Mr. Doggity's Chiefs Report: Pre Season Game 1

[gblowfish]

My Pal Mr. Doggity is blogging again. He attends as my envoy for pre-season games. Game report for New Texans vs Old Texans is up. BTW You can read his previous rants at his site here:

http://doggitychiefsreport.blogspot.com/

PRESEASON GAME 1
Welcome to the 2009 Doggity Chiefs Report. This marks the 8th season of the Doggity Report, but the first season of the new "blog" format, and the first season of the Pioli/Haley era. As in previous seasons, the pre-season Dogg will be an abbreviated version, with the full Doggity coming with the regular season, game one - at the Baltimore Ravens.

Once again, special thanks to the Illustrious Potentate, George Blowfish for his steadfast support of my flighty behavior. He will make someone a good wife.

PRESEASON - GAME 1 - Old Texans VS New Texans at THE NEW HEAD.
Score: Chiefs 10, Texans 16.
Weather: Sloppy

Overall impression of last night's mess game: They lost.

- 3 takeaway ratio. The only TD by Daffy Duck. Not something to write home about. Impression of the stadium remodel: 3-1/2 stars. Looks better than The K. Concourses are much better, as are the johns and the vittles. But I'm sorry -- WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RING OF HONOR? I dig the new ribbon display, but putting the Chiefs honor guard on that thing sporadically throughout the game ain't good enough. I want to SEE the names.

The Offense:
Cassel, and the 1's on offense were not impressive, mustering just two first downs (one was a freebee on a penalty), and never getting into enemy territory. Cassel completed just two passes, but had a couple of good looking throws dropped, he also fumbled a snap. Croyle and the #2 O looked better. Thigpen did his zany, running around like loon thing that he did all last year, and managed an ugly, off-balance, back-across-his-body, broken-play pass to the TE for a TD, like he did last year. All-in-all, the QB position looks OK. I think we have three guys who can run the offense, without a huge drop-off. Of course, when you're on the kiddie-slide, there isn't far to drop. The offensive line was offensive. LJ did his Claude Raines impersonation and vanished. Jackie Battle may be the best running back on this team. Dwayne Bowe may be a practice field slacker, but he's a game day play-maker, and Haley needs to get over the pea under his mattress that this kid represents, and let him start. It's not like the rest of the receivers have any clue what they're doing.

The Defense:
The D was somewhat less awful. They looked lost on several plays, like they had no idea what zip code they were supposed to be in. Especially the linebackers. On Houston's TD drive, the LBs looked like they needed mapquest to figure out where they were going. They have a lot of work to do in the 3-4. Andy Studebaker and Corey Mays looked solid, and Tamba Hali appears to be adjusting to his new position. Brandon Flowers should be a Pro Bowler, if he continues to advance at this pace. I am still not sold on Bernard Pollard in passing situations. I have to wonder if Glenn Dorsey has a career plan B?

The Special Teams:
Kickers were OK, although Colquitt -- the team MVP from last year -- had a couple of ugly ducklings. Of course, it was pouring down rain. Suckup - Mr Irrelevant - did what was asked of him. Special bus team coverage was not that great, but the return game was worse. This team is still trying to find a guy who can walk and chew gum at the same time to put back for kicks. So far it's "chomp-step-chomp-step".

The Awards:
"Throw Him A Bone" goes to Corey Mays. A guy that even his momma has to look up his name on the depth chart. Yet he played a very solid game at linebacker. He performed well against the run and was in the backfield more than some of Houston's running backs. He and Andy Studebaker shone on defense, but I went with Mays. He managed to not get himself hurt, and had a bit of an edge.

"The Doggity Dog" goes to Brandon Albert. This guy is supposed to be the stud of an otherwise sub-par O-line. He was a speed bump a couple of times in this game - barely slowing down the rusher on the quarterback expressway.

Next week - break camp and play the Vikings in Minneapolis. We will have the training camp overview next week.

Your faithful scribe
Mr. Doggity

[milkman]

Originally Posted by TEX

Care to say how? IMO, it's pretty accurate.

Let me jump in here.

First, Albert did make one mental error which led to teh sack by Barwin, but he was nails the rest of the way.

Dorsey played far better than this clown thinks he did.

Since those were two of the four positions I was focused on, I acn't comment any further.

[chiefsngop]

Mr. Irrelevant did far more than "what was asked of him" as the thread starter claims.

For a rookie kicker that was picked dead last in the draft, playing in his 1st pro game, under utterly terrible weather conditions, he was amazing.

Looking at the D-

Houston's TD drive was damn near halted before it ever began, they were backed way up on a 3rd and very long and benefited from a very questionable horse collar penalty call, coupled with a fortuitous bounce of a football that was jarred loose by the defense on the same play.

In fact; that series featured a big time sack by our D, good run stopping save one play, and a ball forced out of a ball carriers hands.

It was the first time that this team came out playing a brand new 3-4 scheme instead of the 4-3 so there was bound to be some confusion and rust, and when the penalty hit it put us on a slippery slope for the remainder of the drive.

Had we had more time to polish this 3-4 scheme I think that Houston drive dies on the 3rd and long play in their own territory, and the momentum of the game shifts entirely in a different direction.

As far as Bowe goes, IMO Haley doesn't have "a pea under his bed" going on with the guy. He got in Bowe's head. Bowe's gonna be starting come regular season, but Haley's making a point to him that his skills need refined and his focus must be increased. Seems to be working to this point.

Dorsey-

D tackles, even the great ones, typically don't evolve until their 3rd or 4th year. Dorsey had to learn the transition from NCAA to a 4-3 NFL system just last year, and now in just his 2nd year he has to learn a drastically different 3-4 NFL system. When you couple those transitions with his youth he's bound to have some issues, but he looked solid in the game anyway, so realistically we should be taking our hats off to him for the performance on Saturday.