KC Star Borrows a Headline

What a coincidence, I just wrote an article on Hermisms last Monday.

The very next day, Bill Reiter of the KC Star, also wrote an article about Hermisms.

I think I’m more disappointed Mr. Reiter would waste a good term like “Hermism”, than the “coincidence” of using the same headline I used, because he didn’t offer any commentary on Herm’s wacky logic train, just a copy & paste job. What a waste.

Chiefs at Chargers

The Chiefs add one more nail to the San Diego coffin, and it was awesome, but it was far from a perfect game. For the fourth straight week, KC started a game down by 2 scores.

Game 1 at Houston 0-17
Game 2 at Bears 0-17
Game 3 vs. Minnesota 0-10
Game 4 at San Diego 0-10

It would be nice to start a game with a lead, and not a two score hole. You can read this a few ways, and I see it as a bad game plan from the coaching staff (minus Gunther). Herm Edwards’ offensive philosophy DOES NOT WORK. Each week he sends the Hermcuffed offense out on the field, and each week the Chiefs wind up in a two score hole. Luckily, someone in the halftime locker room (the players maybe?) points out that Herm’s Punt/FG ideology doesn’t compete with the other team’s pesky touchdowns.

“They’re still not challenging them downfield” – Len Dawson in the first half.
Len has been saying this all season, but what does he know?

As inept as the Chiefs coaching staff (minus Gunther) is, I will give them credit for their halftime adjustments. They looked like a new offense and actually acquired, not one, but two Hermy Grails. And yes, I mean touchdowns. Damon Huard threw into triple coverage and Tony Gonzalez took it. He didn’t catch it, he took it, and tied Shannon Sharpe’s NFL record for tight ends. Good job Tony!

“Damon threw the ball in places where last week he wasn’t comfortable throwing,” Edwards said after Sunday’s game.

Where’s that? Downfield? To a wide receiver? Forward? Is he uncomfortable because forward passes terrify the head coach? There was no hesitation in Damon’s touchdown toss to Tony. Damon is good. Compare that throw to Philip Rivers hesitation to a wide open LaDainian Tomlinson at the end of the game.

Dwayne Bowe is the real deal. Every couple of years Carl Peterson lucks out and gets a gem, and everyone forgets about the Junior Saiivis, the Ryan Sims, the Trezell Jenkins.

Tyron Brackenridge had a great fumble recovery, but almost pulled a Leon Lett by dropping the ball at the goal line. Herm said he didn’t like the dancing and Tyron should “go to dance school.” When you talk as much as Herm does, you’re bound to say something good, and that was pretty funny.

Huard’s 51 yard touchdown pass to Bowe was the same slant route that Green Bay used the week before. This is coaching & game planning. Our side learned something, and their side did not. There are actually worse coaches in the NFL than the Chiefs (minus Gunther), and they are in San Diego. I gave credit where it is due, and this week, this was good coaching.

“Normally teams set the pass up with the run,” Gonzalez said. “We’re the opposite. We have to set up the run with the pass. Until we prove we can throw down the field consistently teams are going to keep stacking the box.”

I’ve been saying this for weeks. I think Larry Johnson was correct talking about the egos of NFL coaches. They still stubbornly stick to failed philosophies, regardless of the outcome. Lovie Smith has refused to admit Rex Grossman’s shortcomings for a long time, and now it may be too late, as they are 1-3 and in trouble.

I’m not trying to be a downer after a great Chiefs win, but a lot of the problems have not been fixed, and I don’t want to see Kansas City down 0-10 again against the Jaguars this week. Since they were on a bye, the Jags have had an extra week to game plan. Too many times the Chiefs has laid an egg when they should have been building momentum.

San Diego lost the game

There is a thread here in the forums called:
Prepare yourselves for the “San Diego lost the game” excuses.

I’m not taking anything away from the great play of the Chiefs this week, they deserved this win, but San Diego did not help themselves. They made no halftime adjustments, they did not learn from last week, they continued to put their shell-shocked QB in harm’s way, and most importantly, they abandoned the run.

LT had 100 rushing yards in the 1st half and 16 in the second. They decided to go pass-happy, and put Rivers in a position to get his brains beat in by KC. This is the second week in a row that Rivers threw a pass that hit LT in the head, because he wasn’t even looking to make a catch. That pass was intercepted and set up a KC score. I’m sure that was going through River’s mind when he hesitated throwing to an open LT in the flat at the end of the game.

Norvisms

“We could have run the ball in that situation,” Turner said. “There are times in that (third & 2) type situation that we need to run the ball more. Some of it is predicated on what the defense is doing, how they’re playing it. This has been a big blitz team in that down and distance. That’s one of the things we have to look at and say, ‘Hey, in that situation … getting the ball to LT, is that in our advantage?”

Wow. If you’re not sure you should give the ball to an NFL MVP running back on 3rd & 2, then you are going to have a long, long season.

NFL

Dante Hall had a return touchdown against the Cowboys, and an 80 yard return in week one. Good thing we got rid of him.

ESPN SportsCenter

I haven’t watched this piece of crap in a long time, and it was the right call. If you don’t have NFL Network, you should get it.

9:00pm – There was AN HOUR of Baseball Tonight.
10:00pm – SportsCenter intro with a lot of KC clips. Yes! I think they might actually talk about the Chiefs.
10:01pm – Wrong! What do they open with, baseball? WTF? 12 minutes of f’n baseball, and to top it off, they go to the Baseball Tonight guys! They were just on for an F’N HOUR!!!
10:16pm – GB/Minn clips. NASCAR & College football talk for 8 minutes. Unbelievable.
10:26pm – Phil/NYG clips for 6 minutes.
10:32pm – Berman talks GB & Favre AGAIN for 5 minutes.
10:37pm – Det/Bears clips for 5 minutes.
10:45pm – And it’s back to baseball. For 15 straight minutes with no commercials. We have now had 1 hour & 27 minutes of baseball talk in the last 2 hours. Wow.
11:00pm – Finally! One full hour after heavily promoting the KC/SD game, we finally get KC/SD clips. A big FU to the Eastern Seaboard Programming Nitwits.

Hermisms

EDWARDS: “Well, I think for one thing the coaches did a great job of adjusting. We talked about we had to do a better job of adjusting our game plan and we did. I thought Mike [Solari] did a fantastic job and the players bought into it.”

JD: It’s funny Herm said “the players bought into it.” That implies it doesn’t happen all the time.

Q: But can you keep up there with this kind of offense though? Four touchdowns aren’t many.

EDWARDS: “If you continue to take the ball away you always have a chance to score. Our defense did a pretty good job the last two or three weeks. What we hadn’t done was capitalize on them and score. Today we did.”

JD: The question was about offense, not defense. The offense should be able to score on their own, not soley because of a turnover. All aboard Herm’s Logic Train!