Mloe68

Not sure about this RB, but the QB in the picture just got knocked on his ass big time!

Coach speak will say next man up. But reality is EVERY roster has a handful of players that aren’t remotely replaceable by their backup. The more time these guys miss, the more your team is exposed. The Ravens have lived a charmed life so far with injuries

Until tonight. Rams lose by 39 at home and out of the playoffs as of tonight. . Ouch.

We beat them without Tyreek Hill or Eric Fisher. I ain’t scared!

I hope Brett Veach has learned the hard lesson of Aaron Rodgers has taught us that we need to prioritize a line that can protect our biggest asset and run block enough to close games out. We don't need the 2003 Chiefs oline, but what we have today isn't good enough.

I completely agree that a game plan that revolves around winning the TOP would be horribly flawed. Wasting time doesn't win games. But for the Raiders to be successful against a team like the Chiefs, the TOP advantage is almost an essential bi product of the overall game plan with the type of talent they have. I think maybe I've insinuated that winning TOP should be part of the game plan. If so that is flat wrong.

Grind it out defintely wouldn't be the right term to describe some of our opponents. But I think its the only way a team like the Colts or Raiders can beat us minus turnovers. That's been my point all along. TOP itself doesn't really mean that much to some teams. But others gotta have it or they are likely gonna lose.

You mean I like to discuss my opinion of the strengths and weaknesses of an opponent? Seems like that is exactly what a Chiefs board and pregame thread is all about. Being right is far less important to me than a quality discussion. But could you please elaborate on what I've been wrong about exactly except MAYBE this TOP thing. LOL

Would you be surprised at all if the Chiefs won the game without the TOP advantage? I certainly wouldn't. And yet wouldn't you be surprised if the Raiders did? I certainly would. Its important to them, not nearly as much so to us. That's the point.

Again its all about situation and the style of play of the teams involved. All things being equal the Chiefs can clearly win without the TOP advantage. The Raiders cannot. And I certainly concur with the causation/correlation effect winning a game can have on statistics. And most importantly empty possessions are still empty possessions. So you can't simply try to speed the game up, run clock and expect to win minus points. Red zone efficiency is crucial within this as well.

So we agree that the fewer possessions each game has mitigates are advantage proportionally and makes us more succeptable to getting beaten by one bad mistake? And doesn't keeping Mahomes off the field that exact same thing as saying our opponents want us to have the ball less? Seems like semantics there. If Oakland wants to win this game, do you think there's any way they can do it minus turnovers if they don't win the TOP? Especially considering we've never lost in the Mahomes era with a TOP advantage without a negative turnover ratio. And Oakland is 1-5 this year when they don't have the TOP advantage.

In the Mahomes era we are 8-1 with a TOP advantage, 11-8 when our opponent has the advantage.

Our offense hasn't been nearly as good this year but we still average 2.60 points per drive (by the way we were 3.25 PPD last season). By contrast the Raiders average 2.15 PPD. Wouldn't you agree then that the more possessions each team has in a game, the bigger the advantage the Chiefs have to beat the Raiders? More possession means an increasing advantage for our superior offense. Fewer possessions means the advantage is narrower. This goes beyond the reality we both agree on, which is that all that time on the field wears down a defense. Both the Texans and Colts absolutely destroyed us in TOP and limited us to a ridiculously low number of possessions, especially in the second half. Fresh defense gets a three and out, worn out defense allows a slow grind down the field. It matters SO much in my opinion. Only thing that trumps this are turnovers. Here's an Andy Reid quote after the Texas and Colts games.... “Our time of possession is way out of whack,” coach Andy Reid said. “So, when given opportunities to stay on the field, we’ve got to make sure we do that offensively and get off the field defensively.”

You seem to have a problem with people analyzing game plans and personell for some reason. That's what this board is all about. Where do our opponents have strengths, where can we exploit them, where can they exploit us. If this board is simply about nothing more than complaining about losses and cheering on wins, I would have little interest personally.

And again I think you are oversimplifying this. In my opinion it competely depends on the type of team you have and the type of team you are playing against. To use a basketball analogy a bad game plan would clearly be to go run with a team that's more athletic and deeper that you are. Same principal applies here. The Colts didn't want to get into a shootout here. They grinded out first downs and kept our offense off the field. Minimize possessions for the strength of our team and wear our defense down. I think this is what Grudens game plan will be all about this week. Play to their strength, not ours.

YPC doesn’t mean much when your Pro Bowl RB only gets 12 carries. And if you aren’t an explosive big play offense the only thing that means more than TOP are turnovers in my opinion. IE: If they don’t win the TOP, they aren’t winning minus turnovers by us. Its their strength and their only legit chance to win trying to put game in the hands of their oline, RB and short passing game. TOP means less to the Chiefs because we can score very quickly. At least when the oline is holding up enough to get our guys downfield. We don’t need to focus on that. The Raiders do.

Actually they came out the first two drives and passed the ball on nearly every play which I’m sure caught us off guard. After that we forced 4 straight 3 and out punts. Poor coaching by Gruden. I fully expect a Colts type of game plan. Control clock and keep Mahomes off the field. They saw what happens if they don’t.

Agree. Get them into a situation where running the ball isn’t really feasible and we’ve got em. Let them dictate terms, keep it close and control the clock; it leaves us in a dicey Titans situation. We are clearly better and it’s time for us to start playing like it if. I don’t expect the Raiders to hand the game to us like yesterday, but we are very capable of taking it whether they make mistakes or not.

On offense the Raiders are built like the Colts and Titans. That’s a concern. Defensively they aren’t very good though especially in the secondary. We don’t want bad weather to hamper that clear advantage. Forecast I’m seeing though shows cold but little if any snow. Shouldn’t impact anything.

Makes sense especially with move to Las Vegas next year. And reality is if they win next week they will be a first place team. And League needs to sell that to drive ratings into the late afternoon spotlight game they moved us too.

I think it’s less about us being flat than it is about us making a lot of mistakes that kill or extend drives. It’s been an absolute theme for the 2019 team. Maybe all the injuries have contributed. Either way getting past that is crucial.

Agree completely. If this team doesn’t implode on itself. I think we win big.

Andy owns this division. Owns the week after a bye. Owns the Raiders overall. If we lose, it’ll be because we just aren’t that good this year for whatever reason. We blew the Titans game with mistakes but that’s not a bad team as their 4-1 record with Tannehill shows. Only way we lost that game though was because of big unforced errors. Avoid those against a similarly talented Raiders team and we will win handily.

They can’t play from behind. They try to maul you with good oline and Jacobs. Short passes from Carr. For them to win they need to dictate play. I fully expect a huge effort they didn’t give today. But we should win by double digits unless we simply aren’t that good. No way that defense can handle our WRs. Still it’s a rivalry game and the Raiders will be playing with their season on the line.

Pretty simple now. Chiefs win next week and we’ve all but won the West for the 4th straight year.