Things that are annoying me

@Eydugstr 375608 wrote:

Sometimes it’s best not to even listen to what the mob or media knee-jerk reactions are. The season is not over yet. We still have an effective TE corps, our defense is still playing at a high level, and when the right playcalls/OL performance is executed we’re still capable of making yards on the ground.

The biggest issue this team has is the dropped passes. Chiefster pointed out correctly that you can’t let talent like Hill or Watkins go and not expect a dropoff in WR performance. I’d like to add another name to that list, which I’m surprised hasn’t been brought up more often…Juju Smith-Schuster. Hill, Watkins, and JJ SS all three were capable of fighting for a catch and most of the time would come away with the ball. This has not been the case with the current WR’s.

To address m/c’s points about dumb mob/media “business moves”-

1) Fire Veach? Yeah, sure. Let’s fire the GM that took us from a playoff competitor to a team that went to three of the last four super bowls and won two of them. The people saying this clearly have not thought this plan out, unless they are Broncos/Chargers/Raiders fans.

2) Fire Nagy. Actually there’s a little truth to this, from the standpoint of WR performance. When one or two players perfom poorly, it’s on the players. When they’re all doing it, it’s on the coaching. But that’s as far as that argument goes AFAIC. Reid’s/Mahomes’ playcalling needs to step up and take some responsibility here, too.

3) Mahomes is just going through a challenging year, period. He’s still young with a ton of years ahead to play. Just needs to get better at the mental aspect of this game and realize the league is adjusting to him, and now it’s his time to adjust to what other teams are doing to stiffle him. All the great QBs go through it. My only issue with Mahomes this year is I wish he’d use his legs a bit more and just run.

But it’s okay, radio pundits. I’m sure your pick-of-the-week will rack up yards/points/Lombardi trophies the way PMII did, not a problem at all.

To me a lot of our problems with the WR issue is I don’t think people give Ju Ju the credit from last year. Losing him was a bigger issue than people think IMO. I am not going to say that he was an elite WR he is not. But he was good enough that he gave the other teams someone that they had to deal with. He opened things up for a guy like MVS. I think they expected that Skyy would be further along than what he is. Toney was never great even in New York, Yes he had a couple of big plays in the super bowl but that’s just one game.(although the biggest game) He has never been a guy you can rely on for the most part. If nothing else because he is always hurt.

Another knock I have seen on Nagy is the penalties. People don’t realize that since Mahomes was the starter the Chiefs have been in the top 3 of most penalties. Nagy was in Chicago for a lot of that time.

This year is just what last year was supposed to be a rebuilding year. Rice is looking like a stud more and more he has cut the drops down a bit and just keeps getting better. Which is a really exciting thing in the future. Veach has spent many offseasons working on the defense. And as I stated in the first post he did a damn good job of it. Now he is going to have to work on the offense. It is the cycle of life in the NFL.

@Eydugstr 375611 wrote:

Rice has sort of become the current “celebrity” of the moment. Problem is, even the Raiders have figured it out, too. Want to beat the Chiefs? Blanket Kelce and Rice with defenders in the secondary, play downhill towards the run. Rice is the only one of the WR corps that is improving, but it comes with a really bad caveat. He’s really prone to coughing up a ball right after a catch. And other teams know it.

Which brings me to my next point. We’ve handed to many of these games over to our opponents. Way too many dumb passes that resulted in interceptions, way too many fumbles when WR’s were thinking about their touchdown dance moves before catching the ball. Most of our losses were self-inflicted this year. Their offense couldn’t score against this D on a long field. But they obviously can when we hand them a short one.

The penalties are always an issue. It’s the dumb ones that sting. Toney’s offsides penalty was horrible, made everyone almost forget about the one Dee Ford made. #74 seems to have turned himself into a ref favorite, but in his defense he’s responsible for protecting a $500mil investment in PM2.

Speaking of flags, there’s one thing PM does that I wish would stop. Throwing a pass just to get a flag. There’s way too many times that Mahomes will throw in the area of a guy he sees being held, and instantly point right after the ball is thrown. Sometimes it works, we get the flag our way, but think what’s going on is that the refs are getting fed up with it, and it’s coming back to bite us in the butt (For example, the no-call on DPI against MVS). It also wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find out we had another person wide open when this happens.

Rice was always going to take some time. There is just no getting around it. The great thing is he just keeps getting better as the season goes. The even better thing is he is doing more than Hill did in his rookie year. Not going to predict that he turns into another Hill by any means but he is showing some signs that he might just be a very good WR in the NFL

I actually don’t mind Mahomes throwing the ball when he thinks he sees a flag. He is trying to highlight the penalty and force the refs to throw the flag. And it has worked many many times. The Super Bowl flag for holding Ju Ju being a prime example. You just have to be willing to take the risk and know that it’s not going to work every time.

I have been many times very critical of the coaching. And yes I do think that is part of the problem this year. But to me the biggest issue this season is talent related. They took a gamble that Toney would become a main guy and well it just didn’t work. It was a mistake and a pretty big one. But hey mistakes happen. The question going forward is will they be willing to admit they missed and cut bait and make moves to improve things. Or will they be stubborn and try to make it work. Hopefully it’s the former and not the later