Observations at 9-3
 

The Chiefs are 9-3 with a cupcake schedule coming up. The Chiefs just got spanked in a playoff atmosphere game where we really wanted the game, did a lot of trash talking, and lost the football game, and now we have some subpar teams to get the bullshit worked out before shit gets real.

1. Harrison Butker right now is not that clutch guy that you can rely on. Arguably, he never has been. 13 seconds doesn't happen if the guy doesn't leave 4 points on the field in the first place, and we were just very fortunate he made good on the 49 yarder to tie. Andy is going to have to understand when it's better to just put the ball in 15s hands, and let the chips fall where they may. Watching this dude kick in big moments this year is giving me serious 90s vibes.

2. Justin Reid should never open his mouth about an opponent again. What an embarrassment.

3. If this is the effort we are going to get from Chris Jones and the d line against the NFL playoff teams, then we're in some deep shit right now. The leagues most sacked qb, and we can't lay a finger on him. In the biggest games, 95 disappears entirely.

4. Seminars should be held for the o line on knowing where the line of scrimmage is at all times, and keeping your ass within one yard. Countless HUGE plays taken off the board this season by this ineligible downfield idiocy. It's basic football.

5. Gotta stop blaming the refs for everything. The Chiefs are one of the least penalized teams in football, and screeching for penalties on the opposition every play is just blood belching vagina league. If we need the refs to help us get stops, then we aren't playing well enough to win. Period. The interception only happened because of the PI. The big first down got called back because Allegretti and Wylie didn't know their assholes from their elbows.

6. The redzone is not the place for experimentation. Second time in as many weeks we see Andy waste a down on some hare brained stupid bullshit that goes utterly nowhere. Redzone is serious business, not ****ing mad scientist playtime. If your play design has Mahomes lined up at wide receiver, please delete this formation, because you are a dumbass.

7. Steve Spagnuolo needs to get the NFL rulebook and read the part in there where running backs can legally catch the ball. Nobody gives up more passing yards to backs than Steve Spagnuolo.

8. Steve Spagnuolo needs to commit to stopping the oppositions best player. Not come out in base sets and allow Chase to line up against whoever he wants. At no time should this guy have been singled up, but we played this guy as if he were just another offensive player.

9. Kelce is a beast. But hero ball right there wasn't needed. We had a huge gain, the first down, just get down. Don't plow into 3 guys like you're on the goal line and keep chugging to eliminate forward progress saving you as you get held up and stripped. We weren't anywhere near that type of desperation big dog.

10. In games that come down to the wire like this every situation has to be handled correctly. Lot of situational football scenarios, the coaches and players simply had the wrong answer. That's how you lose football games.


As I said near the end of the game, this is the best thing for them. A game that's gonna hurt, and leave a bad taste, and motivate the coaches and players to get out of this sleepwalking mode they've been in.

One seed is gone, you've been spanked a third time by the team that beat your ass twice and stole a superbowl trip from you in your own house.

It's a reality check that says "Hey, assholes. You're not as good as you ****ing think you are. Hold this hot, flaming L."

In a perfect world, this is the herd of Clydesdales pulling the collective heads out of the asses of the Kansas City Chiefs that will ignite a new work ethic, leading to a new winning streak rolling into the playoffs and culminating in a superbowl win.

Spanked = losing by 3 points?

Please explain how you see the #1 seed playing out as you claim it's gone and we have a cupcake schedule (in your words). Please provide game-by-game predictions.

Final score doesn't tell the story. The Kansas City Chiefs were HORRIFICALLY outplayed in this contest.

A guest appearance by Brandon Staley and a rare wide open dropped td pass kept the score much closer than it should have been.

As for 1 seed being gone, I mean Buffalo now has it. We have to hope for Buffalo to fail and us winning out to get it back.

not sure what game you were watching but the Bengals left 10 points off the board and then knelt down at the end instead of scoring another 7.

should've been a 40 burger.

we made them.punt what. once?

our defense got spanked hard

Definitely a disastrous outing for Spags unit. D line didn't know whether to shit or wind their watches, and a backup rb had himself a Priest Holmes tribute game.

Thread by this reerun? Tl;dr

Have your handler read it to you during your diaper change, ****.

absolute disaster. Dunlop and McDuffie were bright spots... but Spags scheme seemingly just let Chase move away from.McDuffie at will. that combined with no pressure. I also don't remember hearing Sneads name..which is unusual...gay was flying around too...

The little shit the refs were calling early was really ****ing annoying, like they really wanted their presence to be known, but it was fine after that.

The emphasis on the sack rule is awful.
The emphasis on the OL downfield is awful, especially when Mahomes has been scrambling for 20 seconds.
The taunting thing has always been dumb.
I don't even know what the Bengals personal foul before another kickoff, but probably also dumb.

It's all shit that has zero impact on the play (or in the case of the sack, player safety).



I thought the DPI was soft, but at least get an incompetent ref seeing a receiver fall down and throwing a flag (haven't looked at any replays though, so if it was DPI, then whatever).

I don't think I saw Sneed blitz at all this game. I expected bracket coverage on Chase at all times while McDuffie took Higgins himself, or McDuffie on Chase at least.

Williams on Chase one on one was not in any of my favorable ways to defend Jamar Chase.

I let the hype of this season for Jones get to me. I expected 95 to show up this game and he was invisible all day long.

The only time he stood out was when he got absolutely owned by a backup te on a run block.

It was exceptionally sad. This beast that is such a game wrecker, had zero effect on the most beat up quarterback in the league.

Yet their 3 man rush can get immediate pressure on Mahomes. It's maddening.

This is why we need to trade Jones this off season. You NEED an edge rusher to consistently rush the QB. We don’t have one. We could trade Jones and move up to a top 8, not to mention he will free up a lot of cap room. That along with Frank should allow us to rebuild the DL and possibly upgrade RT.

Dunlap is by far our best edge right now. Karlaftis and Dana are solid backups.

How you view something is always about perspective.

Are we happy we are here compared to 12 hours ago? No.

Are we happy we are here after the AFC West signed everyone this off-season? Yes!

Are we happy we are here before the AFCCG first half? No!

Are we happy we are here before drafting Patrick Mahomes? **** yes!

Will this game even matter? Time will tell.

Not sure about this one. I seem to remember a SB game where he didn't.

It should also be noted that 95 was double teamed about 95% of the time in today's game.

If we were “horrifically” outplayed in this game I’d love to hear your take on what the Vikings experienced against the Cowboys.

Other GMs in the league have seen what 95 brings to the biggest games. He's had plenty of playoff games.

The trade offers weren't what we wanted on his first negotiation, and they won't be what we want now.

Maybe a shitty franchise that desperately wants asses in seats for a reg season hero, but I don't see anyone that stupid outside of Mark Davis, and there's no way we trade him in the AFC West.

This game absolutely matters. We don't need any time to tell. We lost the #1 seed and now must hope for another team to give it back. We got our D exposed and there might or might not be time to fix it. When we do win the superbowl, it will be THIS game that shined a light on our problems and lit a fire under our asses to run the table and correct the flaws exposed today. so yes, this mattered.

Mmm. I like the way you think.

<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/y2i2oqWgzh5ioRp4Qa" width="480" height="266" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/first-half-they-had-us-in-the-inthe-y2i2oqWgzh5ioRp4Qa">via GIPHY</a></p>

On your point 4...the 34 yard pass to gray which bailed us out of 3rd and long, but was called back because of "lineman blocking downfield...the OL was BEHIND the line of scrimmage. Refs were bailing the begals out.

This was huge. If any loss was going to motivate, it's this one. A payback game with playoff type atmosphere both teams want the game so bad, and to lose it, and lose the 1 seed to boot, yeah that's Big-time slap to the face wake up call material.

I've never seen Mahomes so angry on the sidelines that he slammed his helmet. He wanted this one badly.

Agreed with most of the op post but this... Last year should have left plenty of bad taste and motivation. There's no good explanation for the lack of fight on defense and the lack of focus and production on offense. We are still soft af and not going to win another bowl playing like this.

Lot of those guys on the team are new.

Like smack talker Reid lol.

So it wasn’t horrific. It wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad. Words have meaning.

I understand the sentiment and a lot of things have happened in each loss that mystify and frustrate but it’s not the end of the world. In all likelihood this loss won’t matter come week 17 and if it does then I hope they’ve learned enough from the three losses this year to overcome. Not worried about the Chiefs at all. Wish they had won but I doubt they lose again the rest of this season.

Chris Jones earned his million dollar bonus already. He's done for the year. Some guys only play hard when there's a contract year or bonus on line.

This loss won't matter week 17? WTF?

check schedules

All of this is correct. KC will not beat Cin as long as they can't get to Burrow. Nothing has changed since last season in that regard. Meanwhile, Cin can seemingly get to Mahomes with ease. KC will not beat Cin as long as that is the case. Nothing has changed since last last season in that regard. Cin beating KC is no fluke. It's a thing now and there are consistent reasons for that.

The "good" thing is the reasons are identifiable. If KC wants to win another Super Bowl, they need to find a way to fix them. Otherwise, the results are not going to change.

My point is, home field is not going to matter against the Bengals. They are clearly in our heads now, and for good reason. Them beating us is no fluke. Would you feel comfortable in the playoffs drawing Cin at any time or venue? I wouldn't.

Unlikely to see the type of changes required, at least not anytime soon. Reid, Veach, & Spags have not shown an ability to find pass rushers in the market. The Frank Clark deal is evidence of their inability to figure out this aspect of the roster. Maybe they can find a DC with better instincts on this stuff to help them find better players in the market, but what are the odds of Reid dumping Spags?

KC looks the part of a team that will lose in the Divisional round of the playoffs. They'll beat the bad playoff teams, with no QB. But when matched up against a team with a good QB, that's where they'll lose. The defense is still bad. No pass rush with the down 4 will kill them. Just my opinion..

I think we can beat anyone, including the Bengals and Bills, IF our offense is humming as well as the SF game and the play-calling is on-point. It's harder to see us beating 2 teams like that back-to-back and then a team like Philly or SF when they're fit. It's just a lot of perfect execution and "game of their lives" type stuff from some of our weaker links, and a lot of shootouts. Possible but I'd say not probable.

Spags will have his ball gobblers come out in force to defend him. Conversely though, if the offense had an en equal body of work they would be calling for OC head. Oh wait, they already do that when the offense is better prepared, execute better and have better results week in and week out.

Until Spags is gone we will always have trouble beating teams with a great downfield passing games like the Bills and Bengals. The exact teams we will face deep in the playoffs. Unless Andy gets a hold of his guy by the throat, I would expect more of the same of this defense to not be able to hold a lead when push comes to shove.

People have been saying the same thing about Sean McDermott. We are getting a taste of what mahomes does to defenses that are way higher rated than we are. They just find ways to win. So far in the playoffs I’m not pinning any of those losses to spags. In fact apart from the buffalo game we won, the defense has been more than adequate. It’s been our offense that let us down in Cincinnati and Tampa. It was the defense that largely kept us in the game for the Super Bowl.

Last year we followed a defensive disaster in cincy up with a more than good enough defensive performance to win in the playoffs. We gifted them a td with an offensive interception. Then we intercepted burrow and made nothing of it. We even won the OT coin toss and didn’t score.

Coaches coach and player play. At the end of the day, it's up to the players to make the plays on the field. The Bengals coached their players to take advantage of the Chiefs tendencies and weaknesses. There seems to be a little of that Belichick in the Bengals coaching staff; they seem better able to put their players in position to succeed. Too many times, it looks like the defense is playing a scheme instead of the strength of the players.

The price of success means not drafting early enough to get the star players. The Bengals have drafted consistently at the top of rounds for years, their average players are better than the Chiefs average players and their skill players, outside of QB and TE, are also better.

Their coaching staff seems to know how to put their players in positions where they fit instead of forcing them into a scheme.

The results are the results, but there's a ton of hyperbole and misguided rage in this post.

The game was lost on the Kelce fumble.. Shit happens.. I for one will only be happy if we do play these ****ers again in the playoffs… Sending them home would make me so happy..

While we did score the TD on a 4th down scramble by Mohomes, I do agree with the OP on having Mahomes playing WR on 2nd and goal.

We have the best QB in football. And a RB in Pacheco who is asserting himself to be legit.

Instead of cute crap at the goal line, play action could now be a solid part of the equation inside the 5. Having a RB who can bang it in from the 3 might just be the ticket to getting receivers open down there without having to go to the bag of tricks it took in the past to score. Everybody seems to be on to that now, and the success rate of those plays is plummeting as a result.

We look like the Green Bay Packers a few years ago.

Top seed that prays they don't draw the 49ers.

I agree.

I think having Thuney out, and Wylie and Alegretti in gave Andy pause.

It's funny the people that say we got spanked by saying the Bengals should have scored more. Well, the Chiefs missed a FG and Kelce fumbled. That's possibly 10 more points.

I agree with a lot of what the thread header says but let's try to be rational.

I think you nailed it with the tendencies. When KC got down by the goal line, and ran the ball on first down, the next two plays the Bengals showed a base D front and then dropped everybody back into coverage. They knew that Kansas City was going to pass near the goal line. I was screaming at the TV to just run it three times and they would score, but instead, they played right into the Bengals hands and ran two two pass plays, got stopped, and had to settle for a short FG. A TD there and a successful point after would have netted four more points....:hmmm:

I’ll say the uncomfortable thing… but if we can get Melvin Gordon to two hands the ball like his life depended on it he’s a short yardage option we really really need. We all know it because our running in a td on 3rd and 4 was such a surprise even though other teams run on this down and distance routinely. We have to claw our way through every third and short and that’s not a good spot to be. Love Pacheco and McKinnon but I haven’t seen them be consistent options here.

CP just bleeds everywhere when we lose. It’s hillarious

The “what if” game can be played both directions, but it certainly looked like the Bengals were having an easier time moving the ball. No pressure on the QB, wide open receivers, poor tackling, etc. The Kelce fumble kind of sums it up. Even on a play that seemed positive for KC, the Bengal defenders were physical and found a way to rip the ball out.

They key in your post is: No pressure.

They doubled Jones and nobody else could win 1 on 1.

Yep, when in these type of games, the teams with the most turnovers normally lose. I believe that was the only turnover by both teams, unfortunatly the Chiefs had it. Sure, there were a lot of play calls that I questioned, but overall, when you play good teams, you've got to play mistake free football. It is what it is, on to the next opponent.

This guy gets it.

The most concerning thing for me; we have gone 1 - 2 against teams we will likely face in the playoffs, Buffalo, Cincinnati, and Tennessee. That ain't good math for a playoff run.

Counterpoint: you thought the Chiefs would lose 7 games this year during the regular season with a middling offense so have been down on and wrong about them all year long.

The defense gets unfairly punished when the offense fails. The defense wasn’t great but they made just enough plays to put the team in position to win and the offense failed. Now the offense does bail out the defense plenty but the dirty little secret is that in the majority of games we lose the offense has the lions share of responsibility. I put our last four losses much more on the offense than the defense and that is a big problem given Reid is an offensively focused coach.

I think we can put this one on the defense although I mostly agree the offense deserves plenty of blame. But it’s hard to put our two recent playoff exits on the defense. Our offense clearly lost us the Super Bowl. And our defense was actually pretty solid against cincy in the last playoffs. Until we see differently the D has done more than enough in crucial playoff games.

In general, if you can't get to the qb, your team will have a hard time winning against ANY qb, let alone a good one.

When your d coordinator sends pressure, but puts nobody on the safety valve back at such a rate that your defense surrenders the most yards to backs out if the backfield in football, you have to question wtf he's doing, oh and again, you're gonna have a hard time winning.

It's games like these, where ONE mistake by the offense costs you the game that you just can't have from the defense. We're bottom of the league in takeaways, our special teams are shaky as ****, and we have to rely on the offense to be spectacular with revolving doors at tackle.

Its a tough ask, and definitely ice skating uphill when it comes to playoff teams.

Only the stupidity of the Bengals on the part of their coach and wide open receiver that dropped the td kept that game anywhere close to watchable.

Cue the rigged WWE reeruns.

The offense was fine yesterday. They needed more possessions.

It’s always losses like these where Andy Reid gets aggressive about changes. With a softer schedule down the stretch I feel like we’ll see quite a bit.

We need to test prince wanagho out at RT. If not, then niang.
Brandon Williams needs to get ready to play significant playoff minutes
Make sure Toney is good enough to stay consistently healthy for the playoff stretch
Work melvin Gordon over and over again on ball security and begin testing him out on short yardage and red zone
Skyy Moore needs more reps the next few weeks
We need lots of reps from josh Williams and Bryan cook. These guys have plenty of time and upside to play better by the playoffs.
We need hammer over and over and over again getting gay ready to play spy. He becomes a crucial piece to playing josh Allen and burrow
There is still time to explore more depth. Particularly on the DL.

Trust in veach and Reid. And much as I grit my teeth until spags messes up in the playoffs (he hasn’t yet) trust that he will be better too. Including playing way better vs cincy in last years playoffs than he did regular season.

Fine is clearly not good enough against the Bills and Bengals. And that’s the problem. They far too often let these teams and the Titans also dictate how are offense plays and it’s always to their advantage instead of us taking advantage of what they are doing. Reid needs to figure it out or we won’t be winning the AFC.

I agree. It sucks but it is what it is.

Ok, they were really good, not fine.

They scored on 50% of their possessions. That's in pretty elite territory.

They definitely were not really good. Your first inclination was accurate. And the point remains that if in shortened games to other contenders we routinely lose then our offense is not playing good enough in those games and needs to figure things out.

That is nothing but poor scheme. If Spags scheme breaks down when Jones is doubled teamed then there is no where to go. They have used draft picks, money, and new position coaches and the result is all the same. The only constant in that side of the ball is Spags. But gobble gobble away. Expect more of the same defense getting it's mouth punched in when the time counts.

I don't gets all this hate on the defense. They had an off game. Bengals have a good QB. They gave up 3 pts in the 3rd qtr, and 13 total points in the 2nd half...they've played some great football up to last night.

Didn't help that the refs thru a late flag, reversing a turnover, and giving the ball back to Burrow. They were playing the refs and Burrow. And they were losing.

Still doesn't take away from the solid progress they've been making. Sometimes the other team plays better. We forget that they get paid to make plays too. Begals were in the superbowl last year. And they needed the refs to reverse a TO and a fumble recovery just so they could beat us by 3pts at their house. We play mistake free football and we win this game

I think a guy like Chris Jones is just as valuable, if not moreso than an impact edge rusher.

Bigger issue is the bums we've got at end. Jones was taking double teams consistently yesterday and none of those other scrubs could bust through? Not Dunlap in a revenge game? Not Frank Clark with his super effective spin move? Not Karlaftis with his motor?

Not one?

This wasn't just about Burrow. Or Mahomes. Or Travis' drop, or any one thing.

But Burrow has the luxury this season of having two legit WR1s. The Chiefs do not.

And there was a pile of other issues as well, but as far as offensive weapons, CIN had more top tier weapons than KC did yesterday.

I don’t give a **** if KC has 0.1 fewer penalties than the average team…

A random offsides call does not have the same impact as wiping a TD off the board. The Chiefs have had devastating penalties on a weekly basis.

We'll be fine.

Yup we always have TD's and turnovers called back via penalty, it's just kinda weird eh? lolz

1. You don't kick that fg, you just don't. Not if you are playing to win, you call a timeout. Then you either put henne in and throw it to Mackinnon, or you punt.
2. You hand off to mackinnon on that prior first first down or toss or screen. lather rinse repeat. Maybe a quick slant on second to juju. probably have the first or 3rd and 1, take the shot then,
3. maybe mahomes on third and less thn 5 should be under center, they should roll with 2 te and run a 5 step pa pass with mckinnon as the hot, kelce is probably open or grey down the field, juju running a short cross is open. or he could check out into a toss to mckinnon or a sneak. Too much shotgun makes it predictable. Zero threat of a designed run or pa pass makes us unfortunately predictable.

I think 4 TDs wiped off the board, unsportsmanlike for mean words, another unsportsmanlike for mean words, WWE style body slam of Kelce, one of the worst roughing calls in NFL history, flag thrown 3 seconds after an interception, punter tackled twice with no call, etc etc.

And when’s the last time Mahomes drew a roughing call? Has it ever happened?

I'd say spags ****ed up vs the bengals in the playoffs last year, other than that, everything you said is true. I don't think our defense is any better this year, just lucky. Teams are running it more and we've been really efficient on offense, drives taking longer, we are running clock a bit when we run the ball. It hides our defensive inefficiency. It's not a good defense, it's a an average to below defense in a down year against a very weak division and more than a few below average opponents.

It’s bizarre to me that the same people who shit all over last year’s defense think highly of this one. Last year, they held three straight opponents to 9 points, including a Dallas offense that ranked at the top of the league and a good Raiders offense. They were playing pretty well down the stretch, despite giving snaps to scrubs like Sorenson and Niemann. This defense might be more talented, but we’re not seeing the results yet.

All 3 losses were really close game we probably should have won.

The refs keeping Indy’s winning drive alive because Jones said mean words to Matt Ryan

The missed kicks against Buffalo.

The fumble by Kelce.

Observation we got beat because the Bengals scored more points than us. Don't want to get beat then best score more points than the opponent.

Exactly. All our DE's are JAGS. We had this same problem last year. It was identified as an area of need. Not enough was done. And now here we are. No pass rush with our down 4, and losing to the Bengals by 3, again.

Let's see...I agree with number 2, Reid should keep a low profile. And number 4, the players need time to adjust to the new strict enforcement of the rule so that will clean up in time. Everything else...oh boy.

A hard fought game against the defending afc champs and we got spanked? We moved the ball well. They moved the ball well. Two high powered offenses. I don't understand how anyone expected different.

We need line help but Jones isn't the problem. He's the only piece doing his job...taking up double and triple teams. The Bengals schemed him out. That simple.

And if every team could just shut down chase, don't you think they'd do it? Look how many teams commit to stopping kelce...

So yeah.

This angry, motivated, vengeful team rolled in there and lost by 3 when they really should have lost by 16-20 points had 2 different coaching decisions been made, and a wide open pass caught for a td.

Spanked. Outplayed, pushed around, bullied, take your pick.

We have some get right games, and this loss happened at the best time.

This was a team that was winning games with some sleepwalking sloppy football being produced, and winning, it's harder to take seriously that you need to pick it up.

Getting your ass kicked for a 3rd straight time by the team that took your SB trip, that should fuel a lot of corrections.

They have a cheap QB

Chiefs already got their SB with a cheap QB. So roster wise the Bengals should have the upper hand, and this is what we’ll deal with in the future. Same with the Dolphins. Hopefully there won’t be as many elite QBs entering the league in the next few years

One seed isn't gone. Win out and Buff stumbles and we get it. Cincy, Miami or Jets may help us out but we have no room for error. Lose another game and it's gone.

1.0. That was a poor snap on that long field goal attempt at the end. He did a good job getting it down, but it still effected the timing.

It remains to be seen how those teams manage to stay together once they pay their QB. It gets tougher every year to keep these all-star teams together.