Wildcard, Chiefs Host Dolphins: OPEN THREAD

Laddie Morse

It’s that time of year when the Kansas City Chiefs have normally excelled. The question on everyone’s mind is, will they excel this year? What are the determining factors in that process? We hope the Chiefs coaches have that figured out but the way K.C. has played this season — especially on offense — has everyone in doubt — or at least questioning their ability to dominate. The game is at 7:00 this evening but the Weather will be a factor. We’ll have to see how much of a factor it is for each team. The CHIefs are supposedly used to this kind of frigid weather while the Miami Dolphins are not. Advantage Chiefs? We’ll have to wait and see about that one.

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Weather Forecast

Since night time begins on Saturday, January 13th (today) at 4:17 PM CST, it will be completely dark by 5:00 and more importantly, by game time. Here’s the weather forecast for the 64129 — Arrowhead Stadium — area code:

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The wind is the big issue here. With 13 MPH winds throughout this game, the temperatures will feel much lower. Lower than -1 you ask? Absolutely. Plus, their is no way that the heated field will hel players standing on the sidelines. Unless a person is in this game and one the field, they will not benefit from the heated field. Gary Zezak posted on Twitter:

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“A growing area of snow is heading right into Kansas City. Up to around 1″ of snow is likely this afternoon [Friday] as the Arctic Air Blasts in. The @Chiefs kickoff temperature will be near 0° with -30° to -20° wind chills for tailgating. It’s Red Friday Night In The Big Town!”

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Precautions for Frigid Temperatures

The Chiefs have modified their game day policies to help fans stay warm amidst the coldness expected on Saturday. Not only can fans bring in cardboard (shown at right), but they can also bring:

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KCTV5 provided this information which of course was provided by the Chiefs. <– If you want to see their video, follow that link.

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T a i l g a t e r s • B e w a r e

The Friday Weather report on KSHB41: the temps on Saturday will be from -10 below to -30 below before and during the game. They also said that there will be warming stations in the stadium.

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QB Matchup

Tua Tagovailoa

Miami QB, Tua Tagovailoa, has never played in a post season game, much less won one. I guess you could say the same thing about Patrick Mahomes at one time, but Mahomes has one of the all-time greatest coaches behind him and he’s played all his post season game at home. Does that mean Tua and the Dolphins will lose. No. It just means Tua and the Dolphins have more to over come to take home this win. Beating the defending Super Bowl Champs on their own Home field will be a tall task and the Dolphins are depleted on the defensive side of he ball. Enough so that they had to go out and sign two older players like Melvin Ingram and Justin Houston, so they could have enough players to rotate in and out of the front four lineup.

Patrick Mahomes

Mahomes has had a strange season. His magic seems to have disappeared, no pun intended. HIs troubles have been documented and teamrankings.com says Mahomes was tied for the 4th most INTs this season with 14 and he was tied with two other players including Tua Tagovailoa. That’s one stat that can’t be blamed 100% on his WRs this season.

The Chiefs WRs have notoriously had the dropsies this year. However, Mahomes was bad in other ways too. He had the lowest season of his career in Average Yards Per Attempt with 7.1%. He also had his lowest year for Passing Success Rate at 49.6% and his lowest ever Passer Rating of 96.3. All those stats came from an article called: “Is Patrick Mahomes having the worst season of his career? The numbers say so” at Marca.com.

On the other hand, most QBs would be glad to have those numbers in any year and Mahomes was still in the running for the MVP race up until Lamar Jackson had a 5 TD game in Week 17… against the Dolphins… yes the same Dolphins team the Chiefs face later today.

While the Dolphins have scored more than 30 points eight (8) times this season, the Chiefs — who normally made a habit of scoring more than 30 in previous season under Mahomes — have only scored more than 30 points this season, three (3) times.

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The Deciding Factor: The Running Games

Yes, the deciding factor in this game will be the running game. Depending on which team is able to run the ball the most, or best, should come out of this contest the winner. With the temperatures playing a big role in this contest, throwing, and catching, the ball may be a bigger issue than most realize. Yes, the Chiefs have had issues there earlier this season — like in almost every game — but their ability to run the ball hasn’t changed much. Isiah Pacheco has gotten better as the year has progressed and he’s apparently over his injury issues so running the ball against a battered Dolphins defense should help their cause tremendously.

On the other side of the field, the Dolphins have Raheem Mostert (a thousand yard rusher) and the speedy De’Von Achane (4.32) at running back, but there is a question about whether or not Mostert will be able to go. [Mostert runs a 4.34 40, which is not too shabby.] Even if he does start, he may not finish this game due to the weather and specifically, the cold. Beside Mostert being a QUESTIONABLE player, so is WR Jaylen Waddle.

Like Pacheco, if the defense misses on Achane, it’s off to the races. There remains the question, which team’s running game will show up today?

The Dolphins defense is in such disarray because of all the players they have on the Injured Reserve list including: WLB, Jaelan Phillips, SLB Bradley Chubb, SLB Andrew Van Ginkel, RILB Jerome Baker, LILB Zeke Vanderburgh, WLB Cameron Goode, and RCB Keion Crossen. That’s the reason they signed both Melvin Ingram and Justin Houston. Ingram was made active just this week (Jan 10) and Houston was just signed the day before that.

The Dolphins also have a number of players who they said were QUESTIONABLE including: LCB Xavien Howard, SS DeShon Elliott, FS Jevon Howard, plus Waddle and Mostert mentioned earlier. The Dolphins are the definition of “Banged Up.”

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Here’s “6 Stats to Know” by Matt McMillan at Chiefs.com (3:06):

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My Prediction: Chiefs 27, Dolphins 19

That’s 3 TDs and two FGs for K.C. and one TD and four FGs for Miami.

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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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