Opinion update at the bye week...
 

Special teams - coverage just sucks!

Defense is still weak, IMO. They are getting better but a talent infusion is called for. They are several players away from being really good. I think improving the defensive talent will help ST's. Better athletes and depth on defense = better ST's.
Offense just needs to get in sync but could use a big play threat at WR.

Special Teams has been our weakest point. I'm not that worried about our receivers anymore. They've done a fine job holding onto the ball and it's not the most crucial part of our success.

Our linebackers are a weak spot, but I think they've still outplayed expectations, IMO. Because of that, I can't hold anything against them.

The special teams has been bad. We've been awful on punt and kick return coverage. If we can fix that it'll help our defense out greatly. It's hard to expect alot from the defense when the other teams keeps getting the ball at the 40. Also, I'd like to see more out of Dante. We aren't getting the great returns we're now accustomed to.

To me, it's LBs, then ST coverage, then CBs.

WR is still a weakness, but I beleive as long as Priest, Trent, and Tony G. are rolling, we can overcome that one fairly easily. The others are a bigger deal because we can't so easily "make up for them".

Offensive penalties are killing us too. They get in down and long situations that are hard to overcome, though they did a good job Monday night. Got to address the penalty problem on all sides of the ball. Stop shooting ourselves in the foot.

Critical first win, I'll show signs of happiness when we are 500

The defense didn't hold Lewis, not even a little. The offense kept him off the field and made the defense stats look promising at best.

The Offense sparked, but it takes consistency to turn a spark into a fire and no one game, no matter how well played, can tell the tale of consistency.

The Special Teams ... Yeah, until we get our punter back the Jury is still out on that. Our Punt returns have been good. Our kickoffs lacking. Our 3 pointers have been satisfying. Our punts laughable, but this isn't our punter anymore only an echo of pains from the past.

Our current weakest point on our team is our medical staff, they look tired and exhausted but its undersandable considering how overworked they have been this year.

Entangled parameters abound...
 

Nonsense...
 

The defense appears to be coming around, but only time will tell.

Right now, it's easily the ST coverage unit. And the issue is one that may plague KC the whole year.

Their best gunner, Bo, is out for the year. Biesel, who was just a freaking animal, is now the starting MLB, so it's too risky to play him there. And LJ -- a guy with the speed to be effective -- is too big a baby to play STs consistently.

The only way they are going to fix it is with attitude. They need someone to go "Bennie Thompson" and become a ST monster. Perhaps Sapp, maybe Caver, perhaps even Blaylock (who seems to be mixing it up a lot on STs lately).

MM
~~:arrow:

While I can see some improvement overall, the defense, and more specifically the LB's still have a long ways to go.

Collectively, the starters are prolly the worst group in the league.

The defense didn't stop Lewis? That's news to me. Sure he averaged 5 yards a carry, but it's not like he was getting 5 yards every time they handed him the ball in the first half. Most of the time it was 2 yards or less.

Lewis got 20 yards on his first carry, and like 40 on one drive in the third quarter (when we weren't stopping the run on first down).

Wow! I'm kinda suprised that it's nearly unanimous that special teams coverage is the biggest problem given all those plump choices.

Tough call for me between CB and Coverage units.

I went with CB. We've had some RBs bust some big runs, but on most downs we do a pretty good job. As a matter of fact we often get teams in 3rd and long situations. What happens then? They make an easy completion against our secondary. Furthermore many of the really big runs have been at McCleon's side of the field.

As crappy as our LBs are, with the play up front they stuff the run enough to force teams to pass. We can't seem to stop anybody from completing a pass unless their a shitty QB like Boller. Manning and Brady will eat us alive (again).

The worst thing though - is that there are plenty of weak spots on this team.

If Kennison isn't going to be healthy the Chiefs still need a WR. Assuming Kennison will be healthy after the bye then corner is the most pressing need. McLeon isn't getting the job done and Bartee and Battle have been unable to step up and challenge him; it's rather sad.

Once Cheek comes back the punts will get some more hang time and coverage will be less of an issue.

Further prediction, the Chiefs beat Jax. People get carried away about the defense only to be thrown into a suicidal depression after the Colts and Falcons games.

Penalties in all phases have been murderous but I chose offensive penalties simply because I expect more out of our offense.

I suppose if he had come out and ran for 20 yards a carry on three carries then been struck by lightning you would say the defense did a good job. His opportunities were limited by a strong offensive showing, don't mistake that for a sound run defense.

5+ yards average, you said it yourself. We can't give that up and call it a good showing. Our defense was in the backfield a lot, I liked that. They were aggressive dealing with the runner and that's good, but hey didn't stop him, or even really slow him down. When he was on the field he did well.

Look, I'm not looking to dump on the victory, we needed the wn and I'm as happy as the next chiefs fan about it. I'm just not ready to start crapping rainbows yet.

1st 7 Baltimore drives - thru 3 quarters....

1st - 7 plays... 36 yards... 50 yd FG
2nd- 3 plays... 0 yards... punt
3rd- 3 plays... 5 yards... punt
4th- 1 play... 57 yards... TD (trick play)
5th- 3 plays... 8 yards.... punt
6th- 1 play... -1 yard.... half
7th- 5plays... 21 yards... punt


I kind of thought the defense looked promising all by themselves. :sulk:

Nothin' worse than Skittles ass ...
 

Maybe not, but I bet JBret would be more than happy to "taste the rainbow" ...

MM
~~:spock:

Everything is a little bit of a problem except Kickoff Coverage. It is a major problem.
How's Dante gonna break the record this year if they can't block for him?
Putting the other team in favorable field position is another bitter pill.

Bingo!!! :thumb:

I have been thinking about that the last couple of weeks. I think the loss of Bo hurt a lot. Add to that Beisel starting at LB (my choice on the poll BTW) and you have 2 of your best ST players from last year no longer there. This hurts on both sides of ST and is a huge factor in why Dante has not been able to break one yet this year.

Special Teams...BRING BACK LYLE WEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jamal Lewis carries:

1: 18 yards
2: 3 yards
3: -1 yards
4: 1 yards
5: 2 yards
6: 3 yards
7: 5 yards
8: -2 yards

Then he gained 38 yards on one drive in the fourth quarter, a drive on which his shortest carry was 6 yards. For three quarters our defense stopped Jamal Lewis on the early downs and forced Baltimore into passing situations.

Yes the offense did a great job, but someone had to force those three and outs.

You know, this whole damn argument is starting to chap my hide... the only way the offense ever got the ball so that they could stay on the field so long was that our defense GOT OFF the field... the way they are supposed to.

I said before the season if we could get to a middle of the pack defense I'd be happy... we're 14th in the league. I'm happy.

Don't get me wrong bubba, I'm happy too and if the defense that played Baltimore shows up for the next 14 I'll not bitch. This was their best showing so far, but call a spade a spade, this is a middle of the pack defense on good days. I love 'em with all my heart and yell for 'em every sunday, but them the facts.

After the 18 yard misdirection toss play to start the game, Jamal rushed 14 times for 55 yards, a 3.9 YPC average. We did keep him in check.

Cut out their drive that was killed at the half and it looks like this...

1: 36 yards - Field goal
2: 0 yards - Punt
3: 5 yards - Punt
4: 57 yards - Touchdown
5: 8 yards - Punt
6: 21 yards - Punt

Compared to our first 6 drives ...

1: 60yards - Touchdown
2: 53yards - Field goal
3: 3yards - Punt
4: 78yards - Touchdown
5: 9yards - Punt
6: 7yards - Punt

We are claiming our Offense and Defense dominated them but in that comparison we only kill one drive more than they did. My, point? That the above stats do not tell the tale of this game. We _DID_ dominate this game and that stat that shows it is ToP. The credit for that stat belongs to the offense and the shoulders & legs of Priest.

But you can't remove that misdirection play, it was legal and part of the game. They practice those plays, our defense practices to deal with plays like them and when the two hit those plays, like all other plays, can go either way.

I will not defend our defense by only talking about three quarters of play or ignoring plays. Especially when they had god things enough to talk about already, like key end of the game stops. But our defense did not dominate, or offense did an amazing job controlling the clock.

Save your breath Tinlar. I've already been through this. Different people put a bigger emphasis on different stats. I'm with you, but you won't change anyone else's mind.

That was the FIRST PLAY OF THE GAME. It was clearly an aberration considering what Lewis did on his next seven carries (jack shit).

Like the abberation with Deshaun Foster? And Quentin Griffin?

I'm not discrediting it. I'm saying AFTER the first play of the game, we held Lewis to 55 yards on 14 carries.

There's a huge difference bewteen 70 goddamn yards and 18.

We never held any of those backs to 11 yards in a span of 7 carries.

Let's look at our major areas of weakness on defense and how our defense has progressed each week.

Week 1: 34 pts Allowed. 199 rush yards allowed (including plummer's scrambles.)

Week 2: 28 pts allowed. 184 rush yards allowed.

Week 3: 17 pts allowed (the defense did not throw the INT for a TD) and 56 total rushing yards allowed.

Week 4: 17 pts allowed (the defense did not allow a KR for a TD) and 80 total rushing yards allowed.

Over that four week span you can clearly see a big jump in defensive performance in the areas we were weakest last year. You have not seen a huge performance by one single player, true. You have also not seen a completely dominant defensive performance, but the Baltimore game was close.

And THAT is why I feel this defense has improved and will continue to improve. Last year even POOR offenses would put up big numbers against our defense. Even poor QB's and RB's would have big days.

That isn't happening this year. Outside of week one we've played good against good teams, and even great against a 500 team and a top 5 back in the NFL. We are stopping teams we SHOULD be able to stop, which we didn't do last year.

Definitely the Special teams coverage.

Actually, you're wrong here. That was the MO in 2002, but not last year. Last year the D was average to dominating against most teams. Where we struggled was against top notch O's (Green Bay, Denver, Minnesota).

I do agree with the rest of your post. We're showing improvement, and its not just because of the level of our opponent.

Oh really?

Deshaun Foster
17(but we throw out the big ones)
-3
6
-3
5
2
1
-2

Total = six yards in 7 carries.

I could go on, because there's plenty of stretches where we shut Foster down. Difference being, Carolina got more chances (because our O didn't dominate TOP), and they stuck with the run. We held Foster to 89 yards on 23 carries..then he ran for 71 more on the next carry. Did we shut him down?

You can't ignore our TOP and the lack of carries Lewis received.

I with you, like I said; If the defense that played Baltimore shows up for the rest of the season I will not bitch. I will not call them the dominate force of this team, but I'll smile when they take the field as oppsed to takin an extra shot to dull the pain (that was called for last year).

They got more chances because we didn't get them off the field when they had third downs. Baltimore was 1 for 8 on third down.

The D against Carolina was also hung out to dry by the offense. They allowed 2.7 ypc in the first half, but were on the field for too long due to crappy O.

The two weeks we showed marked improvement came with improvement from our O. More 3rd down conversions, and better TOP.

I won't argue that our D isn't improving. I'm just saying the 74 yd stat from the Baltimore game is misleading. Lewis ran fairly well against us when he got the opportunity.

Hung out to dry? Yes. But you're admitting exactly what I've been saying all along. Our D benefitted greatly from our O consuming an absurd amount of the clock. Sure the D had to force the punt, but you can't ignore that our O then ate up more TOP than they do in some of their best games.

Sure...but I think if the O had only held the ball for 30 minutes we'd still have been fine.

He had plenty of opportunities in the first half. He did nothing.

Basically our D shut down the Baltimore run game apart from one drive and one carry. That's damn good run D.

Fair enough...I think that had Lewis received 10 more carries he may have lit us up for another 74, judging by what our run has shown late in games when backs get 20+ carries.

It's all speculation, by both of us.

I don't expect our D to play well when they are on the field for extended periods of time. I have no delusions of this offense being anything close to the 85 Bears.

The offense has to do it's job by putting up 25+ points and holding the ball for around 30 mins.

:banghead: CAN :banghead: NOT :banghead: IGNORE :banghead: CERTAIN :banghead: PARTS :banghead: OF :banghead: THE :banghead: GAME!!! :banghead:

They aren't perfect. I'm not ignoring that one drive or one carry. Even with those other carries we still did a good job.

You left out the number of plays on the drives. You bet the offense gets some of the share for the ToP numbers. But when you have that huge of a gap in the numbers, the defense has to be involved as well. And they were. 3 plays, 3 plays, 1 play, 3 plays, and 5 plays is pretty efficiant work by the defense, IMO.

I'm not discounting the offense at all. I thought AS called a brilliant game. I just think the defensive performance was equally impressive. Just as the offense was keeping the defense off of the field, the defense was putting the offense right back out there. That is what some of us have been waiting to see for a long time.

I'm well aware most are going to wait to jump on the bandwagon for at least 3 more games. It is going to boil down to how we do against Vick and his Falcons, and Manning and his Colts.

In the mean time, I am going to enjoy the progress I have seen from the defense over the past two or three weeks.

Let us give some credit to the O for stepping up, too...
 

An additional load to carry...
 

yep, that's the ticket all right...

we can forgive the d for allowing a long drive or two and even for allowing a couple of touchdowns - so long as the o scores like they did last year (or somewhere close to it)...

of course, it would also help if we didn't give up a td to the enemy's special teams...

and having trent NOT throw td's to the other team's defense helps quite a lot too...

as usual... :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

I'm definately gonna say our special teams coverage units needs work. And a lot of it. Punting is a weakness, imo, if we decide to keep Baker around. If Cheek comes back we'll probably be alright. I think our kickoff's are a little inconsistent, they have to be a bit better. I'm still holding the defense accountable. There slowly getting better with time, and looks like a work in progress. I still think we have to improve our run defense, and our 3rd down defense. Sorry, I'll be a little more specific, the 3rd and long defense is hurting us right now, and we have to improve upon it. Another thing I'd like to see us do, is, apply a better pass rush, we're not applying enough of a pass rush. Holliday is not getting it done, Browning, is not much of a pass rusher, Hicks has to step up. I'd like to see more and more of Jared Allen, and Gary Stills on 3rd down defense, those guys are quick around the edge and have the ability to get to the QB better than anyone else we have on defense.

I'm not worried about our offense. Priest is Priest. we all know that. Our O-line is one of the best in the league. Trent is coming on. Tony G is Tony G. I was concerned about our WR's, but, I don't think we'll be that bad. Morton has impressed me of late, and Chris Horn is really suprising. Hall is Hall. And once we get Kennison and Wilson back I think this area will be real strong. I'm definately concerned about our team discipline, too many penalties, cut back on the penalties we'll be ok.