Chiefs podcast: Replacing Sean Smith and defining “winnable” games

With Sean Smith’s three-game suspension, the Chiefs need to face Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers and (heh) Brian Hoyer without one of the key pieces of its defense.

On this episode of Roughing the Kicker, Joshua Brisco discusses the impact of the Chiefs starting the season without top cornerback Sean Smith and how to deal with the loss, talks about why Kansas City must find Dontari Poe’s backup, looks into the future of Eric Kush, identifies the three most important games of the Chiefs’ season and puts a number on the amount of “winnable” and “losable” games the Chiefs will have in 2015.

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The suspension of Sean Smith, while totally justified, puts the Chiefs in a difficult position for the first three weeks of the season. Though Brian Hoyer isn’t notorious for the way he picks apart young cornerbacks, Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers will surely exploit the Chiefs’ holes in weeks two and three. The Chiefs then have to look at the matchups and decide how they can make up for the loss of their top coverage man.

I’ll have an article out in a few days about where the Chiefs can find the backup for Dontari Poe (and why they must), but get the crash course version on this episode so you’re ready for the full breakdown when the article hits.

With this formula, how many winnable and losable games do you think the Chiefs have in 2015?

Today, I stumbled upon a way to determine if games are “winnable” or “losable” in a given season. If the Chiefs have a 25% or better chance to win a game, I’ll call that a winnable matchup – the Chiefs can win it, and would win at least one out of four matchups. If they have less than a 75% chance to win, I’ll call it a losable game – where the Chiefs would lose the game at least once every four matchups. This formula provided three games in each category, giving the Chiefs 13 winnable games and 13 losable games, showing the volatility of the 2015 schedule. On the show, I give the three games that the Chiefs absolutely must win and the three that I think would require major upsets for the Chiefs to win.

The Eric Kush discussion was spurred by this article here on Arrowhead Addict, and I’m starting to buy into the idea that Kush is earning his spot at center and Mitch Morse will be a second-round draft pick who gives depth to virtually every position on the offensive line.

If you’re going to training camp: Tweet me @jbbrisco with your observations and things you want to have brought up on the show. I want to collect as many viewpoints as possible for next week!

Have ideas or questions for next week’s episode? Tweet @jbbrisco or comment here on AA and tell me what you want to talk about. Subscribe to RTK on iTunes and never miss an episode.

Roughing the Kicker is a Kansas City Chiefs podcast on Arrowhead Addict Radio. RTK is about the Chiefs and the NFL through the eyes of Chiefs fans. Music by Baby Spaceman.