Chiefs Blowfish's Final Ten Things For 2010 Season

**gblowfish** · 08:59 PM

My Final Ten Things About Today's Game (And 2010 Season)

10. I was physically and emotionally drained upon returning home from Arrowhead, so I took a little nap when I got back to the Blowfish Batcave. I'm over 50 now, and have bad knees and ankles that ache in the cold weather. I've seen at least two other "ten things" threads posted so far tonight, so I will end my string of posts this year with one last hurrah, and chalk imitation up as the sincerest form of flattery. Or that other CPers can write as hackishly as I do....

9. It was slate grey and cold today, not as windy as last week, but more damp. You can feel that snow in the air that is coming our way. Some comments have been made in other threads about the crowd size and the crowd noise. The crowd was very good. The yellow rich bastard seats in the club level often look empty, but that's because the rich bastards are all up in the "club" staying warm, having martinis and sniffing each other's rectums, trading business cards and doing all the things that have nothing to do with watching football. Outside, when fans are bundled up tight like today, the noise is a bit more muffled. People clap with gloves on, stamp feet layered in snow boots, and yell through mufflers. They were plenty loud in the first quarter. Second half, not so much, because, frankly, they were never given a reason to get into the game. Chiefs fans were not the problem today. They represented. They sat in bone chilling cold. They did their part. The team didn't hold up their end of the bargain today.

8. Charles was Charles once today, and that was our only offensive point production. He got smashed in the shoulder out of bounds in the second quarter on a sweep towards the Chiefs bench. That play happened right in front of me. After the hit, he was not the same the rest of the game. I don't know if he may have slightly dislocated his shoulder, or had a stinger, but the hit put him out of action for several plays. He was bent over writhing in pain for a couple minutes, and he was ineffective the rest of the day. It also affected his blocking on blitz pickup. Charles only had nine carries today. He easily should have had three times as many if the Chiefs were to have a chance in this game. Thomas Jones had fifteen yards on five carries, but ten of those yards were on one carry, so he was not effective on four of his five chances. Chiefs only had 108 yards rushing today. The really bad news is, that was most of our offensive production. Sadly, running the ball was about the only thing we did halfway decent on offense, and it wasn't nearly good enough.

7. Earlier in the season, I kept comparing Matt Cassel to Bill Kenney of the 1980s. Bill Kenney only played in one playoff game for KC. Against the NY Jets in 1986, Kenney was 8-16 for 97 yards, no picks, no TDs, sacked twice. KC had three turnovers -Blackledge relieved Kenney and threw two picks when the game was out of hand. Kenney had a QB Passer rating of 69. That was a historically horrid playoff performance that still haunts me. Cassel's performance today was much worse. I didn't think I'd ever see a worse KC QB playoff performance, but today's was worse. Cassel was 9-18 for 70 yards, sacked three times, no TDs, three picks, QB rating of 20.4. Only redeeming thing in this comparison is, in 1986, Kenney had been a starting QB for six years. Cassel has only been a starting QB for two years. So hopefully he will learn from this experience. But he definitely stunk up the joint today, and it will take a lot of make-up work to erase this playoff memory. Today, he choked under playoff pressure. No other way to slice it.

6. Earlier in the week, the KC star said three players held the key to how KC would fare today: Cassel, Bowe and Hali. I've covered Cassel. You would have a hard time proving to me that Bowe played today. Not finding him, not even THROWING HIS DIRECTION today, was criminal. If you have an All Pro receiver, you must USE HIM in a PLAYOFF GAME. I put this on Charlie Weis. Even Kevin Curtis, the Chris Chambers replacement rent-a-player, had a ball thrown to him today. Could it have been that Bowe just couldn't get open today, the entire game? I really doubt that. Props to Hali. He did show up today. He had two sacks, a strip and fumble recovery on Flacco that set up the Charles TD and got KC a lead. And he did this with Michael "The Blind Side" Oher holding him the entire game. That is not an exaggeration. Baltimore had NO PENALTIES until the fourth quarter when the game was already out of hand. I guess if Hollywood makes a movie about you while you're still a player, you can hold to your hearts delight. After all, nobody likes a movie with an unhappy ending.

5. The Chiefs were totally outplayed, out-coached and overmatched the entire second half. In reality, Baltimore really outplayed the Chiefs in the first half too. Time of possession was way out of whack, with the Ravens having control for around 42 minutes. Still, when KC went in down only 10-7 at half, and getting the ball to start the second half, there was reason for optimism. The Chiefs offense just pissed down their leg the entire second half. You won't win with five turnovers, especially against a defense like Baltimore. When KC got back the fumbled pick to start the second half, I thought it might be their day. But that fourth and one call to sweep Charles was hard to understand, especially when they had used a jumbo package with Smith and Asamoah lead blocking for Jones to success earlier, why not power straight ahead for a yard? Or at least run behind your only All Pro lineman -Waters- and Fat Albert for a yard? After that call, the entire game went to shit. Our year long bugaboo of failing on third down came home to roost again. We were 1-8 on third down and 0-2 on fourth down. Meanwhile, Baltimore was 9-17 on third down and 1-1 on fourth down. Most telling stat: Every single Ravens drive today made it into KC territory. That's what ball control really is all about, and that fueled the rout.

4. If we look for silver linings, KC is a very young team. Today's bad experience of getting thumped may pay dividends down the road. Players like Cassel, Berry, Charles, Bowe and Moeacki will hopefully take with them how hard it is to get to the playoffs, and how hard it is to win once you get there. I hope this also applies to Coach Haley, who I think matured a lot over the course of this season. He did a lot of boneheaded, stupid stuff this year, but getting this team to win a division crown was a great coaching job no matter how you look at it. He won as many games this year as in the last three years combined, and that's doing something. Today they were overmatched by a more experienced, battle tested and talented team. I also think after two upsets yesterday (Seattle and NY Jets) that may have served as a wake up call for Baltimore not to let it happen to them. They played with urgency and focus. We played -the second half anyway- with mostly panic and disaster.

3. Next year I'm afraid we may backslide. The rest of the league will watch the film of these last two games to see how to stuff the KC running attack. And we'll be playing a first place schedule instead of a fourth place schedule. That will make it a much rougher road. We'll also face up against the NFC Central, not the NFC West. KC may be lucky to win eight games next year. We could end up being a better team, with a worse record.

2. Draft or Free Agent Search: FA: Get Larry Fitzgerald opposite Bowe. Draft an inside linebacker to replace Belcher, draft a tackle to replace Richardson, draft a guard or center. Get McCluster and Moeacki in the weight room. I wanted to congratulate Moeacki for making it through most of the year uninjured. The cheap hit in Denver on the onside kick was not his fault. I hope we will have another productive draft in 2011. This last year's crop will be hard to top. We'll also need a solution at Offensive Coordinator. This might be a hard job to fill. Coach Haley is a micromanager on offense. May be hard to find an experienced, qualified person who will want that job. Stay tuned. Should be an interesting pick.

1. It was a fun ride and WAY beyond all our expectations. Football was fun again. It was great not to have to dwell on negative crap week after week after week like we did around here the last three years prior. Of course, the more you get, the more you want. It was great fun here on the CP talking about game aftermaths and looking forward to each game this season. Thanks to you all for reading my game threads, and for all the fun back and forth in those threads this season. Let's do it again next year, OK?

nascher · 01-09-2011, 08:52 PM

thanks ! Really good points

ThaVirus · 01-09-2011, 08:54 PM

Wow, everyone seems to be jumping on Belcher. Let me start by saying he is not the guy I want in the middle when we're making a legit playoff run, but he IS NOT our weakest LB. How can anyone watch a game and not see it's Mike Vrabel? He is just tooooo slow and needs to be replace MUCH more urgently than Belcher, imo.

Deberg_1990 · 01-09-2011, 08:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gblowfish

I'm over 50 now, and have bad knees and ankles that ache in the cold weather.

Thanks George....it was a great season and the best part about it all is we appear to be ascending.

Im starting to wonder if the rolling roof thing would not have been a bad idea? Alot of fans dont appear to have the stomach anymore to spend hours in the cold KC weather. Cant say i blame them......thoughts?

Deberg_1990 · 01-09-2011, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

Wow, everyone seems to be jumping on Belcher. Let me start by saying he is not the guy I want in the middle when we're making a legit playoff run, but he IS NOT our weakest LB. How can anyone watch a game and not see it's Mike Vrabel? He is just tooooo slow and needs to be replace MUCH more urgently than Belcher, imo.

DJ completely whiffed on the Rice TD catch. Rice ran right by him and while DJ just stood there.

**jjchieffan** · 01-09-2011, 08:56 PM

Great read as always. And spot on too. I couldn't agree more with the entire post

jbwm89 · 01-09-2011, 08:56 PM

Great as always. I didn't think Belcher played that bad today, but then again from my seats it can be a little tough to catch everything.

**Saulbadguy** · 01-09-2011, 08:57 PM

Always enjoy reading these. Thank you. #3 and #4 were the points I agreed with most.

mnchiefsguy · 01-09-2011, 08:58 PM

Great points as always. Thanks for your input through the whole season, really enjoyed reading them every week!

**The Bad Guy** · 01-09-2011, 08:58 PM

What's nuts about the Cassel line is at one point he was 4/5.

I think we also need another rush backer opposite of Tamba.

**gblowfish** · 01-09-2011, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

Thanks George....it was a great season and the best part about it all is we appear to be ascending.

Im starting to wonder if the rolling roof thing would not have been a bad idea? Alot of fans dont appear to have the stomach anymore to spend hours in the cold KC weather. Cant say i blame them......thoughts?

Jackson County taxpayers were approached with two different propositions on stadium improvements, both on the same ballot. One was for general stadium renovations, which passed. That was for work done on both Arrowhead and on Kauffman Stadium. A second proposal was to build a roof over Arrowhead. It failed. Taxpayers thought it was too much $, and a lot of Chiefs fans like the competitive advantage to playing in cold weather, especially when California teams like San Diego and Oakland come here in December.

It sucks to have spent $350 million on the stadium and still get rained on, and freeze in winter, but it is what it is. I think our fans are some of the toughest in the NFL. We show up literally in all weather, no matter what.

chiefqueen · 01-09-2011, 08:59 PM

Next year's schedule is brutal don't be surprised at a 6-10 or 7-9 season.

vailpass · 01-09-2011, 09:00 PM

There was nothing cheap about the slobber-knocker laid on Moeaki in Denver. Unless if by cheap you mean a straight up de-cleater laid on a special teams player who didn't have his eyes open.
I'm a Moeaki fan but football is football.

Coach · 01-09-2011, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Bad Guy

What's nuts about the Cassel line is at one point he was 4/5.

I think we also need another rush backer opposite of Tamba.

Another backer and a NT, I'm good.

I think asking for a QB might be too much to ask, so that above, would be a better option.

Isn't this class of LB's supposed to be pretty solid?

Edit: And btw GB, always enjoyed reading your 10 things. I look forward to the 2011 season edition.

**Bwana** · 01-09-2011, 09:00 PM

As always, good read George.

01-09-2011, 08:46 PM
gblowfish Be Kind To Your Pets Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Glorious Independence, MO Casino cash: $17606178 VARSITY	Blowfish's Final Ten Things For 2010 Season My Final Ten Things About Today's Game (And 2010 Season) 10. I was physically and emotionally drained upon returning home from Arrowhead, so I took a little nap when I got back to the Blowfish Batcave. I'm over 50 now, and have bad knees and ankles that ache in the cold weather. I've seen at least two other "ten things" threads posted so far tonight, so I will end my string of posts this year with one last hurrah, and chalk imitation up as the sincerest form of flattery. Or that other CPers can write as hackishly as I do.... 9. It was slate grey and cold today, not as windy as last week, but more damp. You can feel that snow in the air that is coming our way. Some comments have been made in other threads about the crowd size and the crowd noise. The crowd was very good. The yellow rich bastard seats in the club level often look empty, but that's because the rich bastards are all up in the "club" staying warm, having martinis and sniffing each other's rectums, trading business cards and doing all the things that have nothing to do with watching football. Outside, when fans are bundled up tight like today, the noise is a bit more muffled. People clap with gloves on, stamp feet layered in snow boots, and yell through mufflers. They were plenty loud in the first quarter. Second half, not so much, because, frankly, they were never given a reason to get into the game. Chiefs fans were not the problem today. They represented. They sat in bone chilling cold. They did their part. The team didn't hold up their end of the bargain today. 8. Charles was Charles once today, and that was our only offensive point production. He got smashed in the shoulder out of bounds in the second quarter on a sweep towards the Chiefs bench. That play happened right in front of me. After the hit, he was not the same the rest of the game. I don't know if he may have slightly dislocated his shoulder, or had a stinger, but the hit put him out of action for several plays. He was bent over writhing in pain for a couple minutes, and he was ineffective the rest of the day. It also affected his blocking on blitz pickup. Charles only had nine carries today. He easily should have had three times as many if the Chiefs were to have a chance in this game. Thomas Jones had fifteen yards on five carries, but ten of those yards were on one carry, so he was not effective on four of his five chances. Chiefs only had 108 yards rushing today. The really bad news is, that was most of our offensive production. Sadly, running the ball was about the only thing we did halfway decent on offense, and it wasn't nearly good enough. 7. Earlier in the season, I kept comparing Matt Cassel to Bill Kenney of the 1980s. Bill Kenney only played in one playoff game for KC. Against the NY Jets in 1986, Kenney was 8-16 for 97 yards, no picks, no TDs, sacked twice. KC had three turnovers -Blackledge relieved Kenney and threw two picks when the game was out of hand. Kenney had a QB Passer rating of 69. That was a historically horrid playoff performance that still haunts me. Cassel's performance today was much worse. I didn't think I'd ever see a worse KC QB playoff performance, but today's was worse. Cassel was 9-18 for 70 yards, sacked three times, no TDs, three picks, QB rating of 20.4. Only redeeming thing in this comparison is, in 1986, Kenney had been a starting QB for six years. Cassel has only been a starting QB for two years. So hopefully he will learn from this experience. But he definitely stunk up the joint today, and it will take a lot of make-up work to erase this playoff memory. Today, he choked under playoff pressure. No other way to slice it. 6. Earlier in the week, the KC star said three players held the key to how KC would fare today: Cassel, Bowe and Hali. I've covered Cassel. You would have a hard time proving to me that Bowe played today. Not finding him, not even THROWING HIS DIRECTION today, was criminal. If you have an All Pro receiver, you must USE HIM in a PLAYOFF GAME. I put this on Charlie Weis. Even Kevin Curtis, the Chris Chambers replacement rent-a-player, had a ball thrown to him today. Could it have been that Bowe just couldn't get open today, the entire game? I really doubt that. Props to Hali. He did show up today. He had two sacks, a strip and fumble recovery on Flacco that set up the Charles TD and got KC a lead. And he did this with Michael "The Blind Side" Oher holding him the entire game. That is not an exaggeration. Baltimore had NO PENALTIES until the fourth quarter when the game was already out of hand. I guess if Hollywood makes a movie about you while you're still a player, you can hold to your hearts delight. After all, nobody likes a movie with an unhappy ending. 5. The Chiefs were totally outplayed, out-coached and overmatched the entire second half. In reality, Baltimore really outplayed the Chiefs in the first half too. Time of possession was way out of whack, with the Ravens having control for around 42 minutes. Still, when KC went in down only 10-7 at half, and getting the ball to start the second half, there was reason for optimism. The Chiefs offense just pissed down their leg the entire second half. You won't win with five turnovers, especially against a defense like Baltimore. When KC got back the fumbled pick to start the second half, I thought it might be their day. But that fourth and one call to sweep Charles was hard to understand, especially when they had used a jumbo package with Smith and Asamoah lead blocking for Jones to success earlier, why not power straight ahead for a yard? Or at least run behind your only All Pro lineman -Waters- and Fat Albert for a yard? After that call, the entire game went to shit. Our year long bugaboo of failing on third down came home to roost again. We were 1-8 on third down and 0-2 on fourth down. Meanwhile, Baltimore was 9-17 on third down and 1-1 on fourth down. Most telling stat: Every single Ravens drive today made it into KC territory. That's what ball control really is all about, and that fueled the rout. 4. If we look for silver linings, KC is a very young team. Today's bad experience of getting thumped may pay dividends down the road. Players like Cassel, Berry, Charles, Bowe and Moeacki will hopefully take with them how hard it is to get to the playoffs, and how hard it is to win once you get there. I hope this also applies to Coach Haley, who I think matured a lot over the course of this season. He did a lot of boneheaded, stupid stuff this year, but getting this team to win a division crown was a great coaching job no matter how you look at it. He won as many games this year as in the last three years combined, and that's doing something. Today they were overmatched by a more experienced, battle tested and talented team. I also think after two upsets yesterday (Seattle and NY Jets) that may have served as a wake up call for Baltimore not to let it happen to them. They played with urgency and focus. We played -the second half anyway- with mostly panic and disaster. 3. Next year I'm afraid we may backslide. The rest of the league will watch the film of these last two games to see how to stuff the KC running attack. And we'll be playing a first place schedule instead of a fourth place schedule. That will make it a much rougher road. We'll also face up against the NFC Central, not the NFC West. KC may be lucky to win eight games next year. We could end up being a better team, with a worse record. 2. Draft or Free Agent Search: FA: Get Larry Fitzgerald opposite Bowe. Draft an inside linebacker to replace Belcher, draft a tackle to replace Richardson, draft a guard or center. Get McCluster and Moeacki in the weight room. I wanted to congratulate Moeacki for making it through most of the year uninjured. The cheap hit in Denver on the onside kick was not his fault. I hope we will have another productive draft in 2011. This last year's crop will be hard to top. We'll also need a solution at Offensive Coordinator. This might be a hard job to fill. Coach Haley is a micromanager on offense. May be hard to find an experienced, qualified person who will want that job. Stay tuned. Should be an interesting pick. 1. It was a fun ride and WAY beyond all our expectations. Football was fun again. It was great not to have to dwell on negative crap week after week after week like we did around here the last three years prior. Of course, the more you get, the more you want. It was great fun here on the CP talking about game aftermaths and looking forward to each game this season. Thanks to you all for reading my game threads, and for all the fun back and forth in those threads this season. Let's do it again next year, OK? Last edited by gblowfish; 01-09-2011 at 08:59 PM..
Posts: 40,843

01-09-2011, 08:52 PM	#2
nascher Veteran Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Hamburg Germany Casino cash: $9994980	thanks ! Really good points __________________
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01-09-2011, 08:56 PM	#6
jjchieffan Supporter Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Highlandville, MO Casino cash: $3222247	Great read as always. And spot on too. I couldn't agree more with the entire post __________________ Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. Following the historical accounts and the genealogy from that point on, the age of the Earth is approximately 6000-7000 years old. The Big Bullshit Theory is a lie. It and the evolution theory go against real science. Satan has used our public school system to brainwash everyone into believing these lies. Be not decieved.
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01-09-2011, 08:56 PM	#7
jbwm89 MIZZOU Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Saint Joseph Casino cash: $10005040	Great as always. I didn't think Belcher played that bad today, but then again from my seats it can be a little tough to catch everything. __________________ "You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the goddamn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
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01-09-2011, 08:57 PM	#8
Saulbadguy When a nightmare becomes real Join Date: Nov 2003 Casino cash: $2406966	Always enjoy reading these. Thank you. #3 and #4 were the points I agreed with most.
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01-09-2011, 08:54 PM	#3
ThaVirus You gotta kill a few people Join Date: Sep 2007 Casino cash: $1852369	Wow, everyone seems to be jumping on Belcher. Let me start by saying he is not the guy I want in the middle when we're making a legit playoff run, but he IS NOT our weakest LB. How can anyone watch a game and not see it's Mike Vrabel? He is just tooooo slow and needs to be replace MUCH more urgently than Belcher, imo.
Posts: 44,426

01-09-2011, 08:58 PM	#9
mnchiefsguy MVP Join Date: Dec 2003 Casino cash: $3356206	Great points as always. Thanks for your input through the whole season, really enjoyed reading them every week!
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01-09-2011, 08:58 PM	#10
The Bad Guy Scott Pioli Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: The Copacobana Casino cash: $9373645	What's nuts about the Cassel line is at one point he was 4/5. I think we also need another rush backer opposite of Tamba. __________________
Posts: 23,212

01-09-2011, 08:59 PM	#12
chiefqueen On my throne Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Kansas City, MO Casino cash: $8152060	Next year's schedule is brutal don't be surprised at a 6-10 or 7-9 season.
Posts: 4,179

01-09-2011, 09:00 PM	#13
vailpass Psycho Bag Of Squanch Join Date: Sep 2001 Casino cash: $9594244	There was nothing cheap about the slobber-knocker laid on Moeaki in Denver. Unless if by cheap you mean a straight up de-cleater laid on a special teams player who didn't have his eyes open. I'm a Moeaki fan but football is football.
Posts: 69,591

01-09-2011, 09:00 PM	#15
Bwana It's Five O'Clock Somewhere Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Billings, Montana Casino cash: $2139323647	As always, good read George. __________________ Adventure is dangerous....but monotony can kill you.
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