Nobody is on Gronks level and Newton aint on Mannings either.

I'm not convinced Gronk isn't the beneficiary of playing with, potentially, the best QB of all time. Obviously he's really, really good, but that much better than everyone else? I'd like to see him without Brady.

Everyone in the league knows KC is an extremely tough out, and I fully expect Carolina to play accordingly... this is going to be a brutal, grinding affair decided by who wins the turnover battle and has the fewest penalties

Maybe, but the analysis remains the same. Manning made his TEs until his arm fell off. Brady may have made Gronk but the fact remains that those two are a pretty much unmatched combination.

Newton isn't that kind of quarterback. Perhaps Olsen with a healthy Manning or Brady is as effective as Thomas was or Gronk is....but that's not what he's working with.

I think Newton has his own level not to be compared to Manning. Newton is a duel threat more so like Steve Young imo. The thing is with Newton is his on and off switch he can be turned on or off depending on his mood. His lights were out during the Super Bowl but during the season he had the lights on and was turned on by rolling over teams. I don't get what his problem was during the Super Bowl but he is a threat any other day.

What's that have to do with the TE beating us up?

I agree - Newton's a challenge in his own right. But he's not the kind of guy that's going to go surgically targeting Julius Thomas like Manning used to. If we leave Olsen uncovered, Cam will find him because Olsen's his security blanket. But he's not going to go looking off coverage or throwing Olsen open like Manning used to do to really carve us up because that's just not how he plays.

If we suck against Olsen, Newton will exploit it. But if we just provide credible coverage (and there's no reason we shouldn't), we'll be fine. Olsen will get his as he always does as Cam's favorite target, but he won't butcher us like the old Antonio Gates days.

I hope the Chiefs practice against the "Bootleg" this week.



You know Newton is going take off and we need to be on him like flies to road kill. Dee Ford needs to run him over and the rest of the team fly on him and pester him all day.

You may be right. Here are his numbers for this year. His numbers went way up once Brady returned from his suspension. Was that just due to his knee injury? Was he baxk at 100% before Brady returned?

Thu 9/22
vs HOU W 27-0 0 1 0
Sun 10/2
vs BUF L 0-16 1 2 11
Sun 10/9
@ CLE W 33-13 5 7 109
Sun 10/16
vs CIN W 35-17 7 9 162
Sun 10/23
@ PIT W 27-16 4 4 93
Sun 10/30
@ BUF W 41-25 5 7 109

Um cuz thread topic is mostly about Cam Newton a and I didn't go back pages to see that the topic on hand is about TE Gronk that plays for the patriots. I was only responding to the part of and Newton aint on Mannings either so my post had little to nothing about a TE beating us up.

Having Smith back is going to be large. The problem that we ran into yesterday is that we couldn't/didn't extend any drives offensively. People want to cry about Reid/Smith not bombing the football all over the place, but what is particularly effective about Smith's game is that he maintains TOP extremely well. It's not Ware, or Charles or whoever...it's Smith's ability to find the first down marker in order to keep a drive going.

That was definitely on a lot of people minds yesterday... chunk plays are thrilling and we DO still need more of them from Smith, but there is also something to be said for high percentage throws that extend drives and keep your defense off the field

Gotta keep the chains moving, and going bombs away every other play is no way to consistently accomplish that... a balance needs to be struck

Yep. But you can't convince SDH, Clay and the other Madden football geeks that the west coast offense is designed that way and that Reid and Smith are running it the way it's designed and winning games because of it. They just can't figure out that Madden isn't the same as real football.

The combination of Newton-Olsen is definitely a step down but aside from Manning-Brady there isn't one better in this league.

If we struggle to stop the run and they commit to the play action, it'll make an already-difficult job even tougher.

No one is as good as Aaron Donald, but the Chiefs are pretty good at getting to the QB. Sutton should work in some nice blitz packages to throw off Newton's tempo. That's all LA did. Blitzed 69% of the plays. Held them to 13 points. Follow that strategy with our defense and I think it pays off. Especially if you can get a well rested Houston in on a few of those packages.

We're going to have to stop the run better to win this game. The Panthers will run it down the Chiefs' throats if the defense doesn't show up, and Cam will play better because of it.

Of course, when Houston comes back that pretty much shuts down one edge of the field.