Hopefully Watkins is a go. Robinson and Hardman aren't ready to fill those shoes.

Hardman needs to hit the books and Robinson needs to hit the jugs machine.
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They haven't said anything to the effect that he won't. Keep in mind, Tyreek didn't play last year and Hardman burned them big.
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Ravens/Ratbirds/Shitbirds/Crows fan in piece! ��
I was having a look at the forum and wanted to throw my 2 cents in, purely for genuinely well intended chat.

This is easily our Superbowl. Be that a positive or a negative. Mahomes and Reid are living rent free in Harbaughs head. That was proven last year with the ridiculous 4th down and 2pt coaching calls.
I do think we have the advantage in terms of lineup this game though.

Defence
There seems to be a lot of chat about us being unable to generate a pass rush. We hit Watson 13 times last week, the most in his career. We don't have many 1 on 1 great pass rushers, but that's often overemphasized. And not our scheme. We play a 3-4. With Wolfe, Williams and Campbell on the line.
We then often load the LOS with LBs and DBs. Half our sacks have come from "Blitzers" but we often rush four and drop people you wouldn't expect. Judon and Bowser are two of the best coverage SAM LBs in the league. Judon dropped nearly half his snaps last week. Calais had 3 passes defensed and a tip for a pick against the Browns. The pressure scheme is manufactured brilliantly as opposed to singular great talent.
This works excellently against the younger confused. QBs, or the static ones who find it impossible to dissect. However, Mahomes seems the cryptonite to this. And he's agile enough to take a 7 step drop, see who's coming, and arm it over the top.
On the back end Marlon is a top 3 CB in the league, and will probably shadow Hill. Peter's can get some silly picks but gets burned often as a trade off. Losing Tavon in the slot is huge. We have just four healthy corners now. The top two, and Jimmy Smith who's been playing safety this year. Anthony Averett is trash. Every throw at him has been completed this year.
Our safety's are unknown but our biggest strength.
Chuck Clark is a genius. He got the green dot before he'd even started, and Eric Weddle said he was telling him things even he'd missed after all his years. The Ravens just gave him a new contract and binned off Earl Thomas for punching him in training when Chuck called Earl out for getting burned on a play and not being into his tape. Team sided with Chuck and Earls history. DeShon Elliot plays FS. Hes had a huge reputation for years but had a couple of freak injuries. He's a vicious hitter and of pretty good in coverage. Arguably a step up from Early Thomas, but that's not saying much. He didn't care and was shite last year!

Offense
The Ravens offence gets all the plaudits, but I honestly think it trails the defence.
You have to respect what Lamar's doing. He's statistically the best passer of the football by 23 years old ever. He's thrown 1 INT in his last 29 touchdowns. In 9 games. Yes his running makes his passing easier, and I'm not getting into a debate about his long term health, but he's efficient, safe with the football, and scores points.
He can make every throw (despite what Twitter says) and he would be an above average NFL passer if he couldn't run. Mahomes however, is in a different Stratosphere. Lamar can take the offence on a 13 play 9 minute drive and eat up all the clock, and score points. Mahomes can do it in 90seconds. The winner of the game in my opinion, will be who does either of these the most often.
Hollywood brown spent last year with a screw in his foot, and wasn't allowed to take contact or get to full speed just incase. This year he looks a different player, and is a stud. His rookie numbers compared ever so slightly better than those of Hill. However he was a rs 1 pick and inserted straight away as starter.
Mark Andrews is one of the best receiving TEs in the league. But can't block a dot. So if he's in it tells you were passing. So he only plays about 55-65% of snaps.
Our major problem on offence is our line. It's been poor/awful this year.

Stanley is our premier LT, he's come out of the last two games with injuries. Fluker is the back up but is too slow, and we lose all ability to run pistol and alot of the read option with him in.
Bozeman (LG) is fine
Skura (C) he was superb until he blew his knee out last year, has rushed back but looks slow and overmatched.
Phillips (RG) Rookie. College RG, 3rd round pick. Played Tackle in college and going through usual growing pains.
Zeus (RT) Big immobile unit. Looks great but gets beaten by speed too often.

The Ravens line is the teams biggest weakness. Lamar bails them out more often than not by escaping the pocket and making a play, and therefore boosts their stats. But he was under pressure for over half his snaps in week 1.

I think it'll be a close game. Ravens pass rush is better than you seem to give it credit for, we've never just rushed a front four, but always get pressure. Yet the offensive line seems to get a lot more credit than it really deserves.
Lamars Lamar. You seem to be unable to praise him without people thinking you're giving Mahomes shit and vice versa.
I think the game will be won on whether Mahomes can do in 2-3 minutes what Lamar can do in 9. People reference the Titans loss, but Lamar got over 500 yards and had two TDs dropped in the end zone The defense shit the bed that game. He's also never lost in regular season primetime. But he's never beaten Mahomes. I can't call it, but it's gonna be a great game!

(Sorry if noone cares about my long post and purple ramblings!!)
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I still cannot believe that some CP members thought the Chiefs would lose Robinson to a $4-6 million dollar per year deal.

:-)

Those same people always undervalue the Chiefs current offensive linemen and overrate average skill position players.

It's like they don't understand the NFL in 2020.
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Watkins posted on Twitter that he was fine and ready to go next week.

Doing well we all know football is a physical sport and we all are playing pretty fast things happen pretty quickly just happy I came out healthy on the next we will not be denied..! Great team win..! #LIMITLESS14 #SOLAR14

— King me (@sammywatkins) September 21, 2020

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Exactly. And the team hasn't said anything. My guess is that he's fine.
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Not bad first post. I'll be courteous and welcome you to CP graciously.

The part about the BAL defense's pass rush is simple: with Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce teams are required to double both of them somehow. There's no single CB that can cover Hill solo. Usually this means a safety over the top. Then Kelce can't be covered by a single LB, so he also draws a safety or a DB.

That's four guys to cover two. With four up front (can't rush three, Titans proved that), that leaves 3 DB/LBs/S to cover Watkins, DRob, Hardman, and CEH in some combination. Watkins can't be covered by a single DB3/4. Hardman can be slowed for about three seconds in press man, but then he's gone. And I don't think there's a LB on your team that can cover CEH.

About the most effective scheme we've seen is some kind of double (DB/S) on Hill, a coverage LB and a big safety bracketing Kelce, and put your CB1 on Watkins. Basically what the 49ers did in LIV.

But for that to work your down DLs have to get home in under 4 seconds. If they can't, and Pat can just stand there, or worse, run around back there, your secondary will never cover Hill, Kelce and Watkins for 4 seconds and you're doomed.

It'll be interesting to see how the Ravens attack it this time around.

But I think the fact that Ward may not play and Thornhill is still not 100% might make a bigger difference than how your defense tries to slow down Pat. As of this moment, which might change tomorrow, we are short both our starting CBs, our best run defender hasn't played a snap since Feb., our DE2 might not play, and our second best safety is still not confident in his knee. Our defense is littered with back-ups and rookies at the moment.
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Oh good. At least we're going to have a full complement of weapons on the field. And our two best man-beaters. Just made the BAL DC's job that much harder.
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Re: the Ravens pass rush, it's not that people here think they can't generate pressure. Martendale is good at that. It's that the Ravens can't generate pressure the ONE way that has actually caused trouble for the Chiefs with Mahomes under center - by rushing four and dropping seven into a disciplined zone.

If Humphrey follows Hill, that's going to be a battle of attrition/fitness and chess. Hill is used in tons of motion and "travels" a freakish amount of yards each game, and Reid is willing to use him as a decoy if needed.

I disagree with the concept of Jackson making EVERY throw. I've watched both games this year. He throws the ball really well and accurately over the middle. He throws the ball well down the seams and throws good deep balls.

But man... working outside the hashes? I still don't see it. He can hit the flats, but ask him to drop an intermediate throw outside the hashes between zone coverage and he doesn't have the raw arm strength and accuracy to make that throw consistently.

My goal on defense is to put him in situations where he has to work outside the hashes. Much easier said than done. He presents a lot of problems and will be a handful.

Also think it's going to be a great game.

For the Chiefs, having Mike Pennel back at DT this week is a big factor. He gives them a really powerful anchor against the run and completely changed their run D last year.

Jones is going to be lined up over the two weakest links in the Ravens' OL, it sounds like. That will be a key matchup (as will Campbell if he gets 1x1 on Chiefs' RG Austin Wylie, who is not great against power players.
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Stop the Ravens from running all over us is priority #1.

Win the toss and take the ball down and score. Make the Ravens play from behind a couple of scores.

Protect Mahomes- he took too many shots and a cheapshot last week.

Go to Kelce early and often. He was a beast last week.
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Odds are the Chiefs lose a game to someone stupid before they lose a game like this.

And remember, we are in that team's head at this point.
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Yeah I kinda wonder if we aren’t becoming to the Ravens what the Steelers became to us those several years there recently.

If KC wins this one, there will be no doubt.
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I'm honestly not sure how much they'll look to double them. We play alot of Dime and Quarter against 12 personnel, and they are pretty confident with their run defense. Which works. (Averaging under 4 yards per carry in Nickel.)
They'll play 3 safeties, 3 corners, Queen at MLB, 1 DT and 2 OLBs on the line. And blitz any combination of them. I think they'll put Marlon on Hill, Clark/Smith on Kelce and leave Elliot floating deep. But they'll mix coverage on the others and blitz anyone. They'll also throw a large amount of Zero blitzes in there. Even when it seems stupid. Game on the line, you can guarantee there's 8 men coming and it works more often than not.

Our pass rushes will not get home, and you'll year us apart if we rush a vanilla scheme. Our teams just not built to do that. Judon was franchised for his coverage skills as much as his sacks. He's never got more than 10 a year so I wouldn't be too worried about him if I was a chief!

I think Lamar's gonna get his. Like you said your D has been ripped apart.
Outside looking in, Chiefs have got a little bit of a reputation for starting slow, and Mahomes doing Mahomes things and winning it at the death. But the Ravens have broken the hearts of a lot of comebacks, with a 4th Quarter 12-13 minute drive. With 3 straying calibre RBs staying fresh on rotation till the end.
If the Ravens have a two score lead going into the fourth, they can hold the ball and see the game out.
If it's close or the Chiefs have the lead, with all your receivers and quick scoring ability, I don't think Lamar can keep.up with Mahomes in 15 minutes.
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Overall this might be the toughest game the Chiefs play in the regular season, from a schematic standpoint anyway. They're built to run, basically a modified version of the wishbone practically, and we're not built to stop the run.

That said, we stopped the Titans running game, and then the 49ers running game, two different styles, but both just as effective as the Ravens running game. It took an entire half in both games, but no question Spags slowed both of those running games to a crawl in the second half.

But they are going to get yards on the ground, there's no stopping that. The question really is can they stop Hill, Kelce, Watkins and CEH in the passing game? And the foundation of that is getting home with only 4 pass rushing. If they can't generate consistent pressure only sending 4, Pat will carve their secondary up like Thanksgiving turkey.
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I really do think they'll put Humphrey on him, it'll be Jimmy and Peters taking a side of the field each. And Humphrey following Hill. Marlon's been susceptible to getting beat deep before, could see him locking down Hill all day, and getting burned for a key TD with about 8 minutes to go in the 4th!

I take you're point on Jackson outside the Hashes. It's his weakest area. But he's thrown some lovely balls 20-30 yards downfield outside the Hashes in key scenarios. The one to ice the Atlanta game last year stands out. He just doesn't hit it with that power or consistency of Mahomes. But that's why he could never be Mahomes.
Does Jones line up left or right? If Stanley's fit, our left side is fantastic. But Zeus made a very broken Watt look like his 2016 prime last week. Phillips is fine for a rookie, but Jones is arguably the most dominant lineman not in LA in the league.
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