Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid

Anybody watching the Chiefs game?

I mean, Mahomes was pretty good BEFORE they went out and built an iron wall around his pocket in the offseason…

After 2 series against the Vikings tonight (with 3 min to go in the 1st Q), Mahomes is 8 of 9 for 117 yards and 2 TDs.

(If you’re not strong at math, that’s on pace for 585 yards and 10 TDs per game. Over a 17 game season, that’s almost 10,000 yards and 170 TDs, with 0 INTs. Probly a good value at ADP.)

Passer rating 158.3. The incompletion? He threw it 20 yards out the back of the end zone to kill the play.

Jerick McKinnon has 3 runs for 16 yards with the starters, so the line isn’t only good at pass protection.

This is just unfair.

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Common wisdom in the NFL is: offense wins games, defense wins championships.

That is true, unless a team builds an offense that you simply cannot defend. An offense with a dual threat QB who can release deep passes without any lead time, even if he’s just been flipped upside down. Who can throw deadly accurate passes into corners of the field he never looked at even once while in the pocket (safeties hate that trick). Who has a versatile backfield at his disposal, as well as a monster TE who breaks NFL records for breakfast. And who has a genius coach on the sideline whose playcalling is second to none.

The Chiefs may have done just that. But I still wouldn’t bet all my money on them. It often takes only a single chess piece to fall (usually in the o-line), and the system won’t work as smoothly anymore. There were defenses in recent years who managed to shut the Chiefs offense down, and it will happen again this year.

But it sure didn’t get any easier. And I am certainly very happy to have Mahomes as QB in my main SFLEX dynasty league.

Too bad Mahomes can’t play the Vikings every week of the season. We’ll see how he does against a real defense.

We saw that in the Super Bowl–he kicked their collective butts. If his receivers hadn’t all forgotten how to catch passes on the same day, he’d have had two consecutive Super Bowl wins–which you don’t get by wilting when you face good defenses.

In the Super Bowl against the Bucs? You saw a different game than I did. Mahomes got his butt kicked.

That’s the popular narrative. It’s even what the coaches acted on in the offseason–emphasizing an offensive line rebuild. But it’s not what happened. Mahomes did enough, but our receivers let us down.

Was Mahomes pressured? ABSOLUTELY!!! Was he frequently running for his life? YES!!! Did he even take a few hits? He sure did! But when the chips were down, Mahomes scrambled and delivered the ball, from a horizontal position in the air, if necessary, directly into his receivers hands on at least three occasions that would have been TDs, if the receivers had come down with them (see video proof below).

The Chiefs lost by 22 points–3 TDs and a 2 pt conversion somewhere along the way. Then there was also that clock mismanagement nonsense at the end of the first half that allowed the Bucs to get an extra TD right before the half. Andy Reid knew better. But that was on the KC coaching staff, not the O-line.

So you make two of these three drops into completions (maybe the two that bounced off the receivers’ face masks), and manage the clock properly at the end of the first half, and the headlines read, “Mahomes Overcomes Intense Pressure to Deliver Consecutive Super Bowl Wins.”

That said, it’s cool that they went out and turned Mahomes’ pocket into Fort Knox in the offseason. It can’t hurt. I mean, they’re not going to go out and replace Hill or Williams–or their hands–so they worked on what they could control.

But the Tampa D din’t win that game, and the Chiefs’ O-line din’t lose it. Mahomes did enough. Just enough, in the face of intense pressure. But it was our receivers who let us down that day.

I love Chiefs’ fans. An excuse for everything. Admit it: You got curb-stomped! And I loved every second of it!

The posted video evidence would suggest otherwise, but I can understand the attraction of taking the blue pill, too.

I love your denial! Keep it up!

Ifs and buts never won championships. The Chiefs offense has been dominant in recent years, and I see no reason to believe that this year will be any different. But it is still possible to beat them. And when that happens during the playoffs, including the Super Bowl, they won’t get another ring. As demonstrated in 2020 and 2018.

And one fallback the Chiefs don’t have: if their offense falters, their D won’t win the game for them.

Would I bet money against them this year? Nope. But I wouldn’t pre-order a “Super Bowl LVI Champions” t-shirt, either.

Well, they’re not the ‘85 Bears, but they allowed the 10th-fewest points scored against them last year, which is pretty good when you’re defending teams trying to outscore the Chiefs’ offense.

The further you advance in the playoffs, the greater the chances that “10th best defense in the league” translates into “inferior defense on the field”.

It was good enough for the Championship last year.

They didn’t seem to have the Bucs offense figured out? Oh yeah…Brady…