For a Chiefs team that has struggled and had a losing record, they sure got complacent & cocky against the Bengals. The final score should have been 34-7..

“Whoa, that’s a lot of points.”

…but instead we had to hold on for dear life against a bad team. Had we played a decent team, we probably would’ve lost.

The Chiefs finally start a game ready to play, woo hoo!, but for the 6th straight game, they have yet to play four quarters. The first half was great, with Jared Allen and the defense evoking memories of the great defenses of the ’90′s. The offense was great, moving up and down the field, and scoring those, what do you call them, oh yah, TOUCHDOWNS! Larry Johnson finally broke out also, with 106 rushing yards in the 1st half. It was nice to see the Chiefs actually have a lead early in the game.

But for whatever reason, the Chiefs could still not put together a complete game. Thirteen second half rushing yards for Larry Johnson, in addition to another stupid delay of game penalty, and the Bengals outscored Kansas City 13-7. What happened? Did the players ease up? Did the Bengals make better halftime adjustments? Even in victory, they still manage to make it frustrating.

Congrats to Tony Gonzalez for breaking Shannon Sharpe’s tight end touchdown record, and I like how he was concerned not just with the record, but having it mean something in the context of the game.

Herm Edwards made some back-handed comments about Dick Vermeil’s video game offense a while back (covered in my last column), implying that besides producing 49 point games, they produced a lot of three and outs, which hurts the defense. As with any Hermism, it is loaded with errors. First, Vermeil’s squads were league leaders in time of possession. Second, who cares? Wins are decided by point total, not time of possession total. Third, part of the problem is Herm can’t answer an offense question without talking aboot the defense. Why? And lastly, Herm knows all about three and outs doesn’t he? 27 of 57 drives have been three and out this year. Twelve red zone possessions (through 5 games) have produced three touchdowns. Bottom line, Herm Edwards is the LAST person who should be commenting on anyone’s offense.

“That is awful!” – Len Dawson, after a Bengal shot the gap and tackled Larry Johnson for a two yard loss on 2nd and goal from the one.

Who knew that you needed quality offensive linemen to produce positive rushing yards?

Stop Being so Negative

Some fans continue to complain aboot all the negativity that other Chiefs fans, like myself, continue to have. The important thing you need to start with is, are we wrong? Do you think we like ripping our favorite team? No. We want the Chiefs to win. Unfortunately, management and the coaching staff (minus Gunther) CONTINUE to do things that give the impression that the Super Bowl is not their first priority. I don’t know aboot you, but I would like to see the Chiefs win a Super Bowl. Or a playoff game. Or a division title. Or in Denver. Or in Buffalo. Or in New York. Or in Dallas.

I’ve said this before, but apparently it needs repeating. Protesting a 19 year tenure that has produced ZERO championships does not make me less of a fan. I have been a Chiefs fan for 33 years, and I am tired of the losing and the stupidity. Some people apparently are not. If you enjoy watching your team score a whopping three points against the dynasty that is the Houston Texans, and getting blanked by the inventors of the Super Bowl, the Jacksonville Jaguars, then enjoy. I don’t.

Hermisms

Normally, I would prefer not to make half my column aboot Hermisms, but unfortunately, Herm has never met a microphone that he didn’t give a press conference to, so I am now very backlogged.

True story. I was at Disneyland, we had a video camera, and we were taking pictures and stuff, and Herm Edwards was there. He saw my video camera, walked over, and gave a press conference. True story.

Q: You said after the game on Sunday (after the Jags game) that you have to do some things to change your running game. What do you need to do besides getting a whole new offensive line and running back?

JD: Who in the blue hell is asking these questions? I love it!! There have been some great hard hitting questions lately, followed up, of course, by the Hermy Shuffle.

EDWARDS: “We don’t need to do that. We’ve got the players that we have and they’re good players. We have to define some things a little bit better I think. We have to have the ability, too, to stick with the run and don’t abandon it.”

JD: The problem hasn’t been abandoning the run, but just the opposite. The running game DOES NOT WORK, but Herm keeps trying to jam the square running game into the round hole. It all starts upfront with the offensive line and the play-calling. Larry Johnson continues to get tackled behind the line of scrimmage which indicates to me not a lot of blocking is going on.

EDWARDS: “Now, we only ran the ball 10 times (against the Jags) so that’s not very good for anybody. You just can’t run the ball 10 times and throw it 43 times.”

JD: Have you noticed Herm is super concerned with numbers? He talks aboot the number of carries, throws, plays, etc. One number he doesn’t seem to place a lot of importance on is the points total at the end of the game.

Q: Is he (Larry Johnson) running as hard as last year? Is he running differently?

EDWARDS: “I don’t know if he’s running differently. Everyone’s trying to figure out if it’s him, the line. It’s a little bit of everything. It has to improve and it will improve because we’ve got to make a better emphasis on it and how we go about it, doing it in practice and improving the runs we want to define.”

JD: What’s there to figure out? I haven’t seen too many holes to run through. The line is not good. This is the same line that got Trent Green creamed in the Indy playoff game, OOPS!! I’m sorry, I forgot. The bad line play and play-calling are all Trent Green’s fault.

EDWARDS: “Then it always helps if you’re not playing from behind. If you’re playing from behind all the time in the middle of the third quarter then you feel like we have to start throwing and abandon the run.”

JD: Maybe if you start throwing earlier, you wouldn’t BE behind in the 3rd quarter. Or the 2nd quarter. Or the 1st quarter. Why does it take you till the 3rd quarter to realize your Hermplan doesn’t work? It didn’t work LAST YEAR in game one against the Bengals, or in the playoffs, or in pre-season, or in almost every game this year! It shouldn’t take 3 quarters to figure out what you are doing and score some freakin points!

EDWARDS: “They’ve (Bengals) struggled early but they’ve had a bye and will get some guys healthy. We have to be ready to play.”

JD: Why aren’t you ready to play? Sounds like a coaching issue.

EDWARDS: “That was a tough loss for us last week (vs the Jags). We have to get to where we can run the ball more consistent. We haven’t done that except for maybe one game and that was San Diego. We have struggled and some of it has been due to the fact that we’ve been behind going in at halftime….”

JD: No, you’re not struggling because you’re behind, you’re behind because you’re struggling.

EDWARDS: “…and some it has been due to the fact that we’re not real crisp running the football. Lot of little different things and we have to get back to running the football so we can be a balanced offense.”

JD: Actually, you’re a balanced offense right now, you can’t run or pass.

EDWARDS: “We’re passing it halfway decent but then when we get into the Gold Zone we’re not capitalizing on it. We’ve been in there, I think, 15 times and have only scored four touchdowns. That’s not very good.”

JD: Here’s half the problem, the Gold Zone. Only the Chiefs have a Gold Zone. For those of you don’t know, the Gold Zone is similar to the Red Zone, except it includes up to the 30 yard line, which is field goal range. Herm seems to love field goal games, but you can’t win kicking field goals, you need to score TOUCHDOWNS. If you make touchdowns the goal, maybe you might get some touchdowns, but you will be in field goal range if you’re short. But when you set the bar at field goals, and you miss, well then that’s it, you get nothing.

EDWARDS: (talking about changing QBs) “There comes a time, all of a sudden, when you keep watching yourself play and you say, ‘you know what? I might need a spark.’ Then you decide. But I’m not thinking that way at all. I’m thinking if he’s available he’s going to play.”

JD: Wait a minute, you decide, but you’re not thinking that way? WTF? I don’t know what amazes me more, that Herm continues to say the stupidest things, or that I’m continually amazed that Herm continues to say the stupidest things.

Q: Are you thinking some of your players are looking at their numbers and not caring about the overall picture. How do you guard against that?

EDWARDS: “If you’re a player worrying about your statistics this might be the wrong team to be on. I’m not a statistic guy. There’s only one stat that’s winning and how we do it? You do it a lot of different ways. The key is to win.”

JD: Herm is not a stats guy? Has Herm EVER said anything he hasn’t contradicted himself on?

Q: What do you mean by define the running game? Do you mean simplify it?

EDWARDS: “Simplify some of them, yes, and maybe not do as many. You can fall into that trap too. All of a sudden you don’t stick with one of them and you have a smorgasbord of runs and you never get a rhythm of what you can do very well. That can hurt your running game when you’re not running very consistently.”

JD: You think? And here I thought inconsistent running HELPS your running game.

Q: Would you say generally speaking that blocking has been the biggest problem?

EDWARDS: “Some of it’s blocking and some of it we’re not very clear or crisp on it at times, not holding the double-teams long enough, not cutting off the backside at times, or sometimes Larry is trying to make a big play. It’s a lot of little different things.”

JD: Ok, so some of it is blocking, some of it is not very clear blocking, double-team blocking, backside blocking, and Larry. Yep, it’s definitely a lot of different things.