Getting a little bit of a late start today, but I'm going to rewind the TiVo here and get started on the Houston-Kansas City game.
The Chiefs in my opinion are the likeliest team to repeat the Falcons' or Dolphins' turnaround feat of last year. They've got a ton of good young players from recent drafts, a new, hard-nosed head coach, and a QB in Matt Cassel who's young, but certainly ahead of where Matt Ryan was at this point last year. And a weak division.
I'm not going to apologize for jinxing Kansas City, either, since y'all hate us over here in St. Louis as much as you do.
And what would preseason be without getting to hear from Chiefs color man J.C. Pearson? Will the Rams even rate Pearson for this year's regular-season broadcasts? We're probably going to end up getting jackass Matt Vasgersian and somebody like Jay Glazer every week. Naw, the Rams won't even rate a pair like that. We're probably going to get some combo like the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey announcer and some
Mr. Irrelevant, Ryan Succop, kicking off for KC. I know it was an emotional moment for David Vobora when he transferred his sash and crown to the new kid. Great deep kick, returned 29 yards by Andre Davis to the 25. Matt Schaub to Kevin Walter for 6. They opened with Steve Slaton in the I behind fullback Vontae Leach. 6 more to TE Joel Dreessen for a first down. Slaton's first rush is a sweep right that Derrick Johnson cuts down for -1. Tamba Hali rapidly closes down a big hole on the left side to stop Slaton for no gain. 3rd-11. I hadn't reckoned on the Chiefs' strong defensive play so far. Maurice Leggatt blitzes in untouched to sack Schaub. That was a perfect sequence for the KC defense.
But can they overcome my jinx?
Penalty on the punt return starts Matt Cassel at the 19. Larry Johnson up the middle for 3. Demeco Ryans stacks up a Johnson draw initially, though he bounces off him for 3 more. Cassel throws away from trips formation and hits Terrance Copper with a 10-yard dart. That throw's off by a percent or two and Fred Bennett intercepts it. Johnson sweeps left for 5, then up the middle for 3 more. Chiefs HC Todd Ryan has benched Dwayne Bowe, probably his team's best player, in an apparent motivational technique to get him to play harder. See what I mean about hard-nosed? Hard-drinking lush Dustin Colquitt hits a nice punt for KC that's pinned inside the 5, after Houston hammers Copper over the middle to force a slant pass incomplete on 3rd down.
Slaton bounces outside for 7. Andre Johnson is in the Houston lineup. I thought maybe they were saving him. Speak of the devil, Schaub hits him for 16. Did you know Houston was the #3 offense in the NFL last year? That still blows my mind. End-around to Walter only good for a couple. The skies have suddenly opened in Kansas City as Schaub throws for another first down at the 37. Slaton cuts back for 3 up the middle, but center Chris White's hold moves them back. Slaton draw on 1st-and-21(?) is stuffed by Corey Mays, followed by a quick hitch to TE David Anderson. 3rd-and-10. The Chief LBs are all having good night so far. Chris Brown takes a screen and runs free downfield; Brandon Flowers puts his hat on the ball and jars it loose, but Houston recovers and referee Tony Corrente rules Brown was being horse-collared on the play anyway. K.C. booth hates the call. From the Chief 32, Schaub hits Owen Daniels for 9, then Brown cuts back through a big hole for 12 more. Brown off the right side for 3 more to the 8. He's all the way down to the 2 with another cutback run. The Chiefs suddenly have to rush about 9 new players on the field on 3rd-and-1, but it's Houston calling the timeout. Brown plunges in over left tackle for the TD when we return. Houston offensive line really re-asserting itself after the Chief defense's hot start. Texans have had the ball for nearly 10 minutes already.
Houston 7, Kansas City 0.
The Chiefs cheerleaders are being pimped out to a binoculars company for in-game promos. Offense starts at the 23. Cassel's still in but Johnson's out. Jackie Battle over the left side for 7. DT Deljuan Robinson gets knocked silly by Battle the next play and has to be helped off. That was a painful yard. 3rd and 6. No, 3rd and 11 after Branden Albert jumps. Screen pass gets nothing as Houston was rushing only 3. Colquitt shanks the punt for barely 35 yards on the last play of the first quarter. Somebody see if he can walk the sideline and recite the roster backwards.
End of first quarter: Houston 7, Kansas City 0.
Dan Orlovsky is the new Houston QB. Brown over left tackle for a couple. Ball at the Houston 45. Rashad Butler false starts, 2nd-and-13. Sideline pass for Anderson is high, bad and incomplete. Hali jumps offsides, 3rd-and-8. I don't think the KC announcers know Schaub is out of the game yet. They don't. The play-by-play man credits Schaub for a 6-yard pass to Brown. Not only is the number different, Orlovsky looks noticeably smaller than Schaub. Houston takes a penalty to give Matt Turk room. He bobbles the snap and goes old school, firing a punt OUT OF BOUNDS at the Chief 15. Bah, penalty forces a re-kick just as I was about to celebrate Houston's strategy.
No, Corrente and/or Haley screwed up; the Chiefs take the penalty from the end of the return. Cassel remains in as KC starts at the 20. Cassel nearly has a screen picked off by a d-lineman on first down. Draw to Battle for 8. Cassel has to scramble right and fires a good pass to Sean Ryan up the sideline, but the TE blows the catch to force a punt.
Play-by-play guy announces Orlovsky "now" in for Houston. I have no idea who he hits out to the 38 for 11 yards. The announcers don't care; they're more occupied with the cheerleader pimped out to pimp Chiefs polos. Hey, I like the idea, but I'd be pushing completely different products. Especially Victoria's Secret and booze. Now I'm not paying attention to the game. Incomplete pass and a stuffed Brown run make it 3rd-and-10. Orlovsky hits Andre Davis, but he only ran a 9-yard pattern. Turk will come back out with Houston at their 48. Careful, KC, he's a punt-faking genius. No, straight kick here, fair-caught at the 14.
Battle up the middle for 6. Continuing to rain pretty good at Arrowhead. Battle gets a couple more. Deep drop on 3rd-and-2, and Copper loses a high pass, but A.J. Davis was holding. 1st-10 at the 26. Cassel loses the snap and Houston recovers the game's first turnover at the 24.
Orlovsky's sacked on first down by - Andy Studebaker! AH-OOOGA! Orlovsky finds Dreessen down the right seam the very next play for 21. Ryan Moats down to the 8 without anybody pulling him over. Moats cuts back again but is submarined by Bernard Pollard at the 5. Mays and Johnson break up a pass for Anderson at the goal line to force a FG. Heh, I forgot Houston has a Chris Brown and a Kris Brown. With a K hits the short FG to extend the lead.
Houston 10, Kansas City 0.
Houston's got a nice lead but I wonder how their fans feel about giving up 2 sacks already to a team that had ten all of last year.
Chiefs return to the 24. Brodie Croyle, who has gone from hyped talent to afterthought faster than Taylor Hicks, is the new QB. At least he'll have Bowe to throw to. The possession is a mess, with a holding penalty and a sack sandwiching a downfield completion to Bowe for a three-and-out. Davis returns the punt 5 yards to the 34.
Play-action bootleg to Davis for 21. Moats churns up the middle for 6. Clock stops when Studebaker breaks down. That lets Houston get a play in before the 2:00 warning, and Moats gets a big hole and gets down to the Chief 29. 5 to budding legend James Casey, at least if you ask draftniks and fantasy league fanatics. Brandon Flowers just misses a pick-6 of the sideline pass for Davis. 3rd-5, Flowers breaks up a first-down pass for Davis. Great sequence for him. K.Brown hits from 42.
Houston 13, Kansas City 0.
1:12 till halftime. Another blah return to the 27. I'm going to quit recapping kickoffs unless something interesting happens. Draw to Jamaal Charles gets nothing. They get 8 on a short pass to Quinten Lawrence and call timeout at :39. Chiefs go 4-wide and Croyle hits Mark Bradley for a first down at the 45. Timeout again at :33. Croyle gets flushed left but fires a nice one to Bowe for a diving 14-yard catch. Chiefs run up and spike at the Texans 41 with 17 seconds left. Incomplete over the middle for Rodney Wright. A couple more incompletions get us to 4th-and-10. Croyle hits Wright over the middle for 10, and the Chiefs use apparently their last timeout with :03 to go. Mr. Irrelevant bangs it in from 48 as the half runs out. Heck of a kick in the rain, and a heck of a 2:00 drive by Croyle and co.
Halftime score: Houston 13, Kansas City 3.
More hard rain greets the teams returning from halftime. Wright has difficulty handling the kick, which will result in the Chiefs starting from only their 12. New tailback is Dantrell Savage. He runs twice for 8 yards before Croyle's third down pass doinks off Lawrence, who wasn't looking for it. The Chief broadcast ignores a Houston penalty that turned that last play into a KC first down at the 25. That's a pretty critical item to gloss right over. Savage off right tackle for 7. Croyle fouls that by losing the snap again. 3rd-8, drag route to Lawrence is stopped by a nice tackle by Jacques Reeves. But the Chiefs go for it on 4th-and-short and Croyle sneaks for the first on a quick snap. What a weird drive this has been so far. Screen to Savage for 12. Play-action from the 47, Croyle hits Bradley over the middle for 22. Croyle tries to throw away the next pass but stupidly just dumps it well short of the line of scrimmage and gets flagged for grounding. That knocks the Chiefs all the way back to the 42. Great pass between three Texans to Bowe at the 30, though, and he gets up and runs for 5 more. Screen to Savage doesn't work out, forcing a 4th-and-3, and Haley says to go for it again. Frank Okam makes a big play for Houston and knocks down Croyle's pass to end the drive.
Draw to Moats gets 9 but Houston accepts an offsides penalty instead. Huh. 1st-5. Run for 1 stopped by Hali, whom it appears has been on the field all game. Let's note Houston would have a first down right now had they turned down the penalty. Instead, they're incomplete on 2nd down, and Demorrio Williams knocks down the 3rd-and-4 Orlovsky pass, and Houston is punting.
Pretty stupid of Kubiak if he indeed took a 2nd-and-1 off the board; NFL.com doesn't even care enough about this game to have a play-by-play page up for me to check.
From the Chief 25, Savage runs for 4 and Croyle hits a quick slant to Bowe for 8. Kevin Bentley swallows up Savage for a big loss. Pretty sideline pass to Bowe, though, for 21 gives the Chiefs a first down across midfield. Play-action bomb for Bowe is nowhere close to him. Can you imagine the Patriots using Randy Moss extensively in the second half of the first preseason game? It's surreal seeing Bowe out there so much. Savage fumbles at the end of a 10-yard run, though, to turn it over. Chaun Thompson stripped it out; nice call by the officials. Haley's challenge fails but wasn't a bad idea.
Texans at their 37. Orlovsky hits Darnell Jenkins for 20 on a deep post. Another nice pass by Orlovsky in a crowd to Leggatt at the Chief 30. Moats motors around the left corner for 13 more. Hey, I just saw Jeff Zgonina's name on the Texans roster. Moats gets them down to the 12 on two runs; big play coming up on 3rd-and-6. Orlovsky gets all night but has to settle for a short pass to Moats he throws too short; Moats can't get it. Kris Brown hits the FG from 30. Just like last preseason, the Texans are settling for FGs all the time. They're not a playoff team until they start turning more of those into TDs.
Houston 16, Kansas City 3.
The Kansas City broadcast has advertising everywhere. When a team gets inside the red zone, they turn that part of the field red with a sponsor's logo stuck on it. They have cheerleaders pimping stuff between plays. They superimpose ads on the net when it goes up behind the goal post for kicks. The whole presentation looks like the outfield wall at a minor league baseball stadium.
And I doubt the money-grubbing NFL home office has any interest in curtailing these practices, either.
The rain is making it hard to see the players on TV now. Savage stupidly tries to bring a deep kick out of the end zone and gets dropped at the 15.
End of third quarter: Houston 16, Kansas City 3.
The last quarter ended with Thigpen back at QB, Javarris Williams at tailback. The Chiefs' play is now matching the sloppiness of the weather: stuffed run, false start, short pass broken up. Thigpen barely escapes a sack back at the goal line and finds Taurus (no bull) Johnson on the sideline, but well short of a first down.
We now achieve what John McLaughlin might call "metaphysical" slop with Rex Grossman entering the game for Houston. He chucks up a bomb off a bootleg that falls three yards short of intended receiver Jenkins. Weather ain't helping Rex any here. He fumbles the next snap and plunges into the line for 1. We-surrender handoff to Moats gets to the 29 so they can punt in peace.
REMEMBER WHEN I CALLED TURK THE GENIUS OF THE FAKE PUNT BEFORE? He bobbles a low snap, and with zero rush from the Chiefs, feels free to dart outside to the 35 and get out of bounds with a first down.
Hilariously, Grossman has already been yanked from the game after one awful series. Orlovsky's back in. Houston's just trying to eat clock now. Three runs and a punt.
UNLESS THE GENIUS TURK FAKES IT AGAIN.
Houston appears to have used timeouts before each of the last two punt plays, unable to get the right personnel on the field. VIVA PRESEASON!
Do you think KGB would give me a straight answer if I asked what the girl from their commercials looks like naked?
Chiefs at their 24 after a bad Turk punt. They're now playing a previously-taped interview with Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, who is apparently 15 years old. Thigpen scrambles for a first down out to the 40, then improvises a sideline pass to Wright under heavy pressure, and Wright dances away from some Texans for a 20+ yard catch-and-run. Always a dangerous runner, Thigpen scrambles out of more trouble later for an 18-yard down to the 12, getting a big block from Lawrence, and a late hit out of bounds to move the ball down to the 6.
Amending a note from the Raiders game, it's the whole AFL's 50th anniversary this year, so a bunch of teams are celebrating their 50th season. This includes the Bills and Chiefs, and I assume also the Chargers, Titans/Oilers, Jets, and Patriots. And Broncos. I think that's it.
Williams draws down to the 4, then Houston blows up a smoke route to Lawrence for a yard loss. 3rd-goal, Jeff Webb drops a pass at the goal line, but it's DPI on Matteral Richardson of Houston. First and goal at the 1. Let Thigpen bootleg in. No, Williams tries to back his way in and gets no gain. Corrente mercifully tells the timekeeper to take 50 seconds off the clock. More referees should do that in preseason, whether or not there's an actual timekeeping mistake. Hell, they can start Friday night's Rams game from the middle of the fourth quarter for all I care. Thigpen rolls out, fakes a tuck-and-run that puts the whole Houston defense into a catatonic state and lobs a TD pass to TE Brad Cottam.
Houston 16, Kansas City 10.
Orlovsky hits Glenn Martinez out at the 41. Now would be a nice time to pound the ball again, Kubiak. No, short run followed by a CLOCK-KILLING incomplete pass. Grr. AND THEY THROW on 3rd-and-9, and Orlovsky's throw is way high and kills the clock again. 3:23 left, and the Texans officially deserve to lose this game.
Let's go, Chiefs. Thigpen leads them from the 20. Some start; 2-yard pass to TE Tom Crabtree. Hey, at least somebody named Crabtree's catching passes in the NFL right now. Lawrence can't handle a third down pass, and Kansas City is punting? with 2:15 left.
Houston takes over at their 33 with 2:02 left and a chance to put the game away. Incomplete for Martinez on the sideline as the 2:00 warning arrives at 1:57. The next two plays better be damn runs. Andre Hall sweeps right; timeout, KC at 1:48. 3rd-and-7. Rinse and repeat, to the left, and Houston's punting with 1:42 left. They'll have 90 seconds and no timeouts to drive 75 yards.
Thigpen pass high and incomplete for Lawrence. Scramble up the middle for 9. Handoff to Savage for 13 more. Chiefs at their 46, :42 left. Thigpen gets swamped by Texans and tries to handoff to Savage, who manages to miss a blitz pickup and fumble all on the same play. Thigpen recovers, but it's a big loss. 3rd-mile pass is tipped incomplete downfield. They spiked after the handoff. On 4th and a mile, Thigpen gets flushed again and makes a throw way off balance that Savage flubs to David Pittman for a game-sealing INT.
Final score: Houston 16, Kansas City 10.
MVP: The Texans still need to sell me, so I'm naming Kris with a K Brown the MVP for scoring 10 of their 16 points. It sure looks like they're going to depend on him for a lot of their scoring AGAIN this year.
What did we learn: That should be an active group of LBs down I-70 way. Derrick Johnson, Corey Mays and Tamba Hali all did a lot to like. Succop looks like a starting quality kicker. And the Chiefs have guys buried on their bench who shouldn't be. It's ridiculous to have Dwayne Bowe on the second string. He was a man among boys. And they have too much talent at QB to keep all three. Croyle sure ought to be worth something in a trade. The Texans showed good depth at RB with Brown and Moats. Schaub was on - 7 for 7 - and they need him. They're getting more and more of a physical mentality on the offensive line, but you shouldn't be giving up sacks to Kansas City, either. And their red zone offense is still lukewarm. Also, two universal truths: it's a lot harder to play football in the rain, and Rex Grossman still sucks.
Up next: Lord help me, it's one of the worst teams to watch in preseason, the Tampa Bay Bucs, at Tennessee.
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