Chiefs EoS
Well, the Chiefs
2016-17 adventure is over with the 18-16 loss to the Pittsburgh
Steelers. Am I disappointed? Who wouldn't be. Am I upset. Oh,
yes. Am I despondent? No, not really, for the whole thing was
fairly predictable.
Way back in
September I wrote: “As usual, the rock is on Alex
Smith's shoulder. He was brilliant in Week One and very ordinary in
Week Two. Consequence? We are one and one.” For
one and one read one and done.
Reams have been
written about the Pitt loss and a lot of it makes sense, about the
lack of a run game on our side and the inability to stop theirs;
about the way the Chiefs kept them out of the end zone all day for
all the good it did them; about the play-calling, the penalties, the
dropped passes, the everything.
At the end of the
day, Alex just wasn't good enough. Not for this game. Maybe not for
any game.
Let's be fair. Back
in September I thought that Nick Foles might get a shot at starting
if Alex faltered. That didn't happen. I thought that the running
backs would be the mainstays of the team. I foresaw Charles coming
back and having a big year. He didn't. How much better would Alex
be with a real running game? How much was Charles missed swinging
out of the backfield catching passes in the flat? Who knows, but you
ought to be able to put a number on it and the number would be large.
I wrote then: The
problem is Charles has yet to play. Ware and West have shared the
work and whilst both are capable, Charles has really been missed. If
the running-back-offence starts to click when he does then fine. If
not – big trouble.
I
was right again.
On
to the real problems. Here's what I had to say about the receivers:
The wide receiver
corps has been revamped. (About time too!) Jeremy Macklin leads.
Chris Conley is now a second year receiver. Tyrek Hill is listed but
is really a kick returner. The rest? De'Anthony Thomas who has
mysteriously been inactive for the first two games, Demarcus
Robinson, a rookie and Albert Wilson a 200 pound 5' 9” receiver
(very out-of-date in the NFL). You can still make a case that this
group is not going to scare anyone and not going to help Smith very
much in his quest to become an elite QB.
What
about the O-line: I'm not convinced that this is their
year. Maybe in 2017-18 but not today.
I just about got this
right.
Defence?
Turning to the defence which, as everyone with a brain cell
knows, is what wins titles and Super Bowls. What was a strength is
now just about average.
Yep, nailed it!
Finally,
I turned to the coaches: The coaching is what it is.
There is no pressure real on Andy Reid. They are stable. They have
good, experienced and capable coaches on the staff. They need to
earn their money now. Anyone can coach an exceptionally good team.
Can they make winners out of some mostly average talent? We'll see.
They
made us winners all right. We won the AFC West. We got a play-off
bye. Compared to the other 31 teams we did very well. But in the
NFL only one team wins the Super Bowl. I have a notoriously bad
record of picking the Super Bowl winners. I seen New England as too
good in Foxborough for the Steelers to handle. I can't see the
Packers stopping the Falcons. It's always hard to bet against Coach
Belichick, but I'm picking Atlanta.
We
move on. The draft. WR! WR! O-line O-line Linebackers
Linebackers
Next
year may be our season. At the end of the day (cliché) it was
injuries that hurt us most, but that's true of all the other teams as
well!
