Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
It's not an excuse - Ws and Ls are all that matters and the Chiefs have no choice but to win that football game.
But lets not act like this doesn't make it substantially more difficult. Last year Smith was a fringe pro-bowl caliber player and his length perfectly matches up with what Thomas can do. It isn't just about 'B+' players, it's a B+ player that also presents a difficult matchup for Denver's top receiving threat.
It's the old boxing axiom - matchups make fights. Hell, let's say you replace Smith with another B+ player - he's still not going to be as good in that game because he doesn't present the length problems that Smith does.
If the Broncos lost Thomas, we'd see that as a pretty damaging loss for them and assume our odds of success just increased quite a bit, no? Well by losing Smith and a very strong matchup against Thomas, we've essentially done the inverse by increasing Thomas's effectiveness and thus decreased our odds of success quite a bit.
|
If we were without him and had to play them 3 times, for sure. But a single game, small sample size comes into play but 1 single play can make a difference.
Like I said (you said too iirc) if houston Hali and ford don't make plays, we can't beat them