A Level Headed Review Week 16 2024
 

I really tried to watch the Madden broadcast but I couldn't do it, the commentary is garbage and I prefer to the see the play up close (wide angle to close in). Staying wide angle the whole time is just annoying to me for live football. Which is weird because I am a Madden player. I just wasn't digging it and had to find the NBC broadcast halfway through the 1st Q.

Hicks with the pick putting as at +3 on the year for TO differential. Hicks is quietly impressive at the safety position, he just is always in the right place at the right time. Think we have ourselves a solid starter for years to come.

Tre Smith holding call was complete garbage. The offensive line blocking has looked MUCH better through the first quarter. Caliendo just went too far inside trying to help Humphrey and left his gap open that led to a sack.

Hollywood Brown with the nice 4th down catch to keep the drive alive. Good to see him back on the field, I really hope he can give the offense the spark.

Pat not playing around the two long runs. I think the Settle comments really fired him up. He really barreled into the end zone on the second run.

Williams needs to be tighter in coverage, he was two steps behind the WR he was covering on the last play of the 1st quarter. I haven't seen Nelson on the field, not entirely sure if he was activated for this game.

We seem to still struggle with getting off the field on third and long situations.

That 2nd Q touchdown...that was a blatant hold on Karlaftis AND a push off on McDuffie in the end zone. I'm not normally one to say anything about the refs but both of those were glaringly obvious and on the same play...don't know how you don't see at least one of those.

Watson needs to bring that ball in for the TD. Worthy was wide open as well. If Pat just slows down a bit he hits Hollywood in stride. Pat makes up for it by finding Kelce for the first down.

I'm feeling better about the offense today, Worthy, Brown, Pacheco and Hunt are making the plays - sprinkle some Kelce in and use Hopkins as a decoy and it is starting to feel like the engine knock is going away.

McDuffie with his 2nd career interception - so happy he is finally getting his.

The offense stalled in the red zone - not sure what happened with Worthy limping off the field (ankle injury), the third down throw should have gone to Hopkins who looked like he had a step on his defender vs JJSS who was covered tightly by his defender.

Through the first half only one sack on Mahomes and that was the Caliendo mistake. Mahomes has been moved around in the pocket a little and they have used the bootleg to perfection a few times but by and large Mahomes has been kept clean in the pocket today. The one other time he took a shot was a RTP penalty.

Ironically with the firepower of our passing offense (Brown, Worthy, Hopkins, JJSS, Kelce) we have two rushing TD's through the first half.

WTH statistic is this? 11% Missed tackles - 0 tackles today? I'm assuming 0 missed tackles today.
https://i.ibb.co/d6yHYnn/IMG-6515.jpg

I don't understand how Pat seems to have lost his deep ball touch this year - it just seems other QB's can drop these bombs right in the bread basket but Pat just overthrows the WR. Strange....I suppose it could be we are focusing on getting the rest of the offense in sync and less time to practice the deep passes.

3rd and 1 and 4th and 1 - why not use Hunt - he has been much more effective on short yardage than Pacheco, that was a terrible decision.

Hunt really takes over in the second half and gets yardage when we need it.

That catch by Brown was a work of art. Truly a pro catch.

Most complete game of the season, IMO.
Great win!

Perine needs to get the ball more in the screen game.

Kareem Hunt should be the #1 RB. I like Pacheco and he'll get plenty of opportunities still, but when it's short yardage, goal line, or time to close out a game, I like Hunt in there.

The pocket was so much better this game. Thuney and Caliendo have really locked it down.

I don't mind rolling with Pacheco in the first half and wearing the defense down with his speed and aggressive running and then turn it over to Hunt in the 2nd and let him power rush and jump cut for first downs.

The exception is for obvious critical short yardage situations

A lot of encouraging things from this one. If this team is healthy and playing Hopkins/Brown a lot more snaps, they are in good shape to win 3 playoff games.


And Spags just knows how to exploit the protection calls of these Shanahan system offenses.

Negative - The lack of pass rush against a mash unit O line is worrisome, but we won so I won't complain too loudly

Positive - I think the sun might've been in Watsons eyes on that TD drop, loving me some Kareem Hunt, Worthy is getting better by the week, Hopkins is straight up $$$

We still have to send odd rushes and extra rushers to get home...but some of that feels like it was designed to keep Stroud from rolling out of the pocket.

Good writeup.

I haven't watched enough Texans. I didn't realize they were such mouthy ****s. I was pretty shocked to watch Schultz choose to talk shit the entire time rather than celebrate his TD. Go ahead and talk shit to great teams. It winds us up

Along with not watching enough Texans I didn't realize how Collins and Dell are instantly open all the ****ing time. The highlights are the deep shit, but the more impressive thing is they get open really ****ing fast. Once Stroud lost one of the 2 of his auto-open weapons the wheels came off. Maybe he was shook up by the injury, some of it was the rush speeding him up (which wasn't different from the first half) but he wasn't hitting the easy shit at the sidelines once Dell went down. **** those guys are good.

I was pretty shocked for Stroud to get 2 delay of game penalties on 3rd and long. Hat tip to the Arrowhead crowd, but WTF was Ryans doing? You burn the TO 100% of the time there. 3rd and 10 sucks but 3rd and 15 is impossible for not Mahomes offenses.

Great ****ing win. GREAT ****ing win.

Hopefully CJ and Gray are good. Rest up and get ready for ****sburgh and hopefully we can rest against the Cheating ****ing Donko Bitch****s.

I concur

Great review.

Good review. Keep in mind that Mahomes's football IQ is winning these games, not his arm. Not sure why but he doesn't have the arm he used to.

Thuney definitely looked much more comfortable than he did last week

Dhop toe touch on the sideline was so good I may have cried a little... :)
<samp class="EmbedCode-container"><code class="EmbedCode-code"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Stopped on a dime for the sideline catch ��<br><br>��: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HOUvsKC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HOUvsKC</a> on NBC/Peacock<br>��: Stream on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NFLPlus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NFLPlus</a> <a href="https://t.co/gSf8CXvSpj">pic.twitter.com/gSf8CXvSpj</a></p>&mdash; NFL (@NFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1870572656690393247?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 21, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> </code></samp><samp class="EmbedCode-container"><code class="EmbedCode-code"><script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">https://x.com/i/status/1870572656690393247
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Yeah - saw that and I think I was in such awe I forgot to write about it - and that first down catch with the spin one way and spin the other - that was a thing of beauty as well

The pass rush was definitely lacking. Though Karlaftis was so close a couple times to getting that strip sack. Hopefully he gets there against Mr. Unlimited.

I'm also in complete agreement, along with everyone else on this board, that Hunt needs to be the short yardage back

Loves me some Pacheco but Hunt is custom made for short yardage, he will ALWAYS fall forward for at least one yard

I like the idea of Pacheco getting all the 1st half carries and Hunt coming in with fresh legs in the second half. That really puts pressure on the defense to have to tackle Hunt with his elusive power back style with his signature jump cuts and ability to stop and change direction. Pacheco is more straight ahead even if the hole isn't there he is going to try and make one...that really wears the D down

Absolutely, GK never closed the deal today but it damn sure wasn't for a lack of effort

I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that Brown comes back next year with Hopkins, Hunt and Perine.

1. Perrine excellent day
2. McDuffie lock down all over
3. Oline played 500% better.
4. Patrick did Patrick things, mostly good
5. Justin Watson looking washed this year
6. Kelce stumbles and falls often these days
7. Worthy is easy to knock over with a swat, all 150 pounds of him.
8. Play calling much better but those inside runs are play killers, especially on 2nd and 8
9. 3rd down defense was Swiss cheese for most of the game. Texans offense died without Tank Dell.
10. Having Hollywood was huge
11. DHop still great
12. Few penalties was a good sign

I give us a B+ / A-

Not sure why Pat keeps trying the long ball to Watson. It’s just not working.

Watching live a few things really stood out to me:

-McDuffie is a goddamn savant of a corner
-Hollywood made an immediate impact for the offense and was awesnone
-The Chiefs might seriously consider Thuney at LT next year training him there. He’s started 3 games as LT for us and has been solid at worst in all of them
-Jaden Hicks is really good at football. So is Xavier Worthy. Excellent rookies.
-The Chiefs need to get better rushing the passer.

Oh and this team will 100% draft a RB from this awesome class. They need more talent at that position.

I honestly think the sun was in his eyes on that drop

He is usually good for a crucial 15-25 yarder or two every few games

Forgot to mention this too. They are 100% paying Bolton. He was slow again on plays but he’s the green dot. He’s basically Spags out there. He’s telling 2-3 guys what’s happening before the snap.

Watch him pre-snap. He telegraphed several plays for the back seven. He knew what plays were runs and passes

I actually haven’t been watching Bolton closely. Other than his pre snap signals. I did find it interesting how they talked about how each of our LBs have different skill sets.

I'm down with the first two, but we can easily move on from and improve upon Perine IMO

He’s only 29 and McKinnon played with us until 31. I think he is a perfectly serviceable 3rd down back - you have reservations?

Agree, but we needed to give Hunt the rest. Hunt looked fresh today.

He's all around solid no question about it, but we need more speed and youth back there IMO

Maybe Steele develops?

Pacheco back to back games averaging under 3 yards per carry.

He is better used outside the tackles. I don’t know why we don’t run more pitches and sweeps with him and then straight hand off to Hunt

Random thought about Mahomes and his pass effectiveness - I can't take credit for this as it came up in conversation and some film review might be warranted....but maybe Mahomes isn't "looking off" defensive backs as much as he used to? We haven't seen the "no look" passes recently? Or maybe we just don't notice....thoughts?

Mahomes was clearly better in this game and it was obviously partly a result of Holywood's impact, and partly OL play. But I think he was also both a) generally getting the ball out a little quicker and b) not bailing as early or as often with phantom pressure. Some of it was trusting the OL and some was having guys like Holtwood get open early, imo. Still work to get back to his best, and no doubt the long ball isn't there yet either, but a massive improvement.

Holywood looked excellent and about as impactful as we could have hoped. The quick separation, the ability to threaten in multiple ways, the pressure it puts on teams alongside Worthy, it's great. Also, talking of trust, the back shoulder throw to Hopkins was perfect usage and it was great to see Mahomes execute that.

Definitely feels like there's some tweaking to be done on RB usage, because Hunt was excellent, Perine brilliant in the passing game, but Pacheco not so much.

D held in very well. I'm beginning to blame the secondary less and less for 3rd down completions, because the 4 man pass rush is still useless. If it gets pressure, it is interminably slow. Yes, Williams gave up some completions, as I think did Cook, but man they need to cover forever.

Great game overall.

Only other thing was, as someone said elsewhere, the Dell injury felt like a massive deal. We couldn't cover him and as soon as he was out our D improved. I'm certain it would've been closer with him in.

Great review as usual.

Remigio is a good returner.

Our DEs are not great. Felix is a bust so far. I can’t remember Charles and Mike doing anything either. Karl is decent.

I was elated that we had 17 points at half. I hope this is the breakout game for the offense. Morris seemed to do really good at RT. Everything is looking better.

One more win baby! Let’s wrap this shit up next week! Or…. Go New England!!

What a time to be a chiefs fan!

Arm sore from hoisting the kids. :)

Man Hollywood just looks like the missing piece. He brings something to the table we just haven’t seen in a while. Speed with consistency to play everywhere on the field. Anyone else feel like we were watching a more athletic Sammy Watkins out there?

He still has shown the fastball when he has needed it, and can get the ball as far downfield as he needs. When healthy.

He was throwing off a compromised plant leg today. When his right ankle has been an issue, he usually loses a little bit of throwing power.

I also feel like defenses aren’t afraid to defend the run against us anymore. Felt like that was the approach early on because the top priority was containing mahomes and the pass. Felt like with Mahomes’ ankle they weren’t shadowing him as much either. It’s not just Pacheco, Kareem hasn’t been effective either.

Those dudes have the lightening quickness of Tyreek. Run really precise routes too.

I've been saying it for weeks. Teams have started creeping up and up to shut down the short passes. They know that by default, they can shut down the run just by having guys close to the line. The running game was better yesterday but it hasn't been good at all for most of the season.

He will almost certainly get better with time, but he's kind of a FB/RB tweener and I'm not sure he has the speed to be a major part of the rotation... of course I could be wrong, but thats my two cents on him

He should 0% be counted on.

We could use a McKinnon speed back replacement and an eventual successor to Pop or Hunt.

I’d like to see what that offense could do, especially with Worthy developing and Rice coming off injury and suspension in the back half of 2025.

I like his potential. Fullbacks are a waste but ones who are effective runners is great for Andy Reid. He needs a lot of work but think he’ll make a great situational back. Especially not knowing how much run we will truly get out of Kareem.

The team looks ready, the only concern I have is how TEs and RBs are left open for huge gains mostly on 3rd down. It looks like a communication issue because most of the time, the Chiefs are playing man coverage and the opposing player chips and gets lost. And I mean really lost, many times there's no defender withing 15 yards and it's an easy 3rd down pickup when the defense played two outstanding downs prior.