It's always special circumstances when Alex loses. The stars aligned against him just so! The poor bastard!

No it isn't. I don't make many excuses for the guy. When he sucks, he sucks.

Playing much of the half with a record-breakingly bad defense, and with AJ Jenkins as your #2 receiver, Cyrus Gray as your #1 RB, no talent whatsoever at TE, and a not so great offensive line is about as bad as you're going to get. The supporting cast for most of that half might go down as being one of the worst in playoff history.

Alex Smith sucks, he should have scored 80 points in the playoffs with a team full of street free agents to prove otherwise.

We should not have any expectation that Alex and the offense should have been able to score points at, or near, the same pace in the 2nd half as they did in the first half, given the injuries.

We should also recognize that the running game provided next to nothing, which impacted the play calling.

But we should also have an expectation that Alex and Reid were aware of the game situationn and should have milked the clock for every available second.

That is where both failed this team.

I agree. I watched the second half last night and it's so frustrating watch them snap every ball before they even show the playclock on the screen, meaning there is more than 5 seconds left on each one. So many long developing pass plays called, too. Every play call in the 4th quarter pissed me off.

Rodgers and Wilson lost epic playoff losses they should have won. Losers.

Oh, and no exceptions.

They get a free pass because THEY WON THE ****ING SUPER BOWL.

So why should we have any expectation that the defense should have been able to prevent points and create turnovers at, or near, the same pace in the 2nd half as they did in the first half, given the injuries?

Cant have it both ways.

Here's the thing...
Alex Smith made mistakes in the second half including clock management. But no more mistakes than many QBs would make in a half.

The defense may have been the worst second half defense in playoff history
The running game was utterly useless
Every receiver/TE not named Bowe did nothing redeeming
The coaching was really, really bad, and that includes not instructing Smith to use the clock better

If you go through the starters from top to bottom, Smith's mistakes are way on the bottom of the list if we're playing the blame game.

Did I say anything regarding the defense in that post?

Bullshit.

The coaching deserves the most blame for poor clock management. Reid could have stopped it.

Sure Smith deserves some blame. But let this sink in again.
Brees/Brady/Peyton/Rodgers. All HOF QBs. They are a combined 3-14 in playoff games where their defense gave up 30+ points. Until this year, Peyton was the ONLY of the 4 to have won a game of this kind (Brady finally won one this year). The Chiefs' defense gave up 35 points in the 2nd half alone. A 2nd half that didn't have an unusual amount of turnovers and had a solid enough average of ~6 plays, 2:30 TOP per drive. That's DESPITE having absolutely no running game and terrible receiving options outside of Bowe. And I've been a stickler about this whenever Alex loses... in this game, he actually made the right pass on the final play of the game.

Smith did more than enough in the 2nd half to keep the Chiefs in the game despite the clock management. If HOFs struggle to win 30+ games, then I shouldn't expect Alex Smith to either. Let alone 40.

My apologies my man. I know I quoted you but was basically speaking to the general population of Chiefs fans that solely blame the defense for this loss.

Are we really still pretending Smith had something to do with the playoff loss? Get lives