The Fall Guy
The Kansas City Chiefs blew it.
Todd Haley’s team had the lead in the fourth quarter and they failed to protect the victory. They had the ball to start the overtime and they failed to even achieve a first down.
They failed.
They.
The team.
And the coaches.
All of them.
After a hard loss like the one the Chiefs suffered yesterday, you may be tempted to find a fall guy. You may be tempted to find multiple fall guys. You’re angry and you want someone to blame. I can understand that. There were times I was sitting there on Sunday pulling out my hair, wondering “what the heck are they thinking.”
The truth is, Sunday’s loss was a team effort and to try to pin the failures on any one person is folly.
Answers and truth after the jump.
Here is a list of fall guys I have already seen mentioned in the hours following the game.
Dwayne Bowe, Matt Cassel, Todd Haley, Thomas Jones, Charlie Weis, The Officials, The Coverage Team
If you want to single out a few individuals and make them the fall guys that is cool but I demand you be fair about it. I demand you add to your blame list the following players;
Brandon Flowers, John McGraw, The Offensive Line, Chris Chambers, Verran Tucker, Terrance Copper and Tony Moeaki
You want to make Dwayne Bowe a fall guy? Seriously? Are you out of your mind? I wish we had three Dwayne Bowe’s. We’d be a heck of a lot better off. You do realize that without Dwayne Bowe and Tony Moeaki our only viable receiving option would be Jamaal Charles coming out of the backfield?
The Dwayne Bowe hate is simply not fair. If you want to get mad at him for dropping a ball, while turning around and falling down, that is fine. Yeah, if Bowe catches that ball the game is over but it was by no means an easy catch. And if it wasn’t for Dwayne Bowe, the Chiefs wouldn’t even have been in the football game.
How soon we forget about Dwayne Bowe’s 6 touchdowns in his last 4 games. How soon we forget his amazing catch vs. the Bills or his go ahead snag earlier in the 4th quarter against the Raiders. No, we focus on the one ball he wasn’t able to bring in. It is, after all, his job to catch the ball and he failed to do it. Fair enough.
If you want to get mad at Bowe for that drop you need to be equally as furious with Brandon Flowers. Flowers also failed to bring in a game winning interception on Oakland’s final drive of the 4th quarter. Flowers had excellent position on Jacoby Ford. The ball hit him in the hands and he allowed Ford to reach over his shoulder and pull it away. That is Flowers’ job, to intercept and break up passes. He blew it. How is that any different than Dwayne Bowe dropping the earlier pass for the 1st down?
It isn’t.
John McGraw may have had an interception but later he dropped another Jason Campbell pass that hit him right in the hands. That turnover could have made the difference in the game but McGraw dropped it. Then later, he broke up a Jason Campbell pass intended for Eric Berry.
Wait, what?
You heard me. Campbell threw a deep ball and Berry had excellent position on his man, not unlike the position Brandon Flowers would later have on Jacoby Ford, and John McGraw ran over and practically wrenched a would be interception from Berry’s grip. Way to go McGraw. You fail.
The offensive line got mauled by the Raiders all day. Sure, the box was stacked but it is still their job to open up holes and they weren’t doing it. Thomas Jones has shown he can make things happen when he has some room but he was often hit in the backfield. The line didn’t do their jobs.
Chris Chambers, Verran Tucker and Terrance Copper were flat out awful. The Raiders were playing man coverage all day and aside from a nice catch but Tucker in the end zone none of these guys could get open. And don’t go blaming Matt Cassel for this. He found Bowe, Moeaki and Charles plenty through the air. Other than Bowe and Moeaki the Chiefs might as well not bother putting any other receivers on the field.
Tony Moeaki has another solid game, sure but he also dropped a key first down pass that hit him right in the hands. Hey, if we are going to blame Bowe for his drop and ignore the good things he did, we have to do the same for Moeaki too, right? A first down and the clock it would have eaten up could have made the difference in this game. Moeaki blew it.
You see Addicts, it wasn’t just the usual suspects on Sunday. There is plenty of blame to go around. Sunday’s game was a fine example of a team loss. The penalties, the turnovers, the drops, the poor play calls, and the officials all had an impact.
I understand the need to have someone to blame, however, so I am going to give you the perfect fall guy. This guy is the one person who was more responsible for the Chiefs losing than any of the people mentioned above. He made more of an impact than Bowe, Flowers, Moeaki, Haley, Weis, Jones, McGraw, the offensive line, the officials and even the rain.
If you want a fall guy, I suggest you look no further than Jacoby Ford.