The results of the Kansas City Chiefs first two games has most Chiefs fans still wondering if they are contenders or pretenders? However, I would suggest that they are… suspenders. The animated kind. They simply have perfected the art of suspending belief, dangling the eventual outcome of games and bringing the overall understanding of just who this team really is into a much clearer murky mirage.
Obviously, game one at Arrowhead was a bust. An affair to forget. You could take everything that happened in that game and just say, “There’s nothing here to trust in” in terms of being able to evaluate the team. Injuries to three starters, Derrick Johnson, Mike DeVito and Jeff Allen, can obscure any eventual result, no matter how good or bad things looked on any given Sunday.
Andy Reid proclaims he’s been teaching his troops to “finish” all offseason long. After game one, I thought he should be more concerned about teaching them to “start.”
In Denver, the Chiefs teased. They won many battles like total yards, time of possession and controlling the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball… most of the time. They excited us with a 162 play drive (oh, come on now, you know it totally felt that way) over a ten minute period in the third quarter only to come away with zippo-zilch-zero points on the scoreboard (gheesh). The missed field goal following that drive did inspire a skunk-bag full of deflated team spirit but then the Chiefs were getting to the red zone multiple times so why worry, it looked like they had this game locked up. In the end they inched tantalizing close to winning and made the outcome look like a massive 3-D question mark blimp floating over Sports Authority Field at Mile High… until it exploded with :15 seconds left to go. Ka-ploo-ee! Game over.
More like… poof… the Chiefs sound of suspended animation.
So, what do the first two games tell us about these Chiefs? Who knows for sure at all, because these guys are… the animated suspenders.
Even Chiefs who aren’t playing are getting in on this act.
Take Mike Catapano for example. He hasn’t even played a down this season. Much less a down or two in training camp. We all had high hopes for Catapano when Tyson Jackson left town but because of some kind of “unknown” illness (and we all wish you a speedy recovery Mike) we have no idea if he’ll even be a contributor this season.
An animated suspender from flat on his back.
How about Dee Ford? John Dorsey and Andy Reid take the best “rush OLB” in the draft that was available with the 23rd pick even though that was a strength of this team and then do they play him? Not really. Do we know why? Not really.
Dee Ford was supposed to be part of a master plan to revamp the defensive attack to make sure the Chiefs put more pressure on opposing QBs, especially in games against QB’s who throw the ball a lot like Peyton Manning. However the Chiefs only got one sack in this game (from Tamba), which gives them 5 sacks total for the year and at this pace would get them tied for 16th best in the league at year’s end (based upon last season’s stats).
So, do we know anything more about the new vaunted Chiefs sack attack? Not really. We’re still waiting. As in… I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
“Wait-n-see” seems to be the by-words for this year.
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