Kendrick Lewis vs. Lin El - you know.

[Rain Man]

I shall forever be haunted by the vision of Kendrick Lewis running five yards behind that hotel guy on the long touchdown pass. There was no coverage at all. None. Zero. The hotel guy ran down the field and the second-year NFL legend just tossed him the ball. If Kendrick Lewis had been in the locker room watching Clockwork Orange instead of standing on the field, it would have made no difference at all.

So when we consider the two situations, we can make an argument for one of two players being the GOATest (Goatest of all time) against the Colts, if we disregard off-field contributors like Paul Hackett and Herm Edwards.

The argument for The Safety Who Shall Not Be Named to be the GOATest:

The Baltimore Colts or whoever they are are behind by six points. The safety who shall not be named let a wide receiver run more or less straight down the field for a 50+ yard touchdown catch, and at no point was within three yards of said receiver. The receiver, who no one had ever heard of before this game, ended up with the third-highest receiving yardage total in NFL playoff history. All we had to do was protect a 28-point lead for 1.5 quarters of football.

The argument against The Safety Who Shall Not Be Named to be the GOATest:

The modern NFL is designed to make defensive backs look like chumps. If the safety had approached within three yards of the wide receiver, he would have been called for holding or interference. The marketing department has declared that Andrew Luck will be the hero, not some defensive back who wasn't even a first round pick. Also, there were plenty of opportunities to replace Lewis since it was clear that he was struggling for most of the season, and the Chiefs didn't do it. Finally, we know that the NFL marketing department threatened Lewis' life if he didn't take a fall.

The argument for The Kicker Who Shall Not Be Named to be the GOATest:

The Baltimore Colts or whoever they are are ahead by three points. The kicker who shall not be named missed a 42 yard field goal to tie the game up, adding to the two others that he missed earlier in the game that were 35 and 39 yards. His main job was to make field goals, and he went 0 for 3 when it counted most. The team was much stronger and expectations were higher, so his sin is worse.

The argument against The Kicker Who Shall Not Be Named to be the GOATest:

It was one of the coldest games in NFL history, and the ball was a brick. The other kicker missed 2 of 3 attempts, so it's clear that it was a terrible day to be a kicker. Paul Hackett is to blame for the worst game plan in NFL history. There is also some evidence that the NFL marketing department threatened Elliott's life if he didn't take a fall.

Obviously, it's a team game yadda yadda yadda. Feel free to add arguments for or against.

[Three7s]

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

I understand the viewpoint I was just more trying to point out in a previous post where the choke job by the defense was an entire team effort whereas LE's FG misses were at his fault alone. LE makes the FG's , the Chiefs win the game. Obviously on Sat, if the Chiefs defense doesn't stop luck PERIOD, they would eventually lose the game.

EIther way...both resulted in same outcome......**** this god damn team.

Only that it wasn't a "team effort". It was two guys that don't belong in the NFL.

[007]

Lewis really blew it this season but I would still give the title to THAT kicker.

[cdcox]

The goat of '95 was Steve "Pro Bowler" Bono. People don't even remember how shitty he was on account of the kicker.

Steve Bono 11 25 122 1 3 25

TE and WR on that team were a complete disaster: Willie Davis, Lake Dawson, Webster Slaughter, Tamarick Vanover, and Keith Cash. With Steve Bono throwing to them. Holy crap.

Good ole Carl stuck with Bono through '96 even though it was clear you could not win anything meaningful with that guy.

[Three7s]

Originally Posted by Guru

Lewis really blew it this season but I would still give the title to THAT kicker.

Agreed, and really for the sole purpose of saying that playing a handful of snaps a game for a sole job that you're being paid to do should be 100x easier than playing 60+ snaps a game trying to cover WRs running down the field at 4.3 speed.

Still though, I'll give Lewis one infamous honor. Worst safety ever to wear a Chiefs uniform.

[007]

Originally Posted by Three7s

Agreed, and really for the sole purpose of saying that playing a handful of snaps a game for a sole job that you're being paid to do should be 100x easier than playing 60+ snaps a game trying to cover WRs running down the field at 4.3 speed.

Still though, I'll give Lewis one infamous honor. Worst safety ever to wear a Chiefs uniform.

I have no problem calling him THAT safety though.

[mcaj22]

Originally Posted by cdcox

The goat of '95 was Steve "Pro Bowler" Bono. People don't even remember how shitty he was on account of the kicker.

Steve Bono 11 25 122 1 3 25

TE and WR on that team were a complete disaster: Willie Davis, Lake Dawson, Webster Slaughter, Tamarick Vanover, and Keith Cash. With Steve Bono throwing to them. Holy crap.

Good ole Carl stuck with Bono through '96 even though it was clear you could not win anything meaningful with that guy.

what happens if good ole Andy sticks with Ken Lewis in '14?

[007]

Originally Posted by mcaj22

what happens if good ole Andy sticks with Ken Lewis in '14?

bring out the banners

Not for Andy but for THAT safety.

[crossbow]

Originally Posted by rabblerouser

man...

that's a tough call.

My gut says The safety. If bonehead Bono woulda played...well, like an average NFL qb and engineers at least ONE MORE TD DRIVE, then KC wins.

The safety...has no excuse. it's ultimately on HIM.

That is a good point to bring up. Didn't Bonehead throw like 5 picks?

Oh well, I vote for the horrible safety.

[cdcox]

Replace LE with Adam Vinatieri and we win that playoff game, but with that offense, we weren't going to get past Buffalo or the NFC powerhouses.

Replace Kendrick Lewis with Ronnie Lott or an Ed Reed or a Kenny Easly and Sutton's defense is going to hum (when healthy). We probably would not a SB winner, but I think it would put us in the hunt.

The whole defense collapsed when teams realized that we had no ability to double team anyone deep.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by mcaj22

what happens if good ole Andy sticks with Ken Lewis in '14?

I don't think he can. Bono actually played a decent game manager role until the playoff meltdown. Lewis has been a dumpster fire for half the season. He is the weakest link in the secondary, playing the most important secondary position in Sutton's scheme. If we leave Lewis as the single high safety during next season, we won't win more than 6 games.

[rico]

Originally Posted by trndobrd

Nobody in their right mind believed this was THE year. Yeah, a playoff win would have been great, broken the drought, capped off a great rebuilding year, etc. etc. But this was never THE year. Lewis was a liability all season, and followed true to form during the post season. But, his failure did nothing more than make the inevitable playoff loss come sooner.

The kicker who cannot be named cost us a Super Bowl.

Nahhh, impossible we would have won that SB... Steve Bono wasn't a 1st round pick, homeslice.

[mcaj22]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Replace LE with Adam Vinatieri and we win that playoff game, but with that offense, we weren't going to get past Buffalo or the NFC powerhouses.

Replace Kendrick Lewis with Ronnie Lott or an Ed Reed or a Kenny Easly and Sutton's defense is going to hum (when healthy). We probably would not a SB winner, but I think it would put us in the hunt.

The whole defense collapsed when teams realized that we had no ability to double team anyone deep.

Sutton already has 6 (current/ex) pro bowlers and one of the most expensive defenses in the NFL

Sutton could have 10 hall of famers on his defense and still **** it up in my opinion.

You really cant get any better than what we already have. He has more toys than most d-coordinators in the NFL that are doing way more with little.

[007]

Originally Posted by mcaj22

Sutton already has 6 (current/ex) pro bowlers and one of the most expensive defenses in the NFL

Sutton could have 10 hall of famers on his defense and still **** it up in my opinion.

You really cant get any better than what we already have. He has more toys than most d-coordinators in the NFL that are doing way more with little.

Minus THAT safety.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by mcaj22

Sutton already has 6 (current/ex) pro bowlers and one of the most expensive defenses in the NFL

Sutton could have 10 hall of famers on his defense and still **** it up in my opinion.

You really cant get any better than what we already have. He has more toys than most d-coordinators in the NFL that are doing way more with little.

I hear a lot of Wookie screams about how bad Sutton's scheme is, but I don't know how many people really understand it. I have some level of understanding, but I'll concede there are probably a few people who understand it better.

I'll start with the assumption everyone is healthy. Obviously this is going to vary with down and distance and substitution packages.

I'm going to focus on passing situations, since that is where the breakdown occurs. Typically pass rushers will be Poe+Hali+one more. Houston will join them 3/4 of the time and fall into coverage 1/4 of the time. Berry and Houston will blitz occasionally, and anyone else is rarely in the pass rush scheme. In the secondary we are heavy in man coverage. If everything works right the man coverage cuts off short throws, and the pass rush gets there before the long patterns open up.

In pass schemes, Berry typically locks up with the TE and you have 3 CBs locked up with the 1, 2, and 3 WRs, with DJ picking up any backs that enter the pattern. That leaves one player, Kendrick Lewis, to provide over the top help on all the deep patterns. So he has to 1) read who needs help the most (most often the deepest receiver), and 2) get there in time. Secondarily, he needs to close quickly on any underneath receiver and make a sure tackle. This is a tough assignment and you need a stud to do all of these things well. Kendrick Lewis is not that guy.

Our pass defense fails in one of 4 ways:

1) our corner backs get beat quickly. Pass rush doesn't matter because the QB can get rid of the ball too quickly.
2) our pass rush doesn't get there at all. This happens most often when Poe is tired, Hali is held, and/or Houston is injured.
3) the corner gets beat on a deep move, and Lewis doesn't support the deep throw.
4) We don't tackle well or take the right angle and the receiver gets all kinds of YAC. This wasn't happening early in the season.

Having a good FS tha knows where to run, is fast enough and able to tackle when he gets there addresses 3 and 4 directly, and gives the corners more confidence to play more aggressively on 1.

Sutton's scheme can work with a good FS.

[mcaj22]

Ken Lewis made yahoo today

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-sh...8393--nfl.html

Apparently he so terrible the Colts playbook was based on Luck just looking at him, checking him off and then basing the pass opposite of Lewis's body position. Sad really.