Ten Reason's why The Chiefs Lost

[jjchieffan]

With my apologies to GBlowfish, I have my own 10 things list that I would like to share. Because there is plenty of blame to go around. I present, 10 reasons why the Chiefs lost…Again (Other than because Chiefs, that's obvious!)

10. Defense unable to make a stop. I would like to start by saying that the defense did well at keeping the Pittsburgh offense out of the endzone. Holding them to 18 points should have been enough. But it wasn’t/ The fact remains that they forced one punt the entire night. One! That is unacceptable. They force one more punt and the final score is 17-15 Chiefs and we win. So the defense is partly accountable.

9. Still on the defense here. Justin Houston on Antonio Brown?? Really??? You would think that Sutton would have realized that was a bad idea when Ben to Brown resulted in the longest play of the night in the first quarter. But not Sutton. Hey. I have a great idea. The game is on the line. Let’s try that coverage again. Surely it will work this time. SMH. Sutton has done well this year with covering losses to 4 of our front 7 to IR, but he deserves his share of the blame for this loss.

8. No pass rush. Dee Ford was tearing things up until Houston returned. Houston looked like his old self for exactly one game this year. He should be over his injury. VonDouchebag stepped up when it mattered for the Donks. Our passrushers were no where to be found. Unacceptable. They too share in the blame.

7. Special teams. This one actually belongs at number 10. They didn’t make huge mistakes, but they didn’t make any plays either. We have got arguably the best returner and best special teams coordinator in the league. Pittsburgh is known for not very good special teams. But it sure didn’t look that way in our failure of a game. Hill only got one chance at a punt return, so there’s nothing to say about that. But when he tried to return kicks, our blockers got blown up. He never made it to the 25, so every return was a net loss. With the way our offense was playing, we needed every bit of field position we could get and the special teams failed to deliver. Therefore, they too share in the blame. A much smaller share, but nonetheless a share of the blame is theirs.

6. Officiating. Again, a very small portion of the blame goes here. I hate to blame officiating at all, because it’s more excuse making than anything else. Good teams should be able to overcome it. That said, the refs sure weren’t doing us any favors. Pittsburgh was blatantly holding all night and never gets called, but we get called for a ticky tack hold to negate a game tying 2 point conversion? I call BS. Then there were 2 blatant DPI’s in the 3rd quarter that it is just unbelievable that the ref’s could just ignore them. Once again, we were capable of overcoming that. We did, in fact. A couple of times. But not nearly enough. So, even though I hate the excuses, I also award a small share of the blame to the officiating.

5. Travis Kelce. Kelce is a stud. Believed by most to be one of the best tight ends in the NFL. But dude, you have got to grow up. That 15 yard unsportsmanlike penalty was totally unacceptable. Luckily, Smith threw a 26 yard pass to overcome it and get the first down anyway, but those kind of things are hard to overcome, and we needed every yard last night. Kelce also had 1, maybe 2 critical drops last night. In the biggest game of his career, he let his team down. Travis Kelce, you too deserve your share of the blame.

4. The offensive line. For most of the first half, Smith was under constant pressure. The hit on Smith as he threw the ball resulting in the interception was completely on the line. Fisher may have had his worst game of the year last night. Maybe his hold that negated the 2 point conversion doesn’t get called 99 times out of 100, but it got called and it cost the Chiefs the game. They also were horrible at run blocking. There were no holes for our running backs all night. Offensive line., you too deserve your share of the blame.

3. Alex Smith. I am mostly neutral about Smith, but tend to leaning more in favor of him than against him. I’ve seen him step up and play like an elite quarterback, but those instances are rare. And that’s what frustrates me. I know that he is capable. But he just doesn’t do it enough. Last night, he was great on the opening drive. That drive was executed to perfection and gave us all hope for the night. But then he disappeared for the next 3 quarters. Granted, he was under a lot of pressure, but the franchise quarterbacks make some of their greatest plays under pressure. Smith did finally move the ball in the 4th quarter. He made some nice throws, like the 25 yard pass on 3rd and 25 after the Kelce screw up. And let’s not forget about delay of game. In the end, he didn’t do enough to bring us the victory, and he too deserves his share of the blame.

2. Drops. If I remember right, we had 5 drops last night by 4 players. And most of those drops were game changers. We have some real playmakers on this offense. This was their time to shine. One or two of those drops get caught, and we’re likely preparing for New England instead of next season.

1. Andy Friggin Reid. Ugh! I am so frustrated with Reid right now. I could almost do a top 10 just on how he cost us the game. Where do I start? Let’s start with his play calling. Pittsburgh has an inexperienced secondary that is vulnerable to the deep pass. We have Hill, who is a legitimate deep threat. Yet we never even tried one deep pass the entire first half! Why?? Because of the pressure on Smith? Call it anyway. Once they see that we are willing to go downfield, they will have to respect that. Then the short yardage stuff will open up. Notice how we moved the ball downfield when we started going deep in the 4th quarter? If Reid had done that sooner, we would have won this game easy. Ugh! So frustrating. Speaking of the 4th quarter, don’t get me started on the 7 minute drive while trailing. While on the subject of time management, we blew 2 critical timeouts in the 4th quarter. Both of them I believe to avoid delay of game. We are the Home team!! That is supposed to happen to the road team. Could you not get the plays in quick enough? Totally Unacceptable. Then there was the decision to kickoff deep after the last touchdown. I know that the onside kick is a low probability kick. But when we had force only one punt all night and there we sat with 1 time out and 2:43 on the clock(again, thanks to poor clock management), stopping them was also a low probability. If the onside kick failed, well we gave up field position. They only needed one first down to ice the game anyway. Everyone deserves their share of the blame. But Andy Reid deserves the lion’s share.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

With what you've said in mind, then Smith missing Tyreek shouldn't at all be a singular play that makes you say "**** this guy." With that kind of acid test, nobody playing QB in the league hits Hill beside Brady and Rodgers.

What I'm contending here is that Smith isn't even middle of the road -he's a bottom tier veteran QB that's now playing closer to Casselian levels than he is playing closer to the comparison of Andy Dalton who epitomizes the average, middle of the road QB in the current day NFL.

This is where we disagree.

There are maybe 5 QBs in the league that don't make that throw. As I stated previously - there are worse quarterbacks than Smith, guys who will cost you football games, that still make that throw. Lots of bad quarterbacks let that ball fly.

I'm not arguing that they'd all complete it - I'm saying they'd all attempt it. Smith just tucked like a pussy and ran from phantom pressure.

For 3+ years, Smith was Andy Dalton, but without the privilege of throwing to AJ Green. You couldn't slide a slip of paper between the two in terms of their overall contributions (though they got there slightly differently). But Smith's not been right for most of this year and when he seemed to be turning a corner, he got his bell rung in Indy and regressed again.

That's absolutely Casselian. And as Pest noted, Smith's peak was last season. He's going to do more and more Casselian things going forward as he is more and more gunshy.

It's time to move on. Showing him missing throws from last season (when he played quite well and was Dalton's equal) doesn't speak to the present state of things.

[gblowfish]

Smith not making that throw is the difference between him and Rapistburger.
It's that simple.