A Levelheaded Review Wk15
 

1. The Texans are not as bad as their record would indicate. They pushed a very good Cowboys team in Week 14 to a very close game. Keep that in mind.

2. Isaiah Pacheco, love how hard he runs, needs to get better at pass protection he completely whiffed on that LB stunt blitz on Patrick's 1st sack of the game. His fumble while perplexing is not all that concerning as it's his 4th fumble in 14 games. His last fumble was against JAX and prior to that against the Colts. Rookie mistakes. I'd like to see him more involved in the pass game.

3. Speaking of turnovers they are killing us. The JJSS fumble was just lucky. But we have to do better at holding on to the ball. We gave the Texans short fields to work with on the Pacheco and JJSS fumble that both resulted in Touchdowns. Seems like at least 2 turnovers (fumbles or Int's) in the last 3-4 games.

4. Patrick running the ball is just magic. He knows exactly when to take off and how to hold defenders to keep his running lanes open.

5. Playing to not lose the game, the last 3-4 plays we ran felt like we were playing to not lose instead of get yards to make the FG closer for Butker. Gotta give the the RB's a chance to gain forward yardage.

6. How lucky have we been on coin tosses? Either to start the game or in OT. Seems like we are almost always kicking off and taking the 2nd half kickoff or taking the kickoff in OT. I wonder if that is tracked somewhere?

7.I have said it many times, Toney and Hardman make this offense different. When Toney was in the game they had to account for him. Can't wait for them to both be back on the field. Without them our offense is Kelce, Juju, McKinnon, Pacheco (repeat). Ocassionally Gray, Watson or MVS chip in but you can pretty well bet where the ball is going every play. We need them back badly. Skyy has almost completely disappeared.

8. Willie Gay with the timely turnovers gets the game ball. Last week it was a "pick 6" this week was recovering the OT fumble. Kudos to Frank Clark on generating that turnover.

9. McKinnon in the right place at the right time seems like every week. Great vision on the OT run to end the game.

10. Butker just seems off this year. I'm not sure if it's the ankle or the confidence but he just seems to make terrible kicks at times. I didn't see anything wrong with the snap on either the XP or FG. The XP kick was super ugly.

Extra Point. Penalties, Extremely Ticky Tacky penalty calling against the Chiefs (See Sneed PI in the 4th Q and the Gay defensive holding). Hate to bring this up but I felt like they were being exceptionally picky against the Chiefs.

We destroyed them on the stat sheet.

Turnovers and penalties are killing this team.

I posted this in the GDT, but thought it was a pretty crazy stat:

Mahomes was 31-31 when targeting Kelce, Juju, McKinnon, and Gray

Something like 5 HOU 3rd downs converted by flags today. Plus the huge field position advantage given on that ridiculous 'blindside' block by jerrick.

turnovers by the offense though, that's been a killer. I had no idea that Pacheco had already racked up 4 fumbles.

The Good:

Mahomes, McKinnon, Kelce

The Bad:

Fumbling, Defense, Penalties (some Cheffers bullshit in there but still),

The ugly-

Andy and EB's game management, Harrison Butker

"seems"

agreed on all counts.

I really think it is a crazy stat that the Chiefs are the best team on 3rd downs in general but one of the worst teams on 3rd and short.

Butker has always had XP problems and now that he isn't making field goals either he's a straight up liability.

The Chiefs turned it over twice, committed 100 yards in penalties, missed an xp and fg and the Texans are so bad they won anyway.

It was frankly an embarrassing performance but a wins a win.

You’d think that at some point the turnover trend over the last 9 games would reverse course. If it doesn’t it’ll likely be an early exit in the playoffs.

I think we have only lost 2 of those 4 fumbles. That probably why you had no idea. I didn't either, so I looked it up.

As a team we're turning the ball way too much though. At critical times. I don't care how good your defense is or QB, if you turn the ball over multiple times in the NFL against anybody, it's hard to win.

The good: KC won, Mahomes was elite today along with Kelce and McKinnon. Pacheco ran well outside of that fumble.

The bad: Turnovers, Butker, the defense was porous and very rarely made a stop when needed, and (while I hate saying it) very questionable and uneven officiating.

Regardless a win is a win, but I struggle to see how KC wins it all with how the defense and Butker are playing.

f

You need to play flawless football in the playoffs or you will most likely lose. That means no TOs, little to no penalties, stopping teams on 3rd and long, getting pressure on thr QB and most important no missed PATs or FGs.

We need to fix ALL of those areas. Very messy heading into the playoffs.

With our offense end of game tied I want to see more aggressive approach to get a touchdown because butker is broken. That was frustrating end of the 4th.

Dallas lost to Jacksonville. Vikings beat Colts by 3 and had to go to OT. Philly beat Chicago by only 5. Buffalo beat Miami by 3. Any given Sunday, yada, yada, yada. But there is a lot of parity in this league. This time of year also seems to result in weird results. It’s like teams that are pretty nearly dead twitch and fight enough for close results or even unexpected results.

That said, we need to:
1) stop the damn turnovers;
2) stop giving up sacks;
3) stop giving up 3rd down conversions when its 3rd and long;
4) stop with stupid penalties, although it does seem we get called for some ticky tack stuff that other teams don’t get called for. But that could just be me being a homer.

Ultimately, we have Patrick Mahomes. He can cover a lot of mistakes but it would be a lot easier if he didn’t have to.

Memo to Andy… when you are deciding between relying on your MVP QB who finished the game with 20 straight completions and a now unreliable kicker… there is actually no decision to be made.

Well done DenverChief. (Ran out of rep from the rep threads.)

Xtra pts to coaching staff for NO Burton up the middle in critical situations.

#8 is a great point, thats two weeks straight now with Gay making a gotta have it clutch play... still can't believe Cheffers didn't steal it back from us

The defense allowed less than 240 yards of offense. 4/10 3rd down conversions. 3.8 yards/play.

i mean, when the offense plays hot potato with the ball twice, and the rules are already stacked against defense, and the ref has some kind of vendetta that converted 5 1st downs for HOU, what can the defense really do?

While I wouldn't characterize it as "flawless" turnovers and missed scoring opportunities for sure and no "dumb" penalties. I still think the Kelce "unsportsmanlike" penalty woke this team up. We were kind sleep walking up to that point

With #4 yeah its always fun to see him take off running on a busted play organically, thats when it doesnt scare me as much, and where he always does his best work

20-30 yard romps on the regular

But that clearly designed run for him in the 4th had me ready strangle Andy right there on the sideline in front of God and everyone else

Purposely risking him like that is a NO GO

LMAO - fair enough. I don't mind the occasional scripted runs. I kinda miss the Pitch option plays we played to perfection in our Super Bowl run.

I would have been fine with some designed runs - we were gashing their D up to that point. McKinnon loses 3 yards on 1st down and we went into a shell the next two downs.

Also - sorry to everyone for not joining in the conversation after creating the thread- home internet went out so I took a nap LMAO

Disagree with #1 that's a bad football team

yeah hard to believe by looking at the score...

313 to 125 yards passing
189 to 94 yards rushing

They need to leave Pacheco in there on third and short. He can pick up one or two yards when the defense is expecting run. Mckinnon should be in the game on third and long for pass protection, but not automatically be out there on third and short.

Andy needs to show more faith in Mahomes for that situation. If Patrick was struggling with accuracy during the game, I could understand playing it safe to attempt a 50+ yard FG. But Mahomes was pretty dang hot in this game with 88% completion percentage. Thankfully Andy’s choice did not cost them the game.

Even if they throw the swing pass to Pacheco...I'm not sure why he isn't more involved in the passing game....maybe he struggles with the passing routes like he does with pass pro :shrug:

MVS deserves more love. Patrick missed him when he had 2 steps on his man early in the game too, or he might have had another TD and a lot more yardage. He makes a big play or two for us every week on not that many targets. He's giving the Chiefs good ROI on the money they're paying him.

I don’t have many complaints about MVS. “All he does is catch TDs” or more accurately critical passes. He always makes a big catch or two. While I wish he was more “active” in the passing game I’ll take his production if it means they help us win.

We should only be punting on 4th down and 5 or more, depending on the situation. Andy Reid would punt on 3rd down if he could without backlash.

Can’t do fumbles per game for Pacheco, have to get to the per carries/touches grain.

I don’t know what that is but just some feedback for future analysis.

Fair enough.

139 rushing attempts 2 lost fumbles which works out to ~70 carries between each lost fumble.

Hopefully I didn’t come across as a dick with that post as I enjoy these post game takes.

That said, is that this season? And I’d probably break out total fumbles and lost fumbles as recovery is likely a matter of luck.

Also within the context of this game, he seemed to take more contact than deliver, which is likely something he’ll learn. Same with a noisy running style and the likelihood of getting stripped.

Oh I don't know that anybody has a flawless game.

Every team in the salary cap era has flaws and has injuries.

You need as much talent as possible at all levels of the organization.

You need a lot of hard work and focus.

And you need some lucky breaks. Whether it is staying relatively healthy or maybe getting a lucky bounce of the football here or there.

The more of the above three you have the better your odds, but there are no guarantees. There is too much parity and too much any given Sunday when it a one and done playoff format.

And of course an elite QB to carry a team and run the two minute drill.

Nah not at all, I agree I should have used some better figures.

its ~35 carrels per fumble if you include all fumbles. He didn't really carry the ball much to start the season. Had a few games of 1,2,3 rushes the whole game. It wasn't until week 10 he started to really carry the rock 10-15 game.

Were all Pacheco's fumbles on a run? i thought one of them was during a return?

100%

Yeah some of the biggest concerns for this team come playoff time are
-turnover differential
-red zone defense
-3rd and short

Mahomes can overcome a lot but if we can't clean up at least 2 of those 3 things it's going to be a brutal path we are hoping for them to navigate.

Another bad is special teams as a whole. They are as bad this year as I have ever seen them.

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Fantastic question and I had to look

@ ARI 2nd & 8 at KC 34
(2:53 - 4th) I.Pacheco up the middle to KC 30 for -4 yards (R.Lawrence). FUMBLES (R.Lawrence), and recovers at KC 30.

@ Indy (2:53 - 3rd) C.McLaughlin kicks 66 yards from IND 35 to KC -1. I.Pacheco to KC 9 for 10 yards. FUMBLES, and recovers at KC 10. I.Pacheco to KC 12 for 2 yards (G.Stuard)

vs JAX 1st & 10 at JAX 13
(9:04 - 1st) (Shotgun) I.Pacheco up the middle to JAX 9 for 4 yards (R.Jenkins). FUMBLES (R.Jenkins), RECOVERED by JAX-D.Lloyd at JAX 7. D.Lloyd to JAX 24 for 17 yards (J.Smith-Schuster; P.Mahomes).

@ HOU 1st & 10 at KC 22
(9:37 - 2nd) I.Pacheco up the middle to KC 22 for no gain (M.Addison). FUMBLES (M.Addison), touched at KC 22, RECOVERED by HST-D.King at KC 22. D.King to KC 17 for 5 yards (J.Smith-Schuster; S.Moore).

And what is even weirder is the two fumbles he lost were running into the back of Wylie...

And before anyone loses their mind - JJSS had his 3rd fumble (2nd lost) overall today.

Gotta disagree with #1.The Texans ARE as bad as t b eir record.

7 of their 12 losses have come by one TD or less for a combined 42 points - that averages to 6 points a game.

Have you even watched them play? Bet not. They are a terrible football team. Not good anything.

Do Denver's 7 out of 12. Are they better also?

They’re coached by Lovie Smith and gimmicked dual backup QBs.

Texans are ass and we should’ve handled them with ease.

No need to overthink it.

stopped reading at 1

LOL

"the Texans aren't terrible because they almost beat the cowboys"

LOL

Yeah that was a dumb comment

There are so many factors that go into winning in the NFL talent, a little bit of luck, a lot of preparation, and staying healthy. The Broncos and the Texans are banged up teams. The difference between good and bad in the NFL is a couple of lucky bounces and a couple of injuries thanks to parity. Any team on any given Sunday isn't just some cute saying. Name the quote below

"In todays world, you can't go by the record, everything is so close, the parity, and your off by like a fingertip catch or maybe a penalty or turnover, it's just one thing. There have never been so many close games as there are right now that are determined by one score."

"When you turn the ball over it keeps teams in games, I mean that team played hard, they have some playmakers and they played hard, they are well coached, and if you give teams life like that they're gonna make it a battle. In the NFL the margin of winning and losing is so small."

They've played very well by their standard the last couple games, but they also had a terrible performance against Cleveland just a few weeks ago. 80 yard punt return TD for Cleveland, plus TWO touchdowns by the Cleveland defense. Somehow Houston magically stopped making as many big mistakes against Dallas & Chiefs.

If your team is 1-9-1 do you really give a **** about beating Denver or Cards or Rams?

But bring Dallas or KC or Buffalo to town and they all put in their best effort.

That's just the way it is.

Andy actually said something about the reffing;
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/slcQgiAJuds" title="Andy Reid: “They didn’t let anything hinder them” | Week 15 Press Conference" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It's near the beginning (1:14) and it's subtle, but Andy never comments on the reffing as far as I know.

Good read DC.



RE: #4. I'll never forget an interview with Mitchell Schwartz on I think it was Russillo's podcast, where he was asked, "How fast is Mahomes" to which his answer was "He's a step faster than the dude chasing him." ROFL I laughed at that for a month.

But I love it. It will be a shame when he ages out of those runs.

I haven't read a ton of stuff about the game, but I gotta say I'm damned proud of Mahomes. I've thought for most of the year that he should throw it to the backs a LOT more if they're going to run guys back and triple team Kelce and shit.

And he did it today. It's not the most entertaining football, but those 3 passes to McKinnon in a row had me wound up. If we can get those type of plays rolling, it will open up the deeper stuff that he likes. But damn it, if it's 0there, ****ing take the easy 10. I really want Pacheco getting those passes, too, but I love that he's throwing them.

Get McKinnon in the tub. He carried a hell of a load today, and we need his ass for the playoffs.

High and tight that shit and we'll be fine. We were hammering these bitches out until we gave it back to them too much.

And **** Carl Cheffers.

Thats fine, let Andy do the wink and nod act about it... but Hark Clunt needs to be on the horn raising hell with Roger Goodell as we speak

Protect my QB or so help me God I'll ruin all of us...

I think Andy just has a hard time being openly critical of anyone, including refs that seemingly go out of their way to make calls or non-calls against KC. It might be that it's just not in his nature to vent in front of a bunch of cameras.

But yeah, someone needs to say something. I hope that video of the HOU player punching Pat in the head gets around to all the QBs. All the players. They should be very concerned if refs are going to allow that kind of thing without even a warning to the offender. By rule that should've been a RTP and a 15 yarder plus an unsportsmanlike. Plus a fine.

I missed that? When was that?

Shit. I think it's in the GDT. i don't even remember who posted it now. But it's one of those 10 second clips or whatever, and Pat throws to the near flat I think, and some defender (a safety i think) comes flying in and hits Pat with a left cross right to the head.

McKinnon needs more love, 8 targets, 8 catches for 70. 10 rushes for 52 avg 5.2

Dude Always gains yards

He got stuffed a time or two, but he definitely has burst.

I'm all for limiting his touches unless shit gets real (hopefully we blow fools out). We need healthy McKinnon for the playoffs.

It is amazing to me that nobody wanted this dude.

Found it:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1604558484409683968

Also, this is kind of egregious:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1604572030996811776

It's as thought the team is just bored and likes the challenge. I mean how many double digits deficits do we overcome each year? How many 90 yard td drives do we have?

It's odd. I don't feel confident on third and short cause we get cute but backs to the goalline and we come out slinging it and I expect it.

Yeah teams do get better as the season goes on sometimes. Hand em a couple turnovers and anything can happen.

Agree with the OPs points.

Good - Mahomes. Replace him with anyone else and it wouldn't be fun watching this offense. If we can protect him properly and give him just one elite target outside of Kelce he's going to be invincible. Also McKinnon was great again and Pacheco minus the fumble.

Bad - Most of the rest. Ball security is a problem and it's not just "bad luck" it's poor play and possibly poor coaching. Reid seems to have a few games a year where his game management is just horrible, he's now had 2 in a row. I love that he wants Mahomes to throw but dear Lord just run it when it's working ffs. The DL was rancid as usual and the secondary poor, at least the CBs are young, there's no excuse for Thornhill and Reid.

And then there's the refs. I don't tend to criticise them because I'll always believe it's partly on players and coaches to adapt to them, sadly, and so that's on Spags and the D as well...BUT they were f***ing atrocious. Cheffers is an absolutely woeful ref who has no business officiating.

Man, I missed that...should have been 15 yards against HOU for sure.

I said it in the game thread, and I'll repeat it here.

Imagine how good this team would be if they just got up for the games.

We rarely see these guys just come out and kick a teams ass. They come out sloppy, sleepwalking, and it takes a double digit deficit, or some perceived injustice by opposing players or refs to get them pissed off enough to focus and take it to them. This dates all the way back to our title run. This is an Andy Reid issue. Gotta be able to come out and stomp terrible teams, or you're not bearing anyone come playoff time.

The bitching about refs is out of control at this point. There were a couple bad ones, but to say the defense played well, and THE REFS converted 5 first downs, well thats just some pussy ass bullshit.

We had a guy stretch a dudes jersey 5 ****ing yards off his body, ok. That's a foul, that's a first down. Dry your tears and come down off that cross for ****s sake.

Then there were 2 more obvious PI by Thornhill and Sneed, and a hold by Gay declined so they could hilariously flag Thornhill getting run into.

You got a couple bs ones on Kelce, and Jet, but if you're a legitimate contender to the title, taking on a 1 win team, that should have no bearing on the outcome of a game if you take care of business which we BARELY are.

We legitimately played down to a 1 win team, with some of the worst situational football at the end I've ever seen.

Andy pissed down his leg in fear of the Texans, when his qb hadn't had an incompletetion for about 2 hours, and sent Butt****er out there when he can't even be trusted to kick the stool out from under himself in a hanging attempt.

These are the types of decisions made on the sideline that get your ass beat in the postseason, and while Andy has seen PLENTY of post season debacles, here he is doing the same shit again.

Got a few games left to pull their head out of their ass, but I'm expecting frustrating watches the rest of the way.

Wooo- I woulda been hot had I seen that. Thanks for sharing.

Then don't watch you insufferable ****... My God, you would think we were 3-11 and were giving up 40 points a game every week...

If you watched that game and didn't think the reffing was a massive issue, I dunno what to tell you other than you're burying your head in the sand.

I gave JuJu a little leeway on this because when a defender picks you up with your back to the ground and your head pointing down, you start moving your arms or hands to protect yourself as a natural instinct. He was trying to save himself and had trouble hanging on. :thumb:

Oh Absolutely - turnovers are gonna happen you just don't want a bunch in one game or consecutive games. I'm not bothered by either.

Aww, now you've gone and hurt my feelings.

Listen jerkoff, if you're happy with what you watched from the alleged best team in the afc against a 1-11 team, just dancing around your living room in your mother's underwear, thumb up your ass and a big shit eating grin on your face as we play down to the worst ****ing team in the league, then good for you.

However anyone else with more than half of a single moving brain cell knows that the postseason is right around the corner, we've just played down to the two shittiest teams in football, and your dumb ass thinks just because we escaped with wins, that this bullshit will somehow fly against the best in the league.

I'm also not sure how anyone could watch a team with this much talent play so poorly, with the worst coaching decisions at the end of the game and NOT be frustrated with that.

The team consistently comes out flat.

They play like absolute ****ing dogshit for a coach for many here that is beyond reproach.

Then, said coach elects, with the game on the line, to take the ball OUT of his half billion dollar qbs hands, who hasn't missed a pass in 2 hours, and put the game on our dumpster fire of a special teams unit who SPOILER ALERT comes out on the field, bends over backwards and stuffs their face up their ass.

I fully expect more of the same, and I'll take just a bit more pleasure in posting my observations knowing that it's going to undoubtedly reduce to you your base form of blood belching vagina.

I guess I just don't get why people judge a team's ability by mistakes. It would be like saying that Mahomes is now in Jameis Winston territory because he made a few careless plays when up 27-0 in Denver.

When you put up 500+ yds and outgain a team by almost 300, and win despite a zillion penalties and losing the TO battle, you're probably a lot better than them. Who cares about the final score?