To listen to me whine?
About nothing, and everything,
All at once?
I am one of those?
Melodramatic fools.
Neurotic to the bone,
No doubt about it!
Sometimes I give myself the creeps.
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me.
It all keeps adding up;
I think I'm cracking up.
Am I just paranoid,
Or am I just stoned? ..."
-- "Basket Case" by Green Day. *
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(*: riddle me this, you IT experts: "company I work for" has blocked Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Yahoo email, Gmail, uuh, email, and other assorted sites and time-spenders. Yet YouTube! is unfiltered, and this site is wide open for posting. (gary busey in "drop zone" voice) God bless America!)
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Happy Victory Monday, Arrowhead Nation! I know a recap of the festivities of yesterday is due to you, and I plan to get to it at some point later on this overcast, dreary Monday here in Midtown KC.
(Damned right I showed up for work today intending to do nothing job-related.)
Anyways, the first post of the day? / week? / (definitely not) month, is a query asked to me at halftime yesterday:
"I need a breakout by year on how long it took chefs QBs to get to 13 TD passes each season".
You text?
You receive.
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For the record, I pulled all stats from Pro Football Reference, which is a great site if you're a stats geek (and cheap -- it's all free!), like me.
And also for the record?
This chart is brutal folks. It is f*cking brutal to look at.
But -- and wait, this isn't a good thing either -- it does explain a lot, about the last thirty years, of Kansas City Chiefs football.
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The Chart.
Below, is a list of each Chiefs season over the last thirty years, and how long it took said team to throw a 13th touchdown pass that season:
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First, the five things that in no way, shape or form surprised me:
1. The Chiefs failed to throw for 13 TDs in the entire 2012 season. They threw for 8 total on the season and, if Brady Quinn hadn't turned in the performance of his career on the darkest morning of football Arrowhead has ever hosted, they would not have thrown for a touchdown the entire second half of the 2012 season (plus a week, added in as a "Paul Bunyan hat for the kids" prize, I'm sure).
2. The next fastest Chief to throw for 13 TDs to open the season ... was Trent Green. It took him five games and change into the sixth in 2002. The next three fastest Chiefs to do it? "Sir" Alex Smith last year, Elvis Grbac in 2000 ... and Steve Bono in 1995. Both required six games and change into the seventh to pull the feat off.
3. Priest Holmes probably cost Trent Green at least 40 TDs. It was amazing to go back and read the box scores from 2003, 2004, 2005, and see just how run heavy those Al Saunders / Richard A. Vermeil offenses were. Everyone remember how prolific those five years were at scoring and racking up yardage. I'd forgotten how much of it was on the ground, versus in the air.
4. When you have two quarterbacks you think are capable of playing? You've got no quarterbacks that are actually capable of playing. On seasons when multiple Chiefs quarterbacks had to contribute to reach the 13 TD mark (11/30, approximately a third of the last thirty years), they have made the playoffs only three times: 1993, 1997, and 2006. I also don't think it stuns any Chiefs fan to see the layout from 2007-2012. Only one season did one quarterback man the helm, and that season was the only division championship (and playoff berth) in that stretch (2010).
5. Both Elvis Grbac and Steve Bono were better than most Chiefs fans give them credit for being. As the resident Steve Bono defender to this day, that was good to know.
Second, the four things that in every way, shape, or form did surprise me:
1. The 2012 Chiefs season was even worse than I remember it to be. Seriously, you remove Brady Quinn's career performance against the Panthers on arguably the darkest morning in Chiefs history, and you are literally putting an entire year without a touchdown pass in play.
2. "Martyball" wasn't quite the "ground-n-pound" adventure I remember it to be. I know in high school (and Jesus, am I aging myself), but in high school, the running gag was that the Chiefs offense was "run, run, pass, punt". In hindsight? Not so much.
3. A Chiefs quarterback, on average, throws his 13th touchdown in Week 12. The average with all 30 seasons included is 11.8867 (356 / 30). If you remove the two outliers (2018 and 2012), the average is ... exactly 12 (336 / 28). I figured the average week would be high ... but I was thinking Week Nine, Week Ten. Nope. Week Twelve. Or to put this into perspective, what Patrick Mahomes "Of The Chiefs" has done in three weeks?
Takes damned near every other Chiefs quarterback four times as long to achieve. And only one -- in thirty years! -- has managed to do it in twice the time!
4. Only two quarterbacks started enough to throw 13 TD passes for five years. Trent Green and Alex Smith. That's it. No other quarterback appears more than twice, and even then, only one appears twice (DeBerg). And before you say "well, injuries" -- don't. There is no other Chiefs quarterback to make it to Year Five in thirty years. Only Mr. Green and Mr. Smith. (Mr. Cassel and Mr. Grbac made it four.)
Third, the three undeniable conclusions to draw from this chart:
1. Not drafting a quarterback in the first round for the first twenty nine years in this chart, is incompetence on display. To be fair, I do believe the Chiefs tried to "draft" their long-term solution under center once -- in 2001, when they traded their first round pick to the Rams for Trent Green. And had Trent Green not had the living bejezus knocked out of him in the 2006 opener against the Bengals, who knows, maybe he lasts until 2008, 2009, and we view things differently in regards to the Chiefs quarterback situation.
Still -- twenty nine years, not one first round pick spent on a quarterback. That's just rank, stank incompetence. Which then begs the question ...
2. How in God's name did Carl "I'm One Bad Ass Negotiator" Peterson keep his job for twenty years? The one indefensible pass on a quarterback -- and spare me Chiefs fans, because you know I'm right on this -- the one utterly indefensible pass was to draft Derrick Johnson instead of Aaron Rodgers at 15 in the 2005 NFL Draft. (Note: Carl "Shut The F*ck Up And Sit The F*ck Down" Peterson's draft record deserves it's own examination, because Carl "Who We Talkin' To Here" Peterson was -- and presumably still is -- a HORRIBLE evaluator of college talent. Thankfully for you people, I already did that ten years ago.)
But seriously. Twenty years, and the man never once swung for the fences. (Even worse, by the last five, six years,, his incompetence was so pronounced you wanted him to trade the pick for a one year rental, because at least the rental might be on the roster in two years.)
And again, spare me Chiefs fans with the "well we already had Trent Green" justifications. Our current administration? Has just shown you in three f*cking games why you NEVER stop drafting for the future, no matter how capable and well-handled a position may be in the present.
3. Going back to the overall chart -- no Chiefs fan can be surprised most of us have never seen our team in a Super Bowl.
Where's the stability? Where's the longevity? Where's the commitment to the position, to find "our" guy, put him under center, and sink or swim? If you can find it, you're smarter than me.
Because again, look at that chart. No Chiefs QB has been competent / healthy / young enough, to be the guy who gets us to TD 13 for more than five straight years. That's not how you win in the NFL, and it hasn't been for pushing six decades.
Fourth, the two things Chiefs fans have to be excited about:
1. We ain't never seen anything like this before. Looking at the chart again, here are the three game stretches where a Chiefs QB has thrown for (at least) 10 TDs in that three game stretch. (Stretch highlighted in yellow):
Two. That's it. Mr. Mahomes the last three weeks at Chargers (W) / at Steelers (W) / vs 49ers (W), and Trent Green back in 2002 at Patriots (L/OT) / vs Dolphins (W) / at Jets (W) / at Chargers (L). That's it.
(Note: four games are highlighted because whether you take Weeks 3, 4, and 5, or take Weeks 4, 5, and 6, you arrive at 10 TDs in 3 games.)
Let's take this further, and loosen the rules. Highlighted in blue, using the referred chart for this post, are stretches where a Chiefs QB threw for 9 TDs (or more) in a 3 game stretch:
(Is this where I mention, that adding Elvis Grbac and Tyler Thigpen into the equation, is only making Patrick Mahomes "Of The Chiefs" look even better than he already does?)
Finally, just for sh*ts and giggles, I would have run the same exercise for 8 TDs in a three game stretch, only, (norm macdonald voice) you guessed it -- Frank Stallone!
Actually, you guessed it: no changes.
Simply put, Patrick Mahomes "Of The Chiefs" has delivered the finest three game stretch by a Chiefs quarterback in literally thirty years. And possibly in the nearly sixty years, this franchise has existed.
2. Patrick Mahomes "Of The Chiefs" will make his fifth start on Monday night.
I feel like this cannot be stated enough.
In four starts, he's trumped pushing forty years of abject sh*t under center for the Red and Gold. He's better in his fifth week, than any quarterback we've had in the last four decades in their fifth year! Again, he'll make his fifth start on Monday night!
(fran tarkenton voice) That's incredible!
Fifth, and finally, the (somewhat) Captain Oats in the room, everyone seems to be ignoring:
1. The most brilliant offensive mind in football, is running the show. And he's not leaving anytime soon.
That mind, of course, being "Fat" Andy Reid.
Which is part of why I'm so geeked for Monday. Because the one team in this league that has seen Mr. Mahomes before, is those people. They're the one team that has had personnel line up against Mr. Mahomes, and face off against him before. No other team could -- or can -- say that, at least until Week Sixteen, when the "Super" Chargers get their second crack at him.
If those people don't have a plan to stop him, having already seen him?
Who will have a plan, to stop "Fat" Andy's use of Patrick Mahomes "Of The Chiefs"?
It's why I think this year could really be something special for the Red and Gold. There's no prior database of knowledge for teams to draw from against us. Every other team is living this in real time, for the first time, exactly as we are. As Ms. Chen-Moonves reminds us three times a week on the one show I cannot defend my love for: you can't prepare for the unexpected. You can only adapt to it, react to it.
Right now? No team has even the slightest idea, how to react to what we are all seeing.
For the first time in pushing my entire life, when it comes to having no idea how to react to what we're seeing out of the Chiefs?
That's a really good thing to say ...
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