on NFL defenses this year. He’s one of the players who looked good from beginning to end in Sunday’s kooky affair and 6.4 yards per carry will attest to that. “Ahh-wooooooo”

Who Are You?

Chiefs… who are you? Are you the girlfriend I once had who would disappear for 2 weeks at a time then reappear sharing how she had gone off to live with Trappist Monks and had learned to eat dried organic pears with her toes? Or are you the Beautiful Beast I have come to love who is always there to love and protect? Too bizarre? Yes… and so was Sunday’s game.

Perhaps these Chiefs are a little of both. You have to ask that question, not only after Sunday’s game but in the aftermath of last season’s 1-5 start and 10-and-0 breakdown and recovery story. Who are these Chiefs? We still don’t know.

The Option Option

When Alex Smith went to an audible and called his own number on an option play to win the game, he was calling an option play he’d run in college… well… a few times. So, was he reverting to what is his nature? The spread option?

If so… I’d like to see Alex Smith use the option option… more. Otherwise, I don’t really like the options to that.

Scratches and Itches

It looks like Andy Reid likes to scratch where it itches. He said this about after the game about why De’Anthony Thomas was a scratch for this game,

“You saw some of the things (Hill) was doing; De’Anthony does some of those same things,. Not only in the return game but also offensive-scheme stuff that we do. I only needed one of them yesterday for that.”

That sounds like coach Reid really does think of DAT and Tyreek Hill as the same player. It also may sound like he doesn’t want to cut a talent like DAT until John Dorsey can find suitable trade value for him.

Alex Smith’s Primal Scream

For a quarterback who has never led his team back during the last two minutes of a professional football game, Alex Smith sure looked like a natural doing it. More importantly, it sends a message to anyone who thinks they can get up on the Chiefs and expect to put the game away by going into a prevent defense and then drain the clock by running the ball. Primal scream therapy is based on the idea that neurosis comes from suppressed pain. Well, it looks like Alex Smith is free from the pain of being called a two-minute wannabee. Enough is enough. So now, let’s see what he can do in the aftermath.

MO & OM: Momentum and Omens

The question has been raised as a result of the way this one was won: was this game an omen? Could be. However, I have never in all my days seen a Chiefs game where the momentum shifted so completely on a dime and turned in their favor. The Kansas City Chiefs now have an opportunity to capitalize on this outcome… and the true “moment” that this game has provided.

Go Chiefs!!!!