February 8, 2021

Sunday Game Review

By Jim Culp

 

I am not a Chiefs fan. In fact, I don’t even watch more than about ten NFL games a year. The whole thing is just cliché to me most of the time. It can also get monotonous when teams just seem to do that same old shit every year. Then they cry and moan because they don’t get into the playoffs.

I am a lifelong Steelers fan, and have been since about 1973. Back in those days (I know, ancient history) the game of professional football was rougher, less refereed, and there was way less technology. We watched games on black and white TV; and it wasn’t on 2, 4, 9, or 13, you weren’t gonna watch it unless you went to a rich kid’s house. Up to now, the Steelers are one of the few that have six Super-bowl wins, and I still like to watch them. However, they are a shadow of what they were twenty years ago.

Fast forward to now; the Chiefs have had a big re-start with new people. A kid like Patrick Mahomes (25 years old) taking a team to a Super-bowl his first year was unheard of, but he and the Chiefs did it in 2020. 

When last night’s game started, we watched for about half a quarter, and I said “they are going to have to play better than this, or they are gonna lose big time.”

Well, I am no Nostradamus, but here we are. The Chiefs lost big (36 – 9), and NFL “experts” had predicted that they would win 25 – 9. It was a crushing defeat, and here’s why according to me.

The Chiefs went into this with big heads. They didn’t have a strategy to contain Brady, and they sure as hell didn’t have the means to control Gronkowski. When the Buccaneers started scoring (as Tom Brady always does) the Chiefs’ defenders started playing “grab the hands” and “trip him up.”

This led to the Chiefs receiving 11 penalties that costed them 120 yards of the game. Some of those were at very critical times. Why am I so adamant about this? Because it’s the same thing the Steelers did when they had a big head and started losing. History doth repeat itself…not every time…but often.

Brady is a veteran football player, and a proven winner. He’s paid $25 million a year because of it. Do you like him? Maybe not…but you damn sure better respect his ability to win games. It’s like being a tanker in the desert and going up against Erwin Rommel. You might hate the bastard, but if you don’t respect his abilities… your tank is going to be a smoking pile of scrap before you can sing Glory Hallelujah.

Till next time,

-Jim

 

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