Chiefs show they're for real.
 

https://www.all22.com/kansas-city-ch..._medium=Social

Though this was a really cool write up.

Enjoy.

Damn good article.

Yeah, that's really solid. Thanks.

Watching the alignments/reads this week was pretty eye opening.

I wonder if the reason the Falcons do such a poor job against the pass is that they do a really poor job of disguising coverages. I'd say about 2/3 of the plays I could look at the alignment pre-snap and know where the ball was going. The Falcons did a really bad job of making it look like they had coverage where they didn't.

I think it was a 3rd down play where Hill lined in the slot and you could see that he had 1 on 1 vs. a LB - so of course Smith hit him quick, he made a single move and went for 20ish. A play or two later was the same story with Kelce.

You could just look at the formation, find the 1 on 1 matchup vs. a linebacker or safety and know that either Hill, Kelce or Ware was going to have room to work. The Falcons DC was playing checkers all day and Reid/Smith were making him pay for it.

This is sn excellent point. Chiefs are doing a much better job of playcalling and creating great matchups. When Maclin is healthy we will have another play maker that demands attention.

Man, that's some great stuff

The power at the bar was out so I missed that throw to Kelce in real time but it was the same thing - they just walked Neal up there and Smith knew at the snap that he got the matchup he wanted.

The article says that's a 'fake screen' but if Kelce didn't get the 1v1 on Neal, I bet that turns into a real screen. The Falcons just didn't make anything difficult for the Chiefs pre-snap at all. Maybe it was a product of play design and the Falcons simply didn't have a choice (hard to say; I know some stuff but I don't know all the stuffs). But in either event, Reid was dictating the engagement from start to finish.

This was a Reid W. Smith played well and Berry made the big plays, but Andy Reid won this game by simply being better at his job than the Atlanta DC is at his.

Good read right down to last two sentences. **** the fade

Lllllloaded lloaded

It really will. Biggest plays yesterday were throwing towards the sidelines. With Maclin you get a confident receiver who can go middle on moderate to deep routes

Depends on if his head's right.

He wasn't in the game for the weeks leading up to his injury. Something has been off with him all year.

Let's not act like Maclin was hauling in 7 balls for 75 yards every game leading up to the injury. He was hauling in barely half his targets and making a fairly minimal impact. He hasn't been a difference maker since week 1.

Now that's not to say he won't be when he returns, but it's folly to just expect it.

Hopefully after everything he has found his hunger again. He can be awesome.

Good article, but the Raiders are "complete"? Ehhhhhh NAH

He was clutch in SD but yes the death of his friend affected him mentally for several weeks and then of course this month long injury. A lot of uncharacteristic drops this season from him too. Hopefully the law of averages comes into play

He appeared overweight and slow before his groin injury, so I'm unsure what to expect of him after returning from a 5+ week groin injury.

Even if he's completely healed, I wouldn't expect much from him immediately and it might be January before he's in game shape, if then.

Personally, I'm writing him off this year. If he returns to form, it's a bonus but at this point, I'm not expecting it.

Likewise.

I'm treating him like I was treating Charles - if he came back and contributed, that's gravy. But I didn't expect Charles to make a difference this year even before his setback.

Same thing with Maclin. You just can't operate under the assumption that he'll be back strong. In a long enough career, just about every player will have a 'lost' season in there somewhere and they happen for a variety of reasons. For a truly great player, it usually takes a few reasons.

Welp, the injury kinda felt like a kill-shot. I just don't see him getting back to his 2015 form. The only shot, IMO, is the playoffs. Perhaps the next 4 weeks will get him back into playing shape and the emotion of the playoffs will snap him out of his funk. But I'd say that's still a bit of a longshot.

I don't expect him to come back and dominate, but I certainly hope that he can come back and at least draw some attention (or at least more than Conley/Wilson currently are doing). If we can just get Hill and Kelce into one-on-ones a little more, it'll make a huge difference.

In his absence we've been doing what we should have been doing the whole time.

Targeting Kelcee, running the ball, and creating mismatches at the WR position.

How is Dan Quinn so bad at building a defense?

Can somebody answer that for me?

The guy was the DC of those great Seahawks defenses. I'm flummoxed.

Pioli

Carroll is the mastermind there.

Similar to how all the Pat guys have went elsewhere and failed, unless you're getting the brain of the operation, I would go elsewhere.

The good news is we don't NEED them.

We NEED Ford and Houston healthy. We NEED Peters. We NEED Poe.

If Maclin is even 50% then it's a huge gain. The guy was making plays in New England on 1 leg last year.

We absolutely need Maclin.

We don't need Maclin to be 2015 Maclin, but we need him to go out there, light a fire under his teammates on offense, get in DBs faces and heads, run sharp routes, and catch the balls thrown to him. And, most of all, attract a ton of attention.

It wouldn't hurt, but we don't NEED him...

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I have to respectfully disagree lol.

I think we NEED maclin. If our run game isnt working one day in the playoffs, and Hill or Kelce are having a off day, we are screwed.. We would be hoping either Conley or Wilson steps up in that scenario which hasnt really happened
all year long in most cases....

Having Maclin back brings a WR1 Maclin WR2 Hill WR3 Conley, TE Kelce with Wilson subbin in.. thats a bad ass receiving corps. Conley has shown that hes pretty good when hes getting hot, the problem is hes not hot often enough for us. However, three big boys like Kelce/Maclin/Conley out there, with Hill running around like a mad-man with the dual threat of alex and our run game out of the backfield is alot for defenses to handle.

We don't need Maclin except against the Broncos and the Patriots. There's a fair chance we play either team in the playoffs.

The Pats are experts at taking away your team's #1 weapon. Kelce, probably.

We need more weapons to counter that.

The Broncos, meanwhile, have the league's best CB combo, and they play really, really angry on defense. Maclin is the fire you need to fight fire.

We won't be playing Denver if we take care of business at Arrowhead, IMO. Their remaining schedule is tough.

The problem is that knocking Denver out may just mean we get Pittsburgh for our efforts.

Gonna have to beat good teams to win in the playoffs. If it's at home, after a bye, well, let's do it.

That defense has a ton of young players on it and they play a very vanilla defense so they don't overwhelm them. They have also lost several important players to injury. While the defense isn't good, they are actually better than before Quinn got there. Those defenses were beyond terrible (decent secondaries but zero pass rush).

I bristled at this as well.

The slobbering over the raiders makes me sick. We whooped their ass in THEIR house and the talking heads are STILL acting as if they're the best shit in the AFCW.

They play a pretty game....until they play a real team.

They've win what, 6 straight? They're playing well though

It almost has the same ring as those banging the Alex Sucks gong.

I think the Raiders are for real. Beatable by Chiefs??? YES!

Well, except for the fact that they are, at least right at this moment

Not one post about Alex Smith....until your dumbass brought it up.

LMAO

Music to your ears?

You know the way we moved that ball at the end in the 4 minute offense I think we would have scored to take the lead on the last drive if Berry didn't make that pick play.

And if Berry doesn't house the pick 6, I think they score on that one as well.

For all the 'only 13 points against a bad defense' talk, people are sure ignoring the 11 yards per pass attempt and over 8 yards per offensive play thing pretty readily.

The offense looked damn good yesterday and I'm absolutely confident they'd have driven down and scored if need be. Smith was pushing the ball downfield and making precise, confident throws. His reads were spot on all day and there was never a time where he didn't seem in control of that offense.

There was one thing that could've beat that offense yesterday and he was sporting a 72 on his back. For as many positive things I've said about Eric Fisher over the last 2-3 years, yesterday was a ****ing masterclass in suck. He looked like he was shaving points out there. If he wasn't routing Vic Beasley via half-hearted holds directly into Smith's spine, he was jumping early or missing blocks entirely on the run. I remember two different run plays to his side where he mis-read the play so badly that he literally touched nobody. He stood up and stared as someone blew through the gap and smoked Ware.

Fisher could've penalized/vapor locked us into a L somehow, but even he wasn't enough to keep the Chiefs clicking for the most part. They'd have scored on that drive.