Yup.

Sent a guy in motion, Smith gave a hard hut and Fulton came out of his stance so hard he almost fell down.

Got drawn off by our own hard count on a 3rd and short.

EDIT: I take that back, it wasn't a third and short. It was first down in that last drive before West forced himself to fumble.

I agree for the most part. However, it also doesn't give the offense enough time to do anything. I'm sure TOP was slanted big time in Pitt's favor.

yup

SUCKS...didn't expect it.

the crowd was more fired up.

We did on the first drive but then the Steelers did exactly what they did in the last matchup. They completely threw us off our game and frustrated our players.
They blitzed Alex and made him timid, they sent James Harrison on a b line to knock Kelce right in the chest when the ball was snapped to get him off his route, they were physical at the LOS.
They knew Kelce would lose his cool if you frustrated him.

They beat the shit out of us up front on both sides and it was frustrating. Only Schwartz and Jones were the only lineman I saw who held their own and made plays.

This team has some mentally weak players and I'm looking right at Kelce

And our team has NEVER done that. When the **** have we ever gone out on that field and just knocked the shit out of someone?

CHIEFS 30 TEXANS 0
 

Last year AT HOUSTON in the wild card playoff game.

Yeah......no.

Eric Berry popped Bell in his chest on one run and he clearly felt Berry's presence.
Marcus Peters got in Antonio Brown's face and pissed him off after ripping the ball out to save a TD.

We have some of those guys, but the team mentality is weak. It's time for us to be the dickhead assholes who are headshoting players.

Wow! I missed that from up in the stands. I remember the false start but didn't realize that was what happened. Well hopefully Fulton's starting days are over. Ehinger should bulk up by training camp. He already won the starting job before he got hurt. He should continue to improve and keep Fulton on the bench next season.

There was a moment in the 3rd quarter where RNR and Hali were standing on the sidelines waiving their arms and trying to get the fans pumped up.

I turned to the guy next to me and asked why the hell we should get fired up when that was the most energy those guy had shown all night.

Aggravating as all hell and the whole way home that game made me ask myself why I care at all. I've never been one of the fans that is so cynical that I fall into the "we care more than the players do" trap. But after that game I just don't know what else to conclude.

Not a pleasant impression to take away from a home playoff game.

The Broncos game that we lost in 2013. It was in mile-high and I think it was Manning's second year. We spent that whole game just taking it to guys. All those rub routes and underneath routes were met with a DB or Linebacker just laying the wood to whoever came across.

It was a prime-time game and the team came out looking to send a message. Still lost, but they weren't intimidated.

Looked like Chris Jones was the only one that cared at all.

Another no-show in the post-season from Poe.

I don't give a **** if he stays or goes at this point. I'm done with this supposed behemoth of a human being getting handled one on one. Just how good can the guy be if our run defense was utter shite all season?

Plug Vince Wilfork's fat ass in there to just be enormous and you'd have accomplished more than Poe was able to accomplish in the middle this year.

If Poe wants anything north of $10 million a season......let him go and plug Jaye Howard at NT. Bailey - Howard - Jones

I agree. But honestly, can the cap even handle paying him $10 million per season? That's a pretty hefty contract. With what we are already paying Smith and Houston, and likely to be paying Berry, that just seems like a cap crippling move. I like Poe. He's a hell of a NT. But at $10 million per year I just can't justify it. Not with how tight or cap is already.

I'm firmly set on letting him take a stroll. His invisible play (other than the Tebow) this year, back issues, and apparent goal of eating himself out of the league are enough for me to say peace out. I think fans sort of fell in love with him due to his likability and impressive performance his first couple of years. I feel we are fairly stacked at the D-line with some young talent and guys returning from injury that make the risk unnecessary. Some team will overpay and we should come out with a 3rd round comp pick. I am also still really pissed that we let Irving go to the Cowboys, he would really help soften any potential blow along the D-line. Poe used to punish double teams his first couple years, now any average guard/center can handle him with ease.

Fortunately I'm not a GM.

Because I'd just take my phone off the hook until draft day and tell any free agent involved in that clown show that they can go take playoff games off somewhere else.

Anybody that's a FA this year has now been a part of 3 absolute abortions in the playoffs, especially the guys on the defense.

Seriously, I just don't give a ****. I know I'm in the easily irritable post-playoff stages but I just don't care. EB - we can blow massive leads without you just the same as we could with you. Poe - as much fun as watching you get butt-****ed by non-descript interior lineman every January has been, I'm pretty sure we can find a street FA capable of accomplishing absolutely nothing when the lights are bright.

Houston, Maclin, Smith....man, cut all of them and right this very second I would give precisely zero ****s. I'm so tired of key players on this team wilting when it matters.

If it were up to me....

1. Extend Foles. Take his $10M and turn it into a signing bonus over 3 years.
2. Trade or cut Smith.
3. If Charles won't take a paycut....he's gone.
4. Cut: Hali, Zombo and Jah Reid.
5. Re-sign Berry.

I agree with all of it. But, as it's been said. Hali's salary is guaranteed this year. We gain nothing by cutting him. He's a part of this team regardless of team no matter how much or how little he has left.

Like call a hot route to Hill when he's got a ****ing linebacker covering him up? Oh, wait, Alice didn't do that.... He didn't even look at Hill.

Why are people upset with Maclin? He made a clutch catch to nullify Kelce's dumbassery and was wide the **** open for a clear TD that Alex ****ed up bc he threw it back shoulder

I've made a few posts since Sunday I think, maybe not, don't really remember. Gonna make this one, then be out for a while to recharge or butt **** myself or something. I dunno.

But holy shit **** what happened? We got ass raped vs the run and the offense sucked.

Enough with the foles or the whatever else. Draft a guy, play him. End of story. Keep smith a year if you want, frankly, I think I'd run the rookie out there. If he can't be successful with the skill guys they've got, don't draft him.

**** this sucks. Why the shit do we put ourselves thru this ass cancer of a franchise suck.

****

Tom Brady as well.

You misspelled Albert's name, I especially liked how he impersonated a competent football player for a handful of plays this season only to show his true fraidy cat colors when we desperately needed a third down by dropping an easy pass that hit him in the hands.

Zombo gets shit on a lot for performing exactly to his pay grade, he is a valuable special teams player and reliable backup which is precisely what he's paid to be. Plus, he was one of the few defenders to actually make a play on Sunday. Could his position be upgraded? Absolutely. Will he ever develop into anything more? No. He's the unsexy Terrance Copper of our roster, everyone wants to shit on him but Dorsey/Toub/Reid apparently all think he does his job well enough to keep it.

Gaines/West/Wilson/Davis would all be on my cut list ahead of him.

My dad summed it up best yesterday.

"It was the chiefs annual January groin punch. You don't know when it's coming, but in your nuts, you feel it and know, it's coming".

I prefer to call it the Five Year Rochambeau....

I'm expecting Dorsey to leave in the next month.

complete BS...9/10 times that ball GOES to the back shoulder, away from the defender.

just stop.

I blame Jan Stenerud.



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Smith didn't throw that back shoulder; he threw it away from the DB towards the pylon. If the throws it to the inside shoulder, the DB has a play on the ball.

That was perfect ball placement from Smith and Maclin just didn't get his head turned. That's not a 'back shoulder' throw, it's a simple throw to the outside shoulder allowing the WR to keep himself between the DB and the ball.

Maclin ran a flag route and Smith put the ball exactly where the ball should go on a flag route - directly at the front flag. That's basic route running - if you're headed towards the pylon, look for the ball over your outside shoulder.

I'm not upset with Maclin - he played a fine game (though he absolutely messed that play up). But he didn't have a good season and like I said, I'd be hard pressed to give a shit about anybody they let go right now.

Didn't even have to call a hot route - they had the play and the matchup they needed.

Smith just didn't look that way. It had to be a failed pre-snap read. I'm at a complete loss as to how that ball didn't come out as soon as he hit his third step.

Because he doesn't trust himself to make a play.

If he's looking over his inside shoulder there from the beginning, smith threw the wrong ball. Throw it to the back of the endzone.

Exactly.

Back shoulder /= outside shoulder.

That was not a stop route, not a timing route. 'back shoulder' doesn't come into play. It was the kind of super complicated route you ran in high school - it was a simple flag route (may have been more of a post-corner same concept).

And on that throw, 99 times out of 100 you put it to the WRs outside shoulder because the route is designed in a way to put the WR between the DB and the sideline. Outside shoulder makes it impossible for the DB to get there without going through the WR. If the receiver looks the right way, it's an completion or a PI.

And the ball all but hit him in the shoulder - it couldn't have been better placed.

J-Mac just turned the wrong way. There's no reason for him to have looked to the inside on that route; trying to sneak it inside shoulder with the DB having inside position is upping the degree of difficulty by roughly a metric ton.

Maclin and Smith weren't on the same page at all this year and this was another one of those times. But that's a textbook outside shoulder throw from Smith and if anyone carries 'blame' there, it's Maclin.

Here's an exercise - run forward, cut 45 degrees to your right and then 90 degrees to your left, now turn your head and look back to where you started - which direction does your head go?

If you try to turn your head inside looking for that throw, it's going to turn your shoulders and flatten out that route. Again, that's why that throw is designed outside shoulder - everything about it is far more natural. If you try to throw it inside shoulder it's going to require one of those jumping/turning acrobatic catches that clearly wasn't necessary given that separation. The throw from Smith was clearly designed to go right at that front flag and Maclins route was taking him right to it. There's just nothing that makes sense about assuming that it was actually designed to go to the back of the end zone but both guys screwed up so it was 12 yards short.

KISS - the simplest solution here is almost certainly the correct one.

A failed presnap read I made from the upper level of Arrowhead. I was screaming "They gotta linebacker on Reek, throw him the damn ball!" before the snap... I could even see Alice looking over at him. Then snap the ball, and never even glance over there. dump off for a 3 yard gain. Its this shit that allows defenses to load the box with 8 or 9 guys and shut down the run. They don't have to cover the deep ball because it will never get thrown. It's maddening. But by all means, let's replace every one around Alice Smith so they can pick up our 17 million dollar QB....

Maybe.

**** if I know, I'm still just pissed at the whole thing

Jesus - I'd hoped it was a blown read. It wasn't - he just refused to throw it.

GIF


Looked right at him. Had the read right and locked in on Hill. Smith absolutely had to have seen him pull even with a flat-footed Sean Davis, he still tucked and ran.

It was gutless, brain-dead football. Like I said, it was a play that completely vindicated every negative thing ever said about Alex Smith. It was a completely inexcusable play that even SHITTY quarterbacks make with ease. I'm still at a loss.

I get more pissed off the more I watch it. What the **** even caused him to roll out? There was NOBODY THERE!! Sure, Fulton blocked nobody in particular but still, Harrison is too busy trying to put a shot on Kelce. Stand in, make the throw. You probably wouldn't have even gotten hit.

God dammit that play pisses me off. That's the play that will stick with me from this game. The hold means ****-all if he doesn't botch this easy pitch and catch.

Yup - I'm out on Alex Smith. Might not be fair, but I'm done with him. I absolutely cannot believe he didn't let that ball go.

He saw Harrison coming at him and bitched out. This is why he will never win us anything meaningful.

****.

:facepalm:

That was the game right there.

Thank God I was passed out by that point, otherwise I would've already been TV shopping.

I wished I'd have never seen that GIF.

From the stands I just thought he didn't see him.

He pant-shitted. He went Full Cassel. I'm just sitting here staring at my monitor like I just saw new footage showing the second shooter in Dallas. That's unbelievable.

He was predetermined he was gonna throe it to Kelce is the only thing I can figure there. That's ****ing unbelievable.

Throe it to the 50 and he walks in

I saw someone say "Harrison had a free rush" blah blah.

Sure, he would have hit smith when hill is walking in the endzone. ****ing throw the ball.

Yeah....and gotten a 15 yard penalty for it because it would have been WAY ****ing late.

Harrison had a free rush IF Harrison elected to rush.

He didn't - he elected to take a cheap shot on Kelce. A moderately aggressive QB makes Harrison pay for that by punishing him downfield. Instead, Harrison gets away with it and the Steelers continue with the chippy play all night.

It's like grounding into a double play after your leadoff hitter gets plunked. It's a dog cowering in fear after getting whipped.

That play killed us. I wish I could unsee it.

JESUS ****ING CHRIST. Even if his first read was Kelce......all he had to do was watch Harrison hit him, release and then rush. Throw it the **** over his head to Kelce and complete the pass.

Alex has always been skiddish, but after his conclusion he changed. Now he's terrified of getting hit

Let's watch it more!!!!!

I'm pretty sure if I watch it another dozen times I will actually murder someone.

Seriously - it's the worst thing I've ever seen on the internet and I sat through one of those BME Pain Olympics things one time.

Jesus ****, how did that happen?!?

I'm about to go postal. **** the Kelce drop. **** the Maclin missed TD. THAT play is what lost the game. He hits that.....and it instantly punches the Steelers defense in the mouth and they don't know what to do.

Smith has been missing receivers constantly.

Why are y'all getting so worked up about it now? It wasn't a problem for the lion's share of his tenure here.

He is who he is: a guy that limits turnovers by not making risky throws like that one.

I get pissed every time I see a GIF of him missing receivers. It especially pisses me off because that was the game.

This was only one of many during this game. Appalling

I don't think it's the game, but it's a microcosm of why they lost.

It's also why the "don't start a rookie, keep smith a year" crowd can suck my titties

That's a lot more eloquent than what I was going to say to Pest.

I'm even backing off my 'Foles won't make a difference' stance.

If they can't move up to get a QB, deal Smith and re-structure Foles for 2-3 years.

I've never seen a play that soured me on a player more than that one.

Just tell me to **** off and shut the **** up. Most people do.

I still think he's looking at kelce and once it's ****ed he runs.

But deshaun Watson can't do what Alex smith does as a rookie my ass

Ohhhhh sir.




Edit for DJ's left nut: the play broke down but Maclin made a move to get open. Making chicken salad out of chicken shit is exactly what you'd think an 11 year vet should make.



Edit for DJ again: Shit play call, but it's not like it's a Herculean demand for Smith to throw a low pass to O'Shaughnessy in the center after it's clear Kelce is bracketed over the left hash.



A little more patience or anticipation of Conley breaking toward the goalpost and that's at least a good attempt with a little more than average chance of getting snared by the defense.

See - that's the kind of shit that kept me from ever joining you clowns.

Nothing in any of those clips are egregious. Every QB in the league has a slew of plays like those on their ledger.

But none of them hold the ball that Smith held on Sunday. None of them.

You say clowns like it's a bad thing and that we're both not mutual fans of a team sharing Ronald McDonald's color scheme; I'll have an edit responding to this in a second, but first



Avant is wide open for a big gain with minimal risk yet Smith is seemingly locked on Kelce or waiting for the best option between Kelce and Charles to open up before any other option. Why isn't Avant getting looked at unless the safety playing just out of the frame is capable of closing the distance within two seconds?



Conley is open here for just as much of a gain as the throw to Charles if not more. The smart thing here was it was a throw to the sideline so it's either a highlight reel catch by JC (which is what you what you want out of arguably the best or second best skill player on the roster at that point at time) or an incompletion. But it's like throwing to Conley is that big of an added risk than forcing it to Charles.



... awful pass. I don't know how this is defensible unless you're giving Alex the kind of difference to having the occasional shit throw that is typically given to the upper echelon of QBs. And I think that would be a stretch. It's year three of Alex being in the Reid WCO that uses short tosses like the one to Kelce as akin to a run play that you're confident in earning 3-4 yards at worst with the upside of bigger gains without too much risk *assuming* the QB makes a throw that the receiver can gather up in stride. Nobody is catching that pass in stride.



I don't recall the game situation and won't ass myself to figure out the context of why he made the decision he made, but:



If it's a hail mary situation, then sure -not a wholly bad play by Smith. But if not.. then isn't hitting West on the left side of the field on a checkdown the type of play you expect Smith to make?

Agree with the OP top 10, covers most of the key points.

Another thing that is on Reid is the delay of game call because we got the play calls in soooooooooo slow that we were snapping the ball with 1 second left all game long. We just kept barely getting the ball snapped on time because Reid only gave Alex Smith 6 seconds to read the defense and make any changes.

Wow! He rolled out so quickly that I had thought it was a designed rollout. But that is obviously not the case. Ugh! What was ge thinking?? that was an easy easy touchdown!!

So now you're just going to bitch about every bad throw he makes?

You're pretty shitty at this. None of the plays you're posting are anything other than rank and file mediocre plays that literally every quarterback in the league makes. Any argument that doesn't serve to strongly establish your point only serves to detract from it.

You're not doing anything to strongly make your point here.

Being on your side of a debate is god-awful.

I'd rather watch Kevin Ware's compound fracture than see that GIF again.

I guarantee that's not every bad throw he makes, but all of these gifs were from games KC lost. Further, the Bears and Vikings games were losses where they defense allowed 18 and 16 points. Blame the defense till the cows come home, but at some point you have to look at the offense. If we're going to castigate West, Ware, Maclin and Kelce for drops as a big reason why KC doesn't win when it matters, then why should Smith get a pass for throws that are specifically bad?

Unless you're assuming that these are all selections of plays that only Brady and Rodgers could miraculously pull off and that no other QB currently playing can imagine making.

I don't wanna rub salt in any wounds, but West gets behind both of those DBs and the only defender behind West has his back turned to look at Hill. Hill is a touchdown no doubt, and West would be a huge gain if he could lob it where West can run under it.

I'm arguing that a sane, reasonable position has always been that "Alex Smith is a middle of the road quarterback that doesn't actively hinder his team's ability to win football games."

You showed a bunch of plays that middle of the road quarterbacks miss all the time. Why? Because at some point you developed this weird straw man whereby every QB that isn't Brady and Rodgers must suck a big ol' chili dog. You couldn't even manage to avoid the same stupid tripe in a thread where Smith actively shit down his leg.

You just showed 10ish plays, half of which were pretty easily defensible and the other half of which are just plays that average quarterbacks miss on occasion. So? I have NEVER argued that Smith was a great quarterback; only that he was an active impediment. Missing on plays that an average quarterback occasionally misses on is expected.

That's not the issue. None of those demonstrate a quarterback that would stare at a wide open guy breaking on a go route and not pull the trigger (at most, a couple demonstrate poor vision, but that wasn't what killed him here).

You've essentially completed a deflected pass to a guy 10 yards away from your intended receiver. Despite your best efforts, you've backed into a correct answer.

Y'know what...you're right.

I'm far less likely to retch looking at that then watching that GIF again...

With what you've said in mind, then Smith missing Tyreek shouldn't at all be a singular play that makes you say "**** this guy." With that kind of acid test, nobody playing QB in the league hits Hill beside Brady and Rodgers.

What I'm contending here is that Smith isn't even middle of the road -he's a bottom tier veteran QB that's now playing closer to Casselian levels than he is playing closer to the comparison of Andy Dalton who epitomizes the average, middle of the road QB in the current day NFL. The gifs linked early demonstrate he's been bottom tier for a while and has been propped up offensively by getting first downs on scrambles or designed runs for the first three seasons in KC.

This is where we disagree.

There are maybe 5 QBs in the league that don't make that throw. As I stated previously - there are worse quarterbacks than Smith, guys who will cost you football games, that still make that throw. Lots of bad quarterbacks let that ball fly.

I'm not arguing that they'd all complete it - I'm saying they'd all attempt it. Smith just tucked like a pussy and ran from phantom pressure.

For 3+ years, Smith was Andy Dalton, but without the privilege of throwing to AJ Green. You couldn't slide a slip of paper between the two in terms of their overall contributions (though they got there slightly differently). But Smith's not been right for most of this year and when he seemed to be turning a corner, he got his bell rung in Indy and regressed again.

That's absolutely Casselian. And as Pest noted, Smith's peak was last season. He's going to do more and more Casselian things going forward as he is more and more gunshy.

It's time to move on. Showing him missing throws from last season (when he played quite well and was Dalton's equal) doesn't speak to the present state of things.

Smith not making that throw is the difference between him and Rapistburger.
It's that simple.