Players that outplayed epectations tonight
 

1) Charles - can we get the guy the ball more...and on plays other than draws? PLEASE?

2) Glenn Dorsey - Man was a dominating force tonight!

3) DJ - good job man, you held down your gap (with exception of a couple plays) and played solid football.

4) Tyson Jackson - you showed some fire out there and contributed to a run defense that played a damn good game

5) Shaun Smith - we were noticeably better with you on the field as the nose. Keep up the good work.

6) Moeaki - had some nice blocks and if we had a quarterback, he would have had a big game.

7) Arenas - good returns are becoming the norm and his coverage was pretty good most of the time. Kids gonna be good once he gets up to speed on defense.

8) Carr - Great game, nuff said.

9) DMC - I cant wait till we find a way to get this kid on the field consistently. I think his "illness" limited how much they used him tonight, but his speed on the punt return is .2 faster than his timed speed from the combine...maybe faster.

10) The team as a whole - it was nice to see em playing as a team for the first time in a few years. We are noticeably on the right path if we can "fix the quarterback"

Lilja had a good game. Waters was fun to watch. He had some nasty fire going.

I think the biggest stand outs tonight were DJ and Dorsey on defense and Charles on offense. That kid is just sick. I think people are getting a bit down on Jones, not because he is bad but because they want more Charles. I think we will get more Charles as well but we simply can't have him in there every play or he will get broken.

Crennell had a great game.

No love for flowers?

Teh defense has improved thus far. We are flying to the ball and yes, I couldn't believe my eyes, we are tackling!!! We just have to get someone on the other side of Hali to bring the pass rush off the edges and continue to work on getting more push in the middle.

Lets be honest, SD is a good offensive team and next to Indy, probably the best offensive team we are going to see all year.

I expect him to be great.

That's what he is.

I should have added:

11) the ol...they played much better than I expected them to.

I was very impressed with Carr. After him getting burned in the preseason and practice, it didn't sound like he was doing very well.

I would say McCluster, DJ and Tyson Jackson. I actually expected the play we got out of Charles, Dorsey and Arenas. Maybe an honorable mention to Smith. I wasn't sure McCluster was going to play, or if he did, that he was going to return a punt 94-yards...

The guys I wasn't particularly thrilled with were Richardson and Cassel.

Berry had a rough night, as well, but I think that's to be expected with a rookie.

Lewis seemed to be okay out there. We're going to have an amazing secondary for a long time I think.

He was/is still learning to play man coverage. He will continue to progress IMO the more he learns to get his head turned.

Im glad we played them in the rain.

This defense is gonna end up top 12-15 defense... but maybe, it could be a top 7-10 defense. I reallllly like defense.

Top 5 defenses make me very happy.

The offense is gonna have to convert some 3rd downs and stop going 3 and out to get them into the top 10.

They played pretty well, Belcher should probably get some kind of notice for playing a solid game.

I'm just afraid the rain did more for us than anything. Rivers was carving us up when it was dry.

I'm not sure the crowd didn't throw him off more than the weather. They were having problems getting the snap off all night, and I think it really got into his head.

Either way, it's not something we can count on all the time...

We aren't going to play the Chargers every game either, though. For whateve reason we were good tonight it was a good confidence boost for our defense. And to hold on at the end can be a step in setting that mentality that we can play good defense.

Belcher played as well as I expected TBH. I have liked him for some time now.

I think this DL is gonna make our linebackers look pretty good if Shaun Smith can start and Tyson is OK.

Romeo Crennel is already doing well on his "white horse" if I do say so myself.

Defense had a great game considering they we're on the field 2/3rds of the game. Constant pressure (compared to what we've seen this decade), good coverage, turnovers, defensive stands, run defense for the most part. Very pleased over all. Sure, they had some blown coverages and at the end some bad tackles but that can be attributed to rookies/new scheme/worn out.

Offense...awful. Cassel...continues to suck. Playcalling had some headscratchers that is likely because the QB play. Moeaki impressed to a degree...he didn't die out there and had a nice play for the TD and another nice catch. Charles was good. The line was ok considering Cassel had given the defense to think there was a threat to pass so all they did was try to close the holes and blitz.

Special teams...we all thought something special was in store but wow, arenas and mccluster was everything we all hoped for.

Oh, there's no doubt in my mind that the win was something they can build on. Whether they will or not I can't say, but it could definitely be a foundation.

Jackson played a good game. Better than any game he had last year. I hope his injury is not serious.

Mecca is right on about Belcher, good game, hope he keeps it up all year.

Really for people to say the rain helped us seems to defy the rule of thumb that a sloppy field benefits an offense.

They may have something in Belcher. I think we're starting to see why they were so excited about him after '09's camp.

Kind of hard to credit, but he plays a lot bigger than he is.

I was wandering if we would ever throw the ball on first down. We did eventually but mostly it's run Jones up Weigmans ass. WTF

Do some screens to Charles or Dexter, maybe quick slants to D Bowe on first down once in a while. I had enough of Jones the first couple of series, he had a few good runs but mostly not good enough.

Well, all I have to say in closing cause it is time to hit the sack is, wet or dry, SD could not run the football for shit. That is the biggest thing to hold onto from tonight's game. We shut down the run. ESPN talked up Matthews big time before the game. We shut down their running game. We do that consistently and we will win more than we lose.

Chargers seemed pretty set on defending screens, that one that McCluster got Weddle was sitting on it. Just looked to me like Weis had absolutely no confidence in Cassel at all after seeing the first couple of passes he threw.

Cassel or our o-line? Cassel got nailed both times as he was throwing on his first two passes. I can't hang those on him, that was shitty blocking.

He held the ball way to long on a couple of those...the sack he took from Phillips was completely on him.

That's what I kept saying over and over to the people at my house.

Teams are waiting on the screens and draws and soon enough they will be jumping curls and keeping both safeties within 7 yards of the LOS.

I wonder if this team could make the playoffs with Thigpen. Oh well, wasted time talking about it I guess, but he looked pretty good in PS.

How many games with sub 125 yards passing will we have to endure before a change is made?

I don't know why teams wouldn't do it from the start, what are the odds Matt Cassel actually completes a ball downfield on you?

Even in the passes that were called it was obvious it was how they were playing because he kept trying to go downfield, he just can't do it.

Flip flop the quarterbacks of the teams from tonight and Rivers throws for 350 with our targets and Cassel throws for the same amount as he did for us, on the Chargers.

There is no reason to have confidence in Cassel He sucks. He made 1 good throw downfield and that was to Moaeki (spelling).

He's just ass. There is no way around it. His pocket presence is freaking terrible.

If the Chiefs had Rivers they'd be a playoff team lol.

Yet even after a great win, on the same night even, a thread that had nothing to do with Cassel turns into a Cassel bash-fest. We get it guys. He isn't very good. But God damn, we won the ****ing game against the Chargers. Enjoy it for a few hours, will ya?

We didn't really shut down their running game. We had a 2 TD lead at halftime, so they were playing from behind. We did a better job, I'm not saying we didn't, especially compared to recent KC defenses, but in the end Mathews only carried the ball 19 times, although he still racked up 75 yards (that's just a hair under 4.0 ypc).

Not that 3.8 ypc for the game isn't a good thing, and they weren't too far over 100 yards for the day, but I don't think I'd go so far as to characterize it as dominant...

But it was a very encouraging (and I think very important) sign of improvement.

I don't think that's funny, I think its very true.

Along with at least 10 other quarterbacks.

LOL do you think its a coincidence that they are playing the Stanford game on ESPN right now?

1. Crennel
- Johnson, Dorsey, Jackson, Smith all jumped off the page tonight. Vrabel took control in the fourth and called a near perfect game. Belcher was totally solid for an undersized small college player making his fifth NFL start. Everyone wrapped people up. The defense converged on the ball carrier, and even though there were some missed tackles, especially in the fourth quarter (it was wet and Rivers was hitting guys in stride at most points in the sub 8 minute mark), our defensive guys were filling up the lanes, knocking down passes and had a lot of chances at big plays. And these are the same guys from last year who sucked dog balls. That's on the coordinator. Crennel came up huge.

2. Scott Pioli
- Guy was hammered here for his shitty drafts and horrible personnel changes. Me being one of the hammers. However, his '10 draft class, as far as the first game of the season goes, did okay. Okay, better than okay. And getting Weigmann back and signing Lilja was excellent, even though both guys wanted to come back to Kansas City and it wouldn't have mattered who was the GM in terms of getting two quality OL guys on this team. It happened under Pioli's watch, so he gets the credit.

3. Todd Haley
- No meltdowns. No obvious berserk tirades. His team won, beat a division rival in the process (a division rival who has won the past four division titles and who has beaten the Chiefs like a drum over the past five years). He's the coach, the team won. Kudos you berserk, mean ass ****er.

4. Derrick Johnson
- That was the guy we have been waiting for for six seasons. Sure, he's had his moments, but he was completely solid all game long and played hard every single quarter. Welcome to the NFL Mr. Johnson.

5. Shawn Smith
- We all complained about a lack of a quality NT, and decided to overlook/ignore the signing of a guy who was, at one point, considered one of the better nose tackles in the NFL. The guy generated a push up the middle nearly every time he was in holding two blockers in the process. Dorsey and Jackson looked like near studs playing next to a legitimate 3-4 NT.

6. Javier Arenas
- If he could have held onto the gimmee interception in the fourth quarter, he would be at #1. His return abilities are amazing and give the Chiefs 15 more yards of field position over last season. And he didn't embarrass at the nickle, which was a source of tragedy last season.

7. Tony Moeaki
- The guy goes from the gurney to the end zone. If he seals a corner as well as BossChief says, he's okay in my book. He caught a TD and didn't have his leg fall off in the process. That's huge.

8. Casey Weigmann
- Welcome home Casey. You were the lynchpin for what might have been the best offensive line in the history of the NFL and you showed that in your late 30's you can still kick ass and hold your own. That's stud material.

9. Dexter McCluster
- Touchdown in your first NFL game. Made the Chargers play catchup and worry about you all game long.

10. Matt Cassel
- You credited the defense with the win in your post game interview. You threw for 60 something yards and still won the game. You didn't die or throw 64 interceptions. Phil Rivers, not you, hit the crossbar on a pass. That's top ten in my book.

dude, read the op I wrote. Forgive me for enjoying the good while not turning a blind eye to the elephant in the room.

As opposed to the last 10 years of run defense this team has fielded, this was god mode run defense.

I think Shaun Smith isnt getting enough credit either. Dude played very well tonight.

In english please.

I absolutely love this dude. He needs more touches, in better spots. If you don't want him carrying the ball, that's fine, but we need to find a way to get him the ball at for 25% of our total snaps.

He and TJ both played like they were possessed. Held their ground all night. Yes, SD got a few decent runs passed our front 7, but that's going to happen. Overall, they were holding both RBs to < 3 yards consistently. That play on Sproles in the backfield was nothing short of spectacular.

Player of the game, IMO. DJ ran people down all day, was great in coverage, was a tackle machine, and basically gift wrapped a touchdown for our offense. He took one of the few times that SD was able to open a decent hole for their rookie (which could have been a backbreaking run against a defense that hadn't quite gotten it's legs under it) and turned it into a positive for his defense. And after tonight, I'm under the impression that this IS DJs defense. He might be growing into one of those middle linebackers that makes the rest of the defense play better around him. :)

He also got some pressure on the quarterback and drove his man backwards a LOT. Not to mention taking up blockers to free up DJ. He also scraped the line several times to keep runs from breaking outside. His first tackle, he made while still engaged with the blocker and being held, just reached out with his left hand and brought the dude down. I was mega impressed with his play. Can't wait to go back and watch the tape.

Honestly, I couldn't see him most of the time. I did notice him calling out defensive line audibles and switches, which is AWESOME. We've needed a good leader in the middle of that line. But once the ball was snapped, he just seemed engulfed in people of both teams and usually the ball carrier was brought down. Until I see the tape and some replays, I'll hold off judgement.

Overall, he seemed to have a good game. Didn't have a TON of catches, but the touchdown was great (although pretty easy, since everybody bit on the fake) and there was a drive in the 4th quarter where he got up and caught a nice out route. Best ball Cassel threw all day, and it was shades of Tony G how he squared his shoulders and jumped to grab the ball. Lets hope he takes this decent game and gets even better.

He really looked lost a couple of times in his zones, but the guy is just a STUD with the ball in his hands. I'm not opposed to him getting some offensive touches at some point. It's a shame Studebaker didn't lay that block on his long return. Scifres made a great tackle, but #96 was there and should have leveled him, giving Arenas a walk in TD.

Agreed. It was hard to really evaluate who and why those zones were breaking down late in the game, but when he was matched up, man to man, he did show that he had the ability to make a play on the ball and overall, I'd venture a "pre-look-at-the-film" guess that he did a great job over the course of the game.

Dexter also needs more touches. Period. The little WR screens and half assed draws aren't taking full advantage of his skills. There was one end-around that I just WISHED we'd have given him. He would have been GONE. As far as the punt return goes... GREAT job, and made my night. But next time, lets not field those booming kicks at the 5, okay?

Not sure I can say this, for sure. Again, we won and I don't want to rain (so to speak) on the parade, but the Chiefs were a tale of two cities tonight. Fortunately, we played as good as we had to, when we had to the most. But we were soundly beaten in most categories. Our offense needs to be smarter and sharper and cut into defenses with our best weapons in places where they're most vulnerable. We didn't show an ability to really do that tonight. On defense though, we dictated the pace of the game by really dampening their rush attack and putting just enough pressure on Rivers that he just never could really get a rhythm going. The crowd, a few hits on the qb, some great coverage down field at key times, Derrick Johnson stripping a football, and a HUGE night for special teams helped us overcome a general lack of good football on the other side of the ball.

This.

Belcher is going to be our London Fletcher. Leads the league every year in tackles (or close to it), but never gets to the pro bowl.

Everyone should realize that Belcher is only a second year player out of small school Maine. The guy is very instinctive and plays hard as nails every down. He impresses the shit out of me. His stand up tackle of the fullback took the wind out of San Diego's sails on that last drive. Like I said, he's only going to get better as the year progresses, and God knows we've needed a decent MLB for a long, long time.

Credit to Clark Hunt

It's hard to have a pocket presence when both of your offensive tackles might be the worst at their position in the entire NFL. There ain't much of a pocket to have a presence in at that point.

How about some love for something else we haven't seen in KC for awhile...the 12th man!! Arrowhead was rockin and it caused some confusion on their side multiple times. Was great to see the atmosphere starting to return to that place.

Believe it or just, they just about did. There were 49 Chiefs plays and he had 12 touches.

give this shit a rest already.

Richardson is junk IMO and always will be. He doesnt have the mind of a guy that always knows who to block...but Albert didnt have a bad game and is FAR from the worst at his position in the NFL.

They should spend a 3rd-5th on a RT, but nothing higher.

We will need a starter opposite Bowe, another pass rusher, a quarterback and a young nose guard to groom under Romeo before we even think about drafting a OL in the first two rounds again.

Richardson was up and down (and when he was down, it was really down), but I didn't notice Albert at all, which means he was probably fine. I don't think we have any issues at LT.

Still too much pressure from the right and in my opinion up the middle.

On a unrelated side note.... We were not penalized to often tonight.

Richardson is pretty good when he engages the man he is supposed to block, trouble is he doesn't always know who that is.

That's part of the reason he got benched his final year in college in favor of a true freshman iirc. If that isn't fixed by now, it likely wont ever be.

JMO

What do you mean again? Albert, who played exclusively at guard in college, was our first, first round pick as an offensive lineman since John Tait. Other than that, including Jon Asamoah, the Chiefs, over the last 12 years, have spent a grand total of three draft picks on the offensive line in the first three rounds. And that includes Tait, Albert and Asamoah.

That's not really "again" in my book.

They could really invest in a few solid players at an important position. But maybe that's just me thinking that way.

Albert - first rounder (hence the term "again" as this is the ONLY OL position that should EVER warrant a first rounder, even a 2nd rounder unless a superb talent falls and we cant pass on him)
Waters - aging vet that likely already has his replacement in house in either Asamoah or Lilja
Weigman - we need to draft a replacement, but no earlier than the third round. I wanted Tennant, but the guys we took there are looking like fine football players at first glance and the pocket was there tonight, Cassels pocket awareness wasnt.
Lilja - see: Waters
Richardson - draft his replacement in the third or later, I have no problems.

IMO we have 3/5 OL filled already with long term replacements and we need to invest, at max, a couple thirds in the next couple drafts on the other 2.

Calling for any more high picks on this line is overkill.

Put a qb behind this line that is even average and this line is just fine.

Just the way I see it.

Ugh.. That's an ugly, ugly, FUGLY stat. We only had 49 snaps? That's gotta improve. Just curious: how many did san diego have? I was gonna add to my T.O.P. argument by saying that we probably had a similar number of plays going into the last 5 minutes of the game, but since we ran no huddle, and they were mostly taking till -1 sec to snap the ball... :)

Now I'm thinking I might have been WAY off on my instinctual assumption. Did they hit 65 plays?

SD had 70 total offensive plays to our 49.

That is just a BRUTAL stat. We have much room for improvement.

The more important thing was they didn't turn the damn ball over, finally.

LT: Albert sucks. Period. He doesn't have the skill set to be able to play left tackle at this level. As such, we need a left tackle. They ain't cheap and usually require absolute luck in getting one cheap in the draft or committing to one in the first round, and usually high in the first round. That's how it is.

LG: Waters is old. We drafted a RG in Asamoah. We signed a RG in Lilja. Still need a LG. Wait a minute...Albert was a LG in college playing next to two legitimate first round left tackles in Fergusson and Monroe. Perhaps Albert could actually slide over and play a position he's more suited for...perhpas.

C: Weigmann is old. Niswanger isn't good. Other than that, we don't have any qualified center on roster. I wanted Tennant as well, and he was there in the fifth. I can only hope that Pioli is smart enough to read this board and check my suggestions/hopes that I recently put up on the Draft Planet. Baxter from Arizona would be nice. (Though I wouldn't have been disappointed if the Chiefs traded down two years ago and selected Alex Mack.)

RG: Completely stocked position. Lilja and Asamoah.

RT: O'Murphy and Richardson. Holy shit.

That's not respectable. That's tragic from a future perspective. Other than RG. Has anyone thought about trying Asamoah out at RT?

Albert played well. He's our LT and unless Ogden comes a long we should not replace him there. A QB would be much better option for the 1st round.

LG, We have Asamoah that will take over once Waters leaves/retires

C, needs to be addressed in the draft because Niswanger is a guard and not a center and Weigmann will likely retire at the end of this year.

RG, Lilja is 28 and still has plenty in the tank...a lot of time to develop a young late round pick.

RT, Richardson played ok...not great, not good but a lot better than previously. He'll be fine here.

true

jesus basically everyone


Dorsey was a revelation

and belcher hit some mother ****ers hard


like 'take that you mother****er' hits

The entire defense, with the exception of Eric Berry, played much better than expected (once Romeo remembered to cover Gates).

I do think they should play more man defense. The zone was letting Rivers move the ball a lot, but I guess Romeo will play his bend but don't break scheme.

The offensive line was good at run blocking, average at pass blocking. Cassel was bad. As far as I could tell from the limited television angles, the receivers weren't getting that much separation, so I'll say they did poorly as a group (with a few drops as wel). Running backs were good, returners were phenomenal.

Smith filled in credibly at DE when Jackson went out, as well, i thought

The stat I like is our 1 to their 0.

It's nice to see Saccoshit and his bullshit agenda against Brendan Albert in full force.

is he finally getting the many top ten draft picks to be what they should be?

I loved last night

I love defense

was a 90's time warp as I wore my DT jersey screen printed so it says D mas


but **** YEAH

I now wanna spend the cash to get my son to arrowhead
I don't wanna tell him how the noise used to be
how the D used to be

I want him to see how it is

This is an under-appreciated post.

The main points I liked are that the play calling issues are largely due to the weakness at the QB position and the line actually played well when you consider how easy our one-dimensional offense makes it on opposing defenses. I really think all of these troubles just stem from the weakness at QB.

you know I been missing thigpen
and that sucks

yes, we need to draft a real QB

Actually, SD may be the best offensive team we play. That said, we got to face them in really poor weather conditions that probably favored the Chiefs.

When they play the Colts, it will be in the dome.

Donald Washington. I was worried when I saw him on the field at the end of the game but he did a nice job against Gates.

I agree.

The offense had way too many three and outs. Thats bad because that means defense will be on the field more.

I love the way this defense improved, but Im concerned that the offense will not compliment the defense. If this defense has to be on the field for a majority of the time, they're gonna be more fatigued. I hope they don't run out of gas by seasons end.

I'm pretty sure that Matt Cassel complimented the defense in his post game interview on the way to the locker room.

Or were you meaning to say complement?

I understand Haley/Weis not wanting Charles to get broken down with 30 carries every game, but he needs more than 11. The goal should be 15-20 touches for Charles every game. In a game like this, they should be more concerned with getting some first downs at the end of the game then preserving Charles. This is especially true when his touches are still in the single digits.

Is Tyson Jackson on anybodies list?

Had KC not been up by 14 a lot of the game I would think Charles would have gotten the ball more.

With the rain and Charles fumble history as well as Jones non-fumble history I think they limited Charles touches.

I'd put him on my list.

He played a solid game and showed some real flashes.

I know and go figure he gets hurt.

WTF are you talking about!!! Bad weather is horrible for an offense. Wet ball for passing/catching, wr routes and cuts, rb cuts, limited visibility, more fumbles, center/qb exchanges, and qb/rb exchanges all become much more difficult in bad weather. The only way bad weather helps if you have a big bruising running back and a badass oline.

Learn something basic about the game before you start flapping your jaw next time.

Dorsey with a bullet. This kid was a monster last night.
Wasn't expecting that kinda game out of him.