The Super Bowl Of Missouri

Unfortunately I think this "breakout" game by Chambers may bury your boy Tucker. I'd much rather have Tucker in there. I would agree with your last paragraph. Pass rush and receiver are our two biggest needs. With one more solid player at each we could be a pretty legit squad.

Oh you know I love seeing Perv in there at fullback. Good blocker? Probably not. Good runner? Probably not. Can he catch? Probably not. What can I say, his play at fullback is greater than the sum of its parts. Has the bar ever been lower for anyone than it is for the man of tin? I feel like I'd have the same expectations if our starting D-end were a tackling dummy. Occupy space, stand ground (at first).

I think the you take a little Perv, some Tin Man and add a dash of Gilberry, you have a pretty good DE.

I sort of agree with you that Big Matt, and myself, have been a little harsh on Thom Jones this year. It does take two backs in the NFL these days as you and Beans pointed out. However, if you just blindly support Jones then your credibility in evaluating his play is not very high. TJ has been pretty valuable to the Chiefs offense and keeping JC fresh, but don't act like 22 carries for 62 yards (2.8 YPC) is good. That just won't get it done. This wasn't his best game and it is ok for us Chiefs fans to say that. When Jamaal has a game like that everyone takes notice. As you said, we have the best back in the league and he is getting half the carries as TJ.

Yeah I'm definitely a Jones-basher. I probably rag on him a little more than I should. But that type of player, and more specifically the reaction to him and incessant praise of him, is like nails on a chalkboard to me. All personal bias aside though, Jones is having a pretty bad year. 3.9 yards per carry is a bad average. And the "tough yards" thing is a myth. They're not just feeding him intended short-yardage runs to keep Charles fresh. In fact, short yardage is arguably where Jones has been the worst. And honestly, his career line isn't that great either. He's rushed for a lot of yards and a fairly low average. He only had one year with over 220 yards receiving. He's never been on a team for longer than 3 years. The Jets took out an ad in our paper thanking him, but they also didn't think he was worth 2 mil per year. His main strength has been his durability. Terms like "clutch" and "leader", you're right, I'm skeptical about stuff like that. I don't know how clutch a guy who consistently fails to pick up one needed yard is. And I've heard a lot of teams talk about the awesome leadership of some really bad players. The Royals are, even as we speak, touting the leadership of Jeff Franceour. Last year it was Kendall. With the Chiefs its Vrabel and Jones. A coach or GM can say anyone has great leadership. They often have ulterior motives for doing so. I know we need two backs. I'm just saying, lets not talk about how great "Charles and Jones" have been. Charles has been great, Jones has been average at best (and I'd say below average). And Jones has more carries than Charles. This is what I said I feared would happen, and everyone assured me it wouldn't.

Every time I watch Charles struggle to get up or otherwise get smashed, I think how smart is was for the Chiefs to sign Jones and give him a lot of carries. He does a decent job and helps to preserve the health of Charles. It is a close deal to make sure that they don't use Jones so much as to lose a game, but it has not happened yet (that I can remember). Besides, he went around the locker room last week telling every player now is the time and what you do every day is crucial. Vrabel was probably right behind him. Finally, long ago when I was in COMO, the Chiefs were very good and the St. Louis Cardinals mostly were not good. So we all hated the Kansas City guys with their superior attitude about the Chiefs.

I'll go ahead and repeat this even though it was in the comment you responded to: I get that you need two runners. I think everyone (except the Rams apparently) gets that. It's not a difficult concept. What I take issue with is people acting like Jones has been good. He hasn't. He's been bad. His average is low, he isn't a threat in the passing game, and he consistently fails to pick up the short first down. His touchdowns are poached from other players. He can do whatever he wants in the locker room, but that doesn't affect what he does on the field. The two things aren't related. And really, does he have to get 20 carries a game for his "leadership" to be effective? Thats the thing with guys like Jones and Vrabel. They're billed as these great team guys, but the coaches are afraid to bench them because, presumably, they would get pissed. So yeah, they're really awesome "team first" guys, as long as they're getting much more PT than their skills warrant. Also, and this is basically a formality, but we lost the Oakland game because of a stubborn refusal to move away from Jones. We kept on giving it to him, he kept on failing, we lost. Almost any back in the league can give us 3.9 yards per carry. Shit, Kolby Smith could've done that. All season people have acted like we were saving Charles for when it mattered most. Here we are in week 16 and literally nothing has changed. When Jones gets more carries than Charles in a playoff loss, what will people say then?

I don't remember how much the allocation of carries to Jones in the Raider game adversely affected the outcome. I'm still stuck on Bowe dropping a pass that would have iced the game. But you're right that if the Chiefs give Jones so many carries that it loses a game, then they messed up. But the concept of letting Jones take a significant part of the runninng back punishment is a good one. It is just a matter of execution so that it does not cost games. I would call him reliable and average this year, which is pretty good for the second running back. I don't recall him making any big mistakes, but I don't pay as close attention as Big Matt and others here. Overall, with a record of 9 and 5, hard to be too crtical of the Chiefs at this point for anything they have done this year. Also hard to believe that we will two playoff atmosphere games at Arrowhead to end the season and then maybe a real playoff game.

I guess we're back to being on opposite ends again Matt. It was sure nice to bond over Brodie but.. He is not having a bad year. A 3.9 yards per carry average is not bad it's.. well pretty average. Ol' Dex 3.9.. Jackie Battle 2.9 and we're not far removed from Mr 2.7, now that's a bad average. There is such a thing as tough yardage. The closer you get to the goal line the less square yardage you have to cover with the same amount of players. Positioning is different with the linebackers and safeties playing closer to the line. That is what they mean by tough yards. Running backs in the NFL don't make it to 10000 yards often in the NFL in fact Mr. Jones is just the 25th all time. To produce at as high of level as Mr. Jones has for as long as he has is not common among NFL backs at all. For you to think he hasn't had a stellar career is absolutely absurd. It makes no sense. WHO do you think then HAS had a great career then? As for the Jets I am glad we aren't the same organization as those cheating douche bags. I am glad we value character. I can think of a clutch play even in the last game. He caught a 3rd down pass about 6 yards short of the first down, made a great move, and picked up 16 yards and a crucial first down. I know short yardage has been a problem but it has for all the backs, even Charles gets dropped in the backfield. We don't have a huge line that can just lean forward and get 1 yard when the team knows exactly what you are doing. I think that's why we see more beef (perv) come in on goal line situations. As for leadership, we have the best back in the NFL for the next 5 years at least, who better than Thomas Jones to teach him how to prepare for each game as a professional running back in the NFL? Who? It's not just our GM and coaches that talk about Mr. Jones' leadership it's everyone around the league including his peers. What ulterior motives do you think they have? Don't be afraid. I think the coaches have noticed when Jones isn't being effective and given the ball to Charles more (Denver game) and Charles is actually getting the ball more than Jones if you include his catches. I don't enjoy seeing Charles getting the cramps rubbed out of his leg, it makes me nervous. I don't want him to get hurt. He is by far the best offensive player on the team and to have him healthy for the playoffs is a blessing. To look at Jones average ypc of the last game as the sole indicator of his importance is missing the forest for the trees. The reason for both backs being around at this time of the year is because of the shared load. Charles and Jones have been great together. Charles may be the Ferrari but Jones is the coal that makes this train roll. I am proud he is a Chief

TrappedinDonkeyland put it perfect...Big Matt you just got served!!! I'll look for your headdress and diapers at Camerohead on Sunday. Did you see me on tv at the Chiefs/Rams game? I'm practically a celebrity now! Chiefssssss!!!!!!!!!!!

I certainly saw you cheeeeeeeeeeeese. You were wearing the old school Monarchs hat, right? Taken from a comment on another AA article above. This should help clear up some of the misnomers about TJ and his “tough yards”. I don’t agree with everything that was written, but the stats are pretty hard to dispute. “It’s been a good 10 days for Jamaal Charles. On Dec. 11, Charles signed a five-year, $32.5 million contract extension with the Kansas City Chiefs that guarantees him $13 million. On Sunday, Charles busted off the longest run of the weekend, an 80-yard scamper that helped seal a crucial 27-13 victory over the St. Louis Rams. And today, he’s hit another milestone: According to DYAR, Charles is the best running back in football this season. While DVOA has suggested that he’s been the best per-play back in the NFL for a fair amount of the season, his performance against the Rams pushed him ahead of Arian Foster as the overall leader in rushing DYAR. He won’t be getting any bonuses for finishing in that spot, but you don’t need advanced metrics to realize what a great season he’s having. Charles is now averaging 6.4 yards per carry, something that no other back has done with 200 or more carries in a season. Barry Sanders? Eric Dickerson? Adrian Peterson? Charles is doing more on a per-carry basis than any of them ever did. His 36.0 percent DVOA would also rank as the best performance by a back in a single season since 1993, the beginning of the DVOA Era. The only reason Charles doesn’t get recognition as the league’s best back, of course, is Todd Haley. Although Haley deserves credit for assisting in the turnaround of Kansas City football over the past year and a half, his refusal to unleash Charles upon the league is mind-boggling. A look at the numbers makes comparisons between him and teammate Thomas Jones laughable. It’s very clear that the Chiefs need to stop fooling around and give Charles the bulk of the workload — now. Most of the reasons given for the near-equal split of the carries between Jones (212 rushing attempts) and Charles (203 attempts) are nebulous. Jones is a reliable veteran and he’s great in the locker room, but that doesn’t make him a superior option at running back. Besides, it’s not like Charles doesn’t have safe hands: Jones has one fumble on 202 touches this year, but Charles has just one more on 228 touches. Consider their performances in similar situations: On first-and-10, Jones has 105 carries for 515 yards and 11 conversions for a first down or touchdown, an impressive average of 4.9 yards per carry. Charles’ 89 first-down carries have produced 683 yards and 19 conversions for an average of nearly 7.7 yards per attempt. That’s better than some teams’ passing games. Jones is regarded as an effective goal-line back because of his gaudy touchdown totals, but research in Football Outsiders Almanac 2010 revealed Jones to be a consistently mediocre goal-line back who had one of the worst performances in league history for the New York Jets in 2007. Despite that, the team continues to pound the ball with Jones inside the goal line without getting very much in return. On his 15 carries inside the opposition’s 5-yard line this year, Jones has five touchdowns and a first down. Charles, meanwhile, has three touchdowns on four such carries. In “power” situations, carries on third or fourth down with 2 yards or fewer to go for a first down (or 2 yards to go for a touchdown on first or second down), Jones has converted on 8 of 16 attempts. Charles is 5-for-7. In addition to being the more productive receiver, Charles is by far the more explosive back. He has nine carries of 20 yards or more, while Jones has just three. Unlike some boom-or-bust backs, though, consistency isn’t an issue for Charles. Our success rate metric measures how effective players are at keeping the team “on schedule” toward a new set of downs and, by that measure, 59 percent of Charles’ runs have been successful, the second-best rate in the league. Only Chris Ivory has been better. Jones is in 18th place among qualifying backs, at 48 percent. The only thing that stands out as an obvious reason to keep Jones in the fold is durability. Jones has been a sturdy back throughout his entire career, while Charles really only spent half of last season as the primary back for his team. You can make the anecdotal case that Charles benefits from the frequent breathers he gets, but there’s also the anecdotal stories about running backs “getting into a rhythm” with regular work. Either way, even if Charles lost 10 percent of his value with an increase in his workload, he would still be a far better option than Jones has been this season. Charles deserves the plaudits he’s received for a great season, but Haley’s decision to limit his workload is keeping Charles from being recognized as an MVP candidate.” -Bill Barnwell

Blockeater...We should meet up at some point for the hollidays if you're in KC...Good to hear all is going well... One thing that articles doesn't address is JC's touches by receiving. With running and receiving touches JC will be over 300 touches by the end of the year and just think how many more he could have if we go to playoffs. If you compare that to the majority of great backs in the last years it will show that it is plenty of touches. Especially for JC who has been rocked a few games where he has had to cum out of the game for not feeling good. This year has been awesome I hope we can continue our success...Call me and my bro if your in town Blockeater...MERRY CHIEFSSSSSSMAS!!!!!!

The Chiefs should have picked him up after he went undrafted. The guy's a beast and I think he's going to develop into a solid #2 wideout. I'd be very happy if the Chiefs got him... We sure could use him.

I would definitely rather have Denario Williams than any receiver on our team other than Bowe. Block Eater started clamoring for him a year ago.

This is me, I don't know why my gravatar did not show up. Sorry about the duplicate post below.

I'll admit that I had to leave for work right after the Chiefs' first touchdown, so I caught the rest of the half on the radio and followed the second half on the ESPN Gamecast from my work computer. That said, that first touchdown drive impressed the hell out of me. The Chiefs offense wasn't so much flat as timid, like all eleven guys out there had appendectomies. Then Cassel broke off that run (that I insist was a first down) when he had Charles open in the flat. From that point on, it was like the Chiefs came alive. Like everyone on the team said "Oh, hey, he's ready to take a hit to help the team. Let's win this thing." And from there they were off and rolling. If the Chiefs go far in the postseason, it'll be that third down play that didn't even get the first that's what I'll remember as being the turning point.

I know I'm way late on this, but I wanted to say 2 things: 1) Glad you like the jokes. Basically my primary purpose here at AA. I'm not deluding myself about that. 2) I like to use the "I am not impressed with your performance" line in my daily life, so naturally I was thrilled to see it show up in a comment.

The third down playcalling is consistently confusing. And, no surprise, we have a really bad percentage there. The third and two run to Thom Jones was my personal favorite. So uninspired. It was like we didn't want the first. I know Charles isn't a "short yardage guy" but if I really needed a yard or two I'd go to him every time.

If I needed 10 yards I'd give it to Charles.

yes beans my hats off to the rams for all they've done for the chiefs this year. id still like a spags report, but great insight all around. ive officially cooled off from being at school in springfield during the rams heyday. i was so full of hate. i feel bad for steven jackson.

You know Beans I actually sent you a text last week asking you to do a refired recap for me to post on AA. I was wondering why I never heard back from you. Then I got a message from Sprint 4 days later saying the text was never delivered. That happens once in a while. Sprint baby, you gotta love it! You need to start a "fire Dick Curl" movement. Do whatever it takes. It is crucial to Sam Bradford's development that Curl not coach him. The guy eats dinner at 4pm. I didn't really think the Rams were as good as us, I just thought they were in kind of the same situation. I fear Spags may be a dumby though. Is that accurate? In any case, I figured them being at home would bridge the gap and make it an even game. Wrong. In return for all the Rams have done for us this year, I will be actively rooting for them to "win" that division.

Spags has actually won me over a little bit this year. He's a defense guy, and the D has definitely taken a couple steps forward this year. Chris Long and James Laurinaitis have both been making plays and should only get better. He really does seem completely lost on offense though. Every soundbite he gives when asked about offensive woes is straight-up coach speak: "well, Sam made a few mistakes, but we'll get that fixed", "People ask why we didn't throw downfield, but we have a specific game plan for areas we want to attack", and "I was satisfied with the effort" are typical quotes. Our offensive coordinator is Pat Shurmur and I've never heard him speak. You know that's not good. I dare say Bradford is having a good rookie year in spite of his coaches, not because of them. Back to the D though, Laurinaitis' dad in Animal from the WWF's Legion of Doom, so he always does weird wrestling-related stuff. After one sack he did the Hogan flexes, and last week he did the Triple-H water spit during player introductions. I have a place in my heart for that.

Unfortunately I think this "breakout" game by Chambers may bury your boy Tucker. I'd much rather have Tucker in there.

I would agree with your last paragraph. Pass rush and receiver are our two biggest needs. With one more solid player at each we could be a pretty legit squad.

Oh you know I love seeing Perv in there at fullback. Good blocker? Probably not. Good runner? Probably not. Can he catch? Probably not. What can I say, his play at fullback is greater than the sum of its parts.

Has the bar ever been lower for anyone than it is for the man of tin? I feel like I'd have the same expectations if our starting D-end were a tackling dummy. Occupy space, stand ground (at first).

I think the you take a little Perv, some Tin Man and add a dash of Gilberry, you have a pretty good DE.

I sort of agree with you that Big Matt, and myself, have been a little harsh on Thom Jones this year. It does take two backs in the NFL these days as you and Beans pointed out. However, if you just blindly support Jones then your credibility in evaluating his play is not very high. TJ has been pretty valuable to the Chiefs offense and keeping JC fresh, but don't act like 22 carries for 62 yards (2.8 YPC) is good. That just won't get it done. This wasn't his best game and it is ok for us Chiefs fans to say that. When Jamaal has a game like that everyone takes notice. As you said, we have the best back in the league and he is getting half the carries as TJ.

Yeah I'm definitely a Jones-basher. I probably rag on him a little more than I should. But that type of player, and more specifically the reaction to him and incessant praise of him, is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

All personal bias aside though, Jones is having a pretty bad year. 3.9 yards per carry is a bad average. And the "tough yards" thing is a myth. They're not just feeding him intended short-yardage runs to keep Charles fresh. In fact, short yardage is arguably where Jones has been the worst.

And honestly, his career line isn't that great either. He's rushed for a lot of yards and a fairly low average. He only had one year with over 220 yards receiving. He's never been on a team for longer than 3 years. The Jets took out an ad in our paper thanking him, but they also didn't think he was worth 2 mil per year.

His main strength has been his durability. Terms like "clutch" and "leader", you're right, I'm skeptical about stuff like that. I don't know how clutch a guy who consistently fails to pick up one needed yard is. And I've heard a lot of teams talk about the awesome leadership of some really bad players. The Royals are, even as we speak, touting the leadership of Jeff Franceour. Last year it was Kendall. With the Chiefs its Vrabel and Jones. A coach or GM can say anyone has great leadership. They often have ulterior motives for doing so.

I know we need two backs. I'm just saying, lets not talk about how great "Charles and Jones" have been. Charles has been great, Jones has been average at best (and I'd say below average). And Jones has more carries than Charles. This is what I said I feared would happen, and everyone assured me it wouldn't.

Every time I watch Charles struggle to get up or otherwise get smashed, I think how smart is was for the Chiefs to sign Jones and give him a lot of carries. He does a decent job and helps to preserve the health of Charles.

It is a close deal to make sure that they don't use Jones so much as to lose a game, but it has not happened yet (that I can remember).

Besides, he went around the locker room last week telling every player now is the time and what you do every day is crucial. Vrabel was probably right behind him.

Finally, long ago when I was in COMO, the Chiefs were very good and the St. Louis Cardinals mostly were not good. So we all hated the Kansas City guys with their superior attitude about the Chiefs.

I'll go ahead and repeat this even though it was in the comment you responded to: I get that you need two runners. I think everyone (except the Rams apparently) gets that. It's not a difficult concept.

What I take issue with is people acting like Jones has been good. He hasn't. He's been bad. His average is low, he isn't a threat in the passing game, and he consistently fails to pick up the short first down. His touchdowns are poached from other players.

He can do whatever he wants in the locker room, but that doesn't affect what he does on the field. The two things aren't related. And really, does he have to get 20 carries a game for his "leadership" to be effective?

Thats the thing with guys like Jones and Vrabel. They're billed as these great team guys, but the coaches are afraid to bench them because, presumably, they would get pissed. So yeah, they're really awesome "team first" guys, as long as they're getting much more PT than their skills warrant.

Also, and this is basically a formality, but we lost the Oakland game because of a stubborn refusal to move away from Jones. We kept on giving it to him, he kept on failing, we lost.

Almost any back in the league can give us 3.9 yards per carry. Shit, Kolby Smith could've done that. All season people have acted like we were saving Charles for when it mattered most. Here we are in week 16 and literally nothing has changed. When Jones gets more carries than Charles in a playoff loss, what will people say then?

I don't remember how much the allocation of carries to Jones in the Raider game adversely affected the outcome. I'm still stuck on Bowe dropping a pass that would have iced the game. But you're right that if the Chiefs give Jones so many carries that it loses a game, then they messed up.

But the concept of letting Jones take a significant part of the runninng back punishment is a good one. It is just a matter of execution so that it does not cost games. I would call him reliable and average this year, which is pretty good for the second running back. I don't recall him making any big mistakes, but I don't pay as close attention as Big Matt and others here.

Overall, with a record of 9 and 5, hard to be too crtical of the Chiefs at this point for anything they have done this year. Also hard to believe that we will two playoff atmosphere games at Arrowhead to end the season and then maybe a real playoff game.

I guess we're back to being on opposite ends again Matt. It was sure nice to bond over Brodie but..

He is not having a bad year. A 3.9 yards per carry average is not bad it's.. well pretty average. Ol' Dex 3.9.. Jackie Battle 2.9 and we're not far removed from Mr 2.7, now that's a bad average.

There is such a thing as tough yardage. The closer you get to the goal line the less square yardage you have to cover with the same amount of players. Positioning is different with the linebackers and safeties playing closer to the line. That is what they mean by tough yards.

Running backs in the NFL don't make it to 10000 yards often in the NFL in fact Mr. Jones is just the 25th all time. To produce at as high of level as Mr. Jones has for as long as he has is not common among NFL backs at all. For you to think he hasn't had a stellar career is absolutely absurd. It makes no sense. WHO do you think then HAS had a great career then?

As for the Jets I am glad we aren't the same organization as those cheating douche bags. I am glad we value character.

I can think of a clutch play even in the last game. He caught a 3rd down pass about 6 yards short of the first down, made a great move, and picked up 16 yards and a crucial first down. I know short yardage has been a problem but it has for all the backs, even Charles gets dropped in the backfield. We don't have a huge line that can just lean forward and get 1 yard when the team knows exactly what you are doing. I think that's why we see more beef (perv) come in on goal line situations.

As for leadership, we have the best back in the NFL for the next 5 years at least, who better than Thomas Jones to teach him how to prepare for each game as a professional running back in the NFL? Who? It's not just our GM and coaches that talk about Mr. Jones' leadership it's everyone around the league including his peers. What ulterior motives do you think they have?

Don't be afraid. I think the coaches have noticed when Jones isn't being effective and given the ball to Charles more (Denver game) and Charles is actually getting the ball more than Jones if you include his catches. I don't enjoy seeing Charles getting the cramps rubbed out of his leg, it makes me nervous. I don't want him to get hurt. He is by far the best offensive player on the team and to have him healthy for the playoffs is a blessing.

To look at Jones average ypc of the last game as the sole indicator of his importance is missing the forest for the trees. The reason for both backs being around at this time of the year is because of the shared load. Charles and Jones have been great together. Charles may be the Ferrari but Jones is the coal that makes this train roll. I am proud he is a Chief