Because Mahomes. :-)
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The Bengals pulled their Oline real tight allowing them to slow down or block two guys at once. There were almost no gaps in Burrows pocket.
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They told you they only respect Chris Jones and no one else with the way they blocked.
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Thankfully we didn't trade for an edge rusher at the dea.........damn it here I go again.
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You can blitz elite QBs. You just have to be able to get there and you have to finish. Neither of those were happening yesterday.
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A horrible call that caused a huge momentum swing and 10-14 point swing changed the game. A questionable call during the same drive on a roughing the passer kept the drive alive a few plays later. The NFL referee issue reared its ugly head in a game changing way.

The team crawled out of it. A dropped TD by MVS and a fumble by kelce up by 4 and driving to ice the game. If those don’t happen it’s a route. If Kelce doesn’t fumble it’s a 7-10 point win most likely.

The Chiefs are a better team. It just baffles me. I guess it’s similar to NE and Miami during the Brady years. NE was the better team but Miami was a thorn in their side.
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Home teams win 56% of the time with Hussey's crew, saw that stat today.
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They tried. If I remember right they were trying to get either Burns or Allen and those teams were unwilling to part with them. It’s not that easy to trade for elite or even high end players at certain positions if the other team is unwilling to make a trade.
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It's never just one thing.

We didn't lose just because of one unit, or one play, or one player brainfart, or one dropped pass, or whatever. It doesn't work like that at the NFL level.

The Chiefs were outplayed and ultimately outscored for several reasons. But I'm just going to talk briefly about one of them.

And I'm just using this example because it's a less complex issue not because it had any more to do with why KC lost than any other reason.

The Chiefs do not have a true WR1.

And CIN has two in Chase and Higgins (Higgins is ranked 10th among WRs in total yards/Chase is currently ranked 21st, but he missed a handful of games and should be ranked in the top-5 as we know).

The Chiefs have ZERO WRs ranked in the top-20. Travis is the only KC receiver ranked in the top-20. JuJu is 24th (I know he missed some time, but I doubt it would've moved him up more than a few places).

Our receivers are new to the system, as well as a rookie trying to get up to speed still, but that's not the whole story. None of our WRs yesterday are ever going to be true WR1s. There's just a talent-level these guys aren't going to reach.

And yesterday that difference in the time it took for any of them to get open, to make the tough catches, to run cleaner routes, make the more nuanced reads, etc., cost KC a certain amount of efficiency.

So, while KC's WRs struggled to get open throughout most of the game, the Bengals' WRs did not much more often. That allowed their offense to play a certain way, their defense to play a more conservative scheme, while ours had to try and manufacture pressure and try to use more deception.

Personally, I thought that the 13 personnel was going to be a lot more effective than it was, and more precisely I thought 13P would make up for the lack of a true WR1 more than it did or has this season. I actually thought that was part of the plan this season.

And so on. This is part of what happens when you're tight against the cap every season. It's why i likened the 2022 Chiefs to the 2019 St. Louis Blues in some respects earlier this season. A team that wasn't the most talented but made the most of every opportunity and played above themselves in the most critical moments, which led to a championship, in spite of the obvious lack of talent in certain areas.

And the Chiefs are not the most talented team in the league, but through a lot of hard work from the players and the coaching staff, they've made themselves into a top scoring, fairly complete playoff-bound team with a legitimate shot at winning the SB.

But the margins within the AFC have shrunk considerably in the last couple years with the rise of Josh Allen and BUF, and now Joe Burrow and CIN as well. And both of those teams have elite WRs as well as elite QBs to lean on.

And there's only so much that scheming and game-planning can account for in the NFL. And to be fair, Andy and his staff are so good at it that they win about 80% of the games they play, year in and year out. But when you run into the very best teams, that have both great coaching and great players, sometimes no amount of great scheming is going to overcome that extra level or two of just pure ability. That's just the way it is.

To win with this team, they're going to have to work harder than any other team in the league, be smarter than any other, and ultimately, they're going to have to play above their limitations if they want to win it all.

And the thing is, we've seen them do it before this season. They've beaten how many top-5 defenses? Beat some of the best defensive talent in the league over and over? They didn't get it done yesterday, but they have done it, and they can do it again in the playoffs.

There's just a lot less room for error these days.
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I get where you are going except that any WR can get open in time. Also we had a legit #1 WR last year in Hill and still scored six points combined in the second half of those games. The biggest problem is that KC still struggles against that defense. Until they figure it out they will continue to have issues.
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They didn't struggle yesterday. 6.5 yards per play, exactly the same as CIN.

The difference came down to Kelce fumbling.

This offense, at Arrowhead, destroys CIN in a rematch with Hardman or Toney and Thuney on the field.

I daresay the Chiefs have solved that defensive scheme.
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I hope you are right. They scored 24 points in the game and outside 14 in the third quarter it looked like KC struggled. I would like to believe that had Kelce not fumbled KC goes down and scores a TD. Not completely sure though.
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What was missing from last year's WR room that we had in years past?

At this point I kind of hate harping on it, but Pat and Andy really miss Sammy. And last year it showed multiple times, but most glaringly in the AFCCG. That high shell D almost makes Hill a non-factor, and then it's double Travis, and doing everything and anything to slow his release at the snap. Last year none of our other receivers could get open on time, be in the right spot, and catch the ball, which is why we traded Hill for a set of much more talented WR3s and 4s.

But we're still missing that Sammy (or Hill if you prefer) type guy. Skyy could develop into something like that, or Toney would be an even better solution to that problem. Or maybe it's somebody else. But it's not JuJu, MVS or Justin. They're decent, and JJSS probably has a permanent place on the team going forward, but about all you can say about Justin and MVS is that they are more talented than what we had last year in Pringle, DRob, etc.

Need a guy to take the top off the D (I like Hardman in this role) and another Sammy type of WR that can run all the short/intermediate stuff opposite Kelce. i like Toney there, but think Sky could fill in there if he develops as he should.

Whatever. We're missing a key piece. Someone's got to grow into that role before the playoffs.
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They didn't struggle. They just had a few bone headed plays in the most inopportune time.
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