I'll fully admit that the Kansas City Chiefs are doing better than I thought they would this year. They've already matched the win total I had predicted for them and they haven't played Oakland at all yet. That being said, they face a very difficult opponent this next week in the Seattle Seahawks. Luckily, they face them at Arrowhead. The Arrowhead from 90-2000 was one of the most dreaded venues for away teams. 1994 was the only season KC didn't have a winning home record (4-4). They had 3 three-loss seasons, 2 two-loss seasons, 3 one-loss seasons, and two undefeated seasons at home during that span. Arrowhead enjoyed sellouts for every game from 1989 until 2009. Last season, Arrowhead vied with CenturyLink for the Guinness World Record for loudest outdoor stadium. CenturyLink claimed it, Arrowhead took it the next week, CenturyLink reclaimed it the following week. It has since been reclaimed by Arrowhead this season in the home game against the New England Patriots.
So, there's some back story. Now on with the prediction. (Well, almost).
This past week's Marshawn Lynch-a-thon of the New York Giants actually does the Chiefs a favor. Why? Glad you asked. Darrell Bevell. Bevell is the Offensive Coordinator for the Seahawks. He is reviled by the Sports-Bro-In-Law the Sports Wife, and the Sports-Cousin-In-Law (okay, these titles are starting to get ridiculous). The Seahawks, interestingly enough for being a defending champion, have some of the same issues as the Chiefs. Their offense is run through the running back (Lynch for Seattle, Jamaal Charles for KC); they both have mobile moderate pro bowl quarterbacks; they both have a dearth of real big name receivers; and they have two of the better defenses in the NFL.
One of the key differences, and an advantage to the Chiefs, is Andy Reid (head coach/offensive play-caller; The Fat Man) vs. the aforementioned Bevell. In Seattle's three losses (two teams of which have lost to the Chiefs later on--San Diego and the St. Louis Rams) Bevell has decided to get cute with the offense and see if he could win without Marshawn Lynch. He can't. In the San Diego loss, Lynch had 6 rushes. The Cowboys game, 10 rushes. St. Louis game, better, 18 rushes, but only 53 yards. He was averaging 6 yards per carry, but wound up with 36 yards in the SD game. Why? Darell Bevell.
Reid, yon the other hand, knows that his offense lives and dies on the legs of Jamaal Charles. In yesterday's win at Buffalo, for example, the Bills were keeping Charles bottled up. He had barely any yards in the first half and not from lack of trying. Reid kept pounding. Then he pounded with Knile Davis (who looks to be a GREAT second option as Charles ages and gets banged up). That constant pounding set up play actions, screens, and eventually receiver Dwayne Bowe started heating up. Buffalo started paying attention to Bowe. BAM Charles reels off a 39 yard TD (on 4th and 1, a rushing down). Reid does get cute, but he does so in a fashion that sticks with bread-and-butter, Charles-and-Davis.
Bevell will rush the hell out of Lynch one game, then completely neglect using him the next. In their week 1 dominance of Green Bay, Lynch rushed 110 yards and 2 TDs. Next week? SD debacle. 6 carries, 36 yards, no TDs. Percy freakin Harvin was the lead rusher for the 'Hawks with 45 yards. More on that later. Week 3 against a retooled Denver defense, Lynch had 88 yards rushing and a TD, 40 yards receiving, and another TD. Seattle squeaked out a victory to hand Denver its first loss. They didn't overuse or underuse Lynch. Next week, similar usage against a worse team, Washington. 17 rushes, 72 yards, 5 receptions, 45 yards and a TD. The offense ran through Lynch, Wilson had less than 200 yards passing to receivers other than Lynch. Then comes the Dallas game. 10 rushes. That's it. And it wasn't like they were getting blown out and had to pass. In the few games they've been behind to a point of not rushing, they've still thrown to Marshawn out of the backfield. The Dallas game? 1 reception, 1 yard. Underutilized. Then comes the Harvin trade (more in a minute), the rumors that Wilson isn't "black enough," that Lynch will be let go at season's end (wonder what next year's Seahawks will look like if they lose Lynch and don't retool their receiving corps). Then St. Louis beats them. Lynch has 18 rushes, more than in the Washington game against an arguably equal to Washington opponent (let's just say they're in rebuilding years), but where Lynch was part of the passing game against Washington, he only caught two balls for 18 yards, still not enough involvement in the offensive game plan.
Let's jump over to Kansas City. Reid is famous for getting results out of his players and building a system to highlight their strengths rather than cram players into his system. He went out and got Alex Smith because Reid wanted to run a West Coast offense and Smith is a West Coast Offense QB. But the offense still runs through Charles. In the Chiefs 3 losses, against Tennessee (which was a really surprising loss to a pretty bad team), at Denver and at San Francisco (two good teams where the Chiefs actually had a chance to win in each game), a variety of factors came into play. Charles was injured early against Tennessee. There goes the offensive game plan. Knile Davis, like I said earlier, is a good option for Charles, but that early in the season, it was difficult to plan for a different style of runner. There were also injuries to starting ILB Derrick Johnson and starting DE Mike DeVito, so the defensive game plan suddenly shifted, too.
Playing at Denver against Peyton Manning, who, fun fact, has never lost to the Chiefs (dammit, retire already!), the Chiefs were on the goal line and missed a touchdown pass that would have tied the game and forced overtime. They can compete. They were also driving against San Francisco, but Smith hurried a throw and threw a game ending pick. Other factors, such as a 12 men on the field giving SF a first down, extending their last drive of the game (one that ended in a TD rather than a loooong FG attempt) was probably the killer more than Smith's pick.
The point is, Reid know what kind of personnel he has and what their strengths and weaknesses are. The Chiefs are 6-3 despite not having any WR receiving TDs (all TD receptions have been tight ends, the running backs, and 1 to fullback Anthony Sherman). They've still been winning. Their defense STILL hasn't allowed a rushing touchdown (we're going into week 11!) However, if you have Chiefs WRs on your fantasy team, I feel bad for you, son. They got 99 receptions but a TD ain't one. But that is working, in a way. The receiving game becomes a threat when it needs to. Against Buffalo, as mentioned before, Bowe rattled off reception after reception, including one that probably would have been a TD if he hadn't fumbled and recovered it himself, while the Bills bottled up Charles and Davis. Once Buffalo started clamping down on Bowe, Kelce, and the other receiving threats, Reid came back with the running game.
Bevell doesn't do that. He tries to cram players into his system rather than adapt a system to the personnel. Remember Harvin? Faster than hell and a great deep threat (see how the Jets have used him in the last two weeks?)? The only times he ran deep routes, the receptions were called back (including 3 touchdowns on the same drive!) due to offensive penalties on the line. Most of the rest of the time, he was either used for jet sweeps or short crossing routes. If you have someone who can blow by the covering corner and sometimes the safety, SEND THAT GUY DEEP! Marty Mornhinweg figured this out. Harvin has 174 of his 307 receiving yards with the Jets, and he's only been there 3 weeks! Doing the math, he had 133 yards in his 5 weeks with Seattle. The Jets are still using him to run, which has been a strength of his going back to his Minnesota days. 69 of his 161 rushing yards are for the Jets vs. 92 through 5 weeks with Seattle. Does he have a better quarterback in Michael Vick? I would say no. He has a better system for his talents.
And that is Bevell in a nutshell. I'm going to do this script this week. Whoa! Marshawn is averaging 6.1 yards per carry (Dallas game)?!?! Pass the ball, and not to Lynch (1 reception). Marshawn is pounding the hell out of San Diego?? Run with Harvin and pass. What do you mean it isn't working?? Welp, let's keep to the script. Yeah, I know it's third and goal from the 2. We're still going empty backfield 5 wide! Don't get me wrong, he does this in wins, too. But his game plans in those games are run heavy, which almost always works with Lynch. Other times, when he's tried to get cute and NOT run with Lynch, were against Washington and a struggling Carolina--teams that probably couldn't have stopped the Seahawks anyway. And Carolina still came close.
That's why I'm encouraged this week. Last season, Seattle was vastly superior to Kansas City, even though they never played. I watched every Seattle game (with the Sports Wife and Sports-Bro-In-Law) and every Chiefs game (because they're mine). Kansas City had their dominant defense for the first half the year (against weak opponents) until teams figured out their blitz packages (after the Denver game) but the offense REALLY struggled, surprisingly until the one playoff game where the defense collapsed (concussions all around, but most devastatingly to Brandon Flowers), the offense came alive and rattled off 44 points without Jamaal Charles. Indianapolis had prepared for Charles. They didn't seem to have any idea about Kniles Davis.
Seattle, on the other hand, was dominant throughout the season culminating in their shellacking of Denver in the Super Bowl. This season, they've been exposed. Poor offensive line play, losses to the defense (DT Brandon Mebane just tore his hamstring and will miss the rest of the season) have made the Legion of Boom lack a little of the Boom. And then the Jekyll and Hyde offensive coordinator, Darrell Bevell. Which script will show up in Arrowhead? Well, they utilized the hell out of Lynch against New York last week, which means it's about time for Bevell to get cute. Even Vegas has this as a pick 'em.
Seattle 15 Kansas City 17 in a nail-biter.
