Video of the Chiefs rookies talking about being selected by KC.
http://www.chiefs.com/media-center/v...a-4795c4dbeb85
The upcoming season will be interesting to see what they can do.
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Chiefs rookie class -- in their own words
Video of the Chiefs rookies talking about being selected by KC.
http://www.chiefs.com/media-center/v...a-4795c4dbeb85
The upcoming season will be interesting to see what they can do.
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If you watch this play from 2015, then it makes what you see in the .gif image I posted above even more mind-boggling. On this play, Alex's execution is FLAWLESS. He looks to the left and freezes the Donkey Safety and then comes back to the right & delivers a perfect pass to the RB West and the result is an 80-yard TD that nails the coffin shut on the Donkeys. I'm sure CTC, that like myself, many believe this is probably the best play of Alex's career.
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Demps....I remember that play. Had forgotten it was West who made the catch. What I had especially remembered about that play was Maclin's block that insured West got across the goal line. But looking at it now it's really an example of a QB executing to perfection. That play should certainly be prominent in an Alex Smith Career Highlights video. West got free on his own, but it was Alex's look left that broke the play open for huge yards. That look left faked the donkey defender out of his cleats. The killer is it's a similar play to the one in the gif you posted from the Pittsburgh game. All I can ask myself is what was different in Alex's head in the Pittsburgh game that he wasn't able to replicate the pass to West? Perhaps what bugs me the most is that in the gif from the Steelers game Alex takes off running before he is under any real pressure. All he had to do is look quickly to his left before breaking out of the pocket.
Last edited by ctchiefsfan; 05-13-2017 at 11:38 AM.
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^^The thing that you notice in the .gif image, CTC, is that Alex is already looking in the direction of Hill and the Pittsburgh Safety standing flat-footed, as soon as Alex gets the snap. You notice Hill starts looking back for the ball before he crosses the 30-yard line, because he knows he's got the entire Defense beaten. All Alex had to do was throw it out there.
I believe Dougster nailed it. That hit to the head in the Indy game & he wasn't the same afterwards. Andy Reid said that Alex isn't getting any younger & as I said before, how many more hits to the head can he take? It doesn't matter who the QB is. You can't take shots to the head like that repeatedly.
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Definitely. Alex still does have a shot at getting it done in KC. Alex has done an amazing job picking up Reid's offense and making us competitive from word go. It's four years later...He's still helping us stay competitve, he was a big part of the playoff win against Houston, and we need him to keep things that way until Mahomes is ready. Regardless of how it turns out, would like to see the man WALK his way to wherever he wants to go when he hangs up his cleats.Originally Posted by brdempsey69
With JC it's a little different story because Spencer Ware, Knile Davis and CW were already doing his job for the past two years. It put the front office in a situation where it had to protect itself from spending money on a player that was very likely not to survive training camp let alone a season.
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The idea that Alex "lost something" (either mentally or physically) after the Indy game has intrigued me since I first read it here. I think it was dugstr who first mentioned the idea. It certainly seemed to me that Alex wasn't his "usual self" after he came back from the injury week. I'm going to go look at some stats for a while and see if there is anything factual that would suggest it is more than a "feeling" we have. I'll report back and let you know what I found out.
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Well I checked stats for 2016. Total as well as pre and post injury numbers. I was unable to find anything in the numbers to suggest that Alex "wasn't himself after the Colts game". That honestly surprised me. Please understand that most of the numbers that follow were done by hand on a calculator so they may not be perfect.
2016 passing numbers....
328/489. 67.1% completion average. His best year as a Chief.
3,502 passing yards. His best year as a Chief by 16 yards over 2015 but in 14 1/2 games rather than 16 in 2015.
15 passing touchdowns. His worst year as a Chief.
Pre and post injury yards per attempt.
Pre....7.06 yards per attempt.
Post...7.28 yards per attempt.
Not a lot of difference, but better than it was before the injury.
Pre and post injury completion %.
Pre....67.8%
Post...67.9%
Not a lot of difference, but a hair better than it was before the injury.
2016 rushing numbers....
48 attempts for 134 yards. His worst year as a Chief.
1st downs rushing. 9. His worst as a Chief.
That didn't tell me much so I broke down some numbers for before and after the Colts game to see if that had a substantial impact on his performance.
Pre Colts game rushing attempts per game...2.84 per game.
Post Colts game rushing attempts per game...3.63 per game.
He made more rushing attempts per game after the injury than he did before.
Pre Colts game yards per rushing attempt. 22 yards...17 attempts...1.29 yards per attempt.
Post Colts game yards per rushing attempt. 103 yards...29 attempts...3.55 yards per attempt.
He got more yards per attempt after the injury than he did before.
Conclusions....
When you take into account that Alex played only 14 1/2 games he had a "career year" in most stats other than rushing but his rushing attempts and yards per carry increased after the injury. Contrary to what I expected, Alex showed more willingness to take off with the ball after the injury than before and did so more successfully. So I am unable to conclude that Alex was less willing or able to run with the ball after the injury than before and was equally capable of throwing the ball after the injury as he was before.
Summation....
Alex had a great year which seems odd to me since I would have sworn he just wasn't as good after those hits in Indy as he before.
It is worth noting however that Alex total rushing attempts for 2016 were substantially lower than than any previous year in KC. But his willingness to run with the ball does not seem to have been affected by his injury
All in all I am perplexed and confused.
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Great post, ctc.
Keep in mind a lot of those numbers are averages over the course of the two parts of Alex's season (pre/post Indy game) so they don't necessarily show the highs and lows that happened during the games. Sometimes the highs don't exactly tell the full story either (for example, the first game of the season against the Chargers when Alex threw for 360+ yards - San Diego actually dominated that game until the fourth quarter! But Alex and the offense did turn it up at the end, didn't quit, and came out with a hard earned W).
The other counterpoint I'd make is when you talk about the rushing yardage going up after the Indy game...The extra yardage was Alex changing what he was doing when he scrambled. Before, Alex would try to slide at the end of his rushes in an attempt to make the defensive player draw a flag. After he got hit in the Indy game, he swore off doing that in favor of just rushing straight, which would explain some of the extra yards.
While I still believe that hit really affected Alex, maybe we should look at the fact that the numbers didn't drop off severely as a testament to the fact that Alex and the team worked hard to make sure it didn't become a statistical red flag for other teams to use as a tool against us in '16.
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Maybe we can chalk it up to the rotten luck that the Chiefs have had in the post season since the re-alignment of the NFL and AFL in 1970 (post season record of 4-15 since that time which is horrific). The .gif image is just unexplainable, just like the missed FG's by Stenerud in the 1971 Christmas day game.
Back on the subject thread, let's hope our rookies that we drafted can make a significant contribution & help the Chiefs win enough games to get back to the post-season.
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