🎙️ ‘It’s Raider Week w/ Tyquan Thornton’ – Chiefs vs. Raiders Preview | Defending The Kingdom

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Matt, do you remember the first moment you disliked the Raiders? I won’t use the word hate. Hate seems a little intense. I’ll just put dislike. So, actually, yeah.

00:00:15
Speaker 2: I remember I was with my dad at the Lake of the Ozarks. We were watching the 2003 Chiefs, I think. And it was at the old Oakland Coliseum. And I remember the fans before the game had like this… 30-foot long, gigantic plush doll that looked like a Chiefs player. And in unison, all the fans were picking it up and beating it on the side of the wall at the same time, like they were rowing a giant boat, just beating it. And they were showing people on Darth Vader masks and spiky shoulders. And as a young 10-year-old, I decided that I don’t like these people. And it’s continued until today.

00:00:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, mine was early in my childhood, watching Ben Davidson spear Len Dawson in the back.

00:01:01
Speaker 3: Oh man. Trying to like decapitate him.

00:01:04
Speaker 1: And then the Chiefs end up getting the penalty because Otis Taylor comes in to protect his quarterback. And I thought, I don’t like this team and I’ll never like this team. And I dislike this team and maybe I shouldn’t say hate this team, but it’s okay. Anyway.

00:01:19
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:01:19
Speaker 2: So way back in our childhood that it started. Have you ever heard Sean Barber’s story about his first like Raiders experience where he was a, out on the field during warmups at the Coliseum. And this little kid runs up to him. Like obviously there’s some distance, the kids like on the other side of the stands, but they’re close enough where they can hear each other. And Sean does a great job of telling this. The kid’s like, hey, barber, barber. And Sean looks up and says, how are you doing young man? Just, you know, Sean being the nicest guy ever. And the kid goes, hey, bleep you. This kid’s like eight years old, and Sean’s like, what? It’s just classic Raiders. And even though they’re in Vegas now, it’s not quite the same as it was in Oakland, but it still has kind of the same feel.

00:01:59
Speaker 1: But the Raiders are good. And this Defending the Kingdom episode will deal with the Raiders, but it’s the 3-0 Chiefs against the 3-0 Raiders. And we’ll recall when this game has meant something in the past, even as soon as 2021 or 2016. But here we are in 2026, and the two teams that are undefeated in the AFC West will meet in this game. But first, let’s just go back in the Dolphins game, the 24-10 victory.

00:02:28
Speaker 3: And Matt, to me, it is actually a good sign overall.

00:02:32
Speaker 1: And you’ve been around the league long enough to know if you can somehow win a game, especially on the road, regardless of the opponent, when you don’t do everything right. In fact, most of the stuff you maybe didn’t do right, and you still get a win and win by double digits. That’s something to take note of. The NFL isn’t college football. Even though the Dolphins are barreling toward probably the top pick in the draft this year, at least being top five, they’re still a professional football team.

00:03:00
Speaker 2: They’re all paid. They have good players, good young players on that team. Jacob Rodriguez is going to be a really good player in this league for a while. Ollie Gordon had a good game at running back for them. They have some pieces there that they’re building something. You can tell their culture is pretty good, even though they’re not winning on the scoreboard. Uh, it’s not like college football where if you’re a big program, you schedule a small school and you just went by 50, every game in the NFL is hard. And I’ll talk about it more later in the still thinking about it portion, but, uh, you cherish every game that you. I think we learned that the hard way last year, winning in the NFL is hard and to go and play a team that has nothing to lose as young and hungry. And, uh, you know, kept in the game for a while there to win that game. By 14 points on the road is still a blessing, so I’ll take it. Yeah, Jeff Halfley’s going to do a good job there. Yeah, you can tell.

00:03:52
Speaker 1: I think he’s going to be good for the league, and that franchise has kind of been goofed up for a while. They haven’t won a playoff game for 26 years. But I think that you saw it in their structure. They made the one big mistake on the double motion penalty, illegal shift penalty that took a touchdown off the board. But other than that, they didn’t make mistakes. And the other thing, and I asked Patrick Mahomes about this, on the cheese kingdom show Monday night, because I’m watching the video in zone video. He’s coming up to under center and straight across from his Jordan Brooks from Texas tech. And over here is Jacob Rodriguez from Texas tech. And Jordan Brooks comes on an agate blitz trying to destroy Patrick. And I’m like, what’s wrong here with the Texas tech brotherhood?

00:04:32
Speaker 3: Come on.

00:04:33
Speaker 1: There’s some kind of rules of engagement. Like you’re not going to kill our quarterbacks, but, uh, those young players, uh, Miami’s going to be okay. Yeah. They’ll be fine. Um, But some other things in the game that we saw. First of all, the two first drives. We saw, I think, the effect too. Denver played the Chiefs like they played the Chiefs the last two years. All right, K-9 goes for a zillion yards. Both scoring, can’t let K-9 go for a zillion yards. We saw the Dolphins kind of do a hybrid of that. Like they were spying K-9. They were not going to let it go crazy. But it opened up the second level of the field. And the Chiefs attacked it. And a four-play 67-yard drive to get out of 13 personnel, this is what I found fascinating. Jake Brenningstuhl on the field. So three tight ends and a running back and you get a 48-yard pass play. That’s a way bigger thing than people realize because they’re going, wait a minute, you can still get a chunk passing play out of 13 personnel.

00:05:29
Speaker 2: Well, that play does not open up last year.

00:05:31
Speaker 5: No.

00:05:32
Speaker 2: It opens up because Kenneth Walker is in the backfield and we talk about it every week. He has just changed everything, creates so many problems with how defenses now have to defend us. It’s funny, we talked about it afterward. I guess the Dolphins relatively contained him. He had 18 carries for 70 yards still. Last year, that would have been great. So for him to be quote unquote contained and have 70 rushing yards is a testament to how good he is. I saw this crazy stat earlier in the week that he had 12 more broken tackles in that game against the Dolphins. He now has at least 12 broken tackles in all three games this year. You know how many games like that any other player around the league has? The rest of the NFL has zero combined. So Ken Walker has three games this year with 12 or more broken tackles. Nobody else has any. So it’s so difficult to bring him down. You have to load the box against him. And when you do that, you become extremely susceptible to play action. And if I can go back in time and talk to 2025 us and say, hey, you’re going to have this like incredible play action passing game in 2026, we would have been like, hey, that’s the number one priority. It’s been so cool to watch it work. And to see the Chiefs win in a different way was exciting because Walker didn’t have 180 yards of scrimmage. He didn’t need to because Mahomes and the play-action passing game was working like it did. Matt, what excites you about the Chiefs defense this year? I think it’s the blend of veteran players, guys like Chris Jones, George Karloftis, with our rookies that we’re really excited about. Yeah, kind of a new school, old school approach. And we need defense.

00:07:07
Speaker 1: And in the kingdom, we know that championship success starts with defense. Think of 2023, right? Our defense carried us to a Super Bowl title or helped us carry this to that.

00:07:16
Speaker 2: Anyway, 10x.

00:07:16
Speaker 1: Ai is the AI security operations provider protecting organizations from cybersecurity attacks at machine speed, but with human analysts on the loop 24-7. Experience cybersecurity that’s AI native and human led, united against every threat. Visit 10x. ai for details. Sounds to me like what you want.

00:07:38
Speaker 3: From the Chiefs defense.

00:07:39
Speaker 2: I love that idea. Let’s roll.

00:07:41
Speaker 1: The other thing I saw in this game, and you and I look at little things that can lead to big things, was the fact that there were six passes defensed in this game.

00:07:50
Speaker 2: Six.

00:07:51
Speaker 3: Three by defensive linemen.

00:07:53
Speaker 1: Meaning in that PD category are the deflections we talk about all the time. The ball is coming out so fast now against the Chiefs. Three straight weeks for the most part. That ball’s coming out in lasers.

00:08:03
Speaker 3: Fashion.

00:08:05
Speaker 1: One way, we talk about affecting the physics of the throw, which happened on a fourth down play. It wasn’t touched, but the physics of the throw from Malik Willis was affected. Two, we saw Chris Jones get his big bear paws up in, like he did in Super Bowl 54, intercepted by his buddy George Karloftis. And we saw Karloftis get one, who’s got more passes defense than any defensive end in the league since 2022 when he entered the league, one more than Max Crosby, which gives you an indication of the importance of that and what George can do. But to see the throws, some people talk about zero sacks, zero sacks. I got it, got it. Two weeks in a row, zero sacks, not good. But if you don’t get there, affect the throw. And to defend three fourth downs and to get them all, but two of those three, actually three of the three were off pass as defense because one was by Mansoor Delane. But three DBs, three defensive linemen did it. That’s something bigger than that they did not do against the Colts.

00:09:04
Speaker 2: And we’ve talked about it before. That was like a major emphasis area all offseason. In 2022, we led the NFL in batted passes at the line of scrimmage. We won the Super Bowl. In 2023, we led the NFL in batted practices at the line of scrimmage. We won the Super Bowl. We have fallen down in that category the last couple of years. It was an emphasis throughout training camp, throughout the preseason, and we saw it in that game against Miami. Now, there’s a handful of areas we have to get better defensively. We all know that. The pass rush is one of them. No sacks in the last two weeks. Got to get more pressure on the quarterback. Got to be better on third down. We allowed Miami to convert like a 50% clip, I think. And the big plays. Miami had way too many big plays in that game. We knew all those things, but there are some positives. One of them being the fourth down stops. Huge plays, particularly that first one in the fourth quarter. Monster Delane being out there for all but one defensive snap in the game and playing well allowed 24 yards receiving. really solid, had that great play on Ollie Gordon behind the line of scrimmage, like shot out of a cannon and had one of those fourth down stops. So that was exciting. Uh, and then, yeah, the batter passes. We need to see more of that, particularly against this Raiders team, because I suspect Kirk’s going to get rid of the football pretty quick.

00:10:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:10:14
Speaker 3: It’s coming out fast.

00:10:15
Speaker 1: We’ll talk about the, uh, Raiders coming up, but, uh, What are some things you, I mean, what’s one thing you can’t get out of your mind?

00:10:23
Speaker 2: Well, just going back to what we were talking about earlier, it’s hard to win in the NFL. And for the Chiefs, on a game like that, where it’s really hot and we let the Dolphins hang around, I mean, that was the fear going into it. That’s what we talked about. Like, hey, you can’t let them have hope in this game because they have nothing to lose. Well, we let them have hope. It was going into halftime.

00:10:46
Speaker 3: It was funny.

00:10:47
Speaker 2: The Dolphins were losing. And they were walking off the field like they were up by 50, pumping up the crowd. The crowd was super into it because this is a big deal for them and their development as a team. So for the Chiefs to be facing that, a young team with nothing to lose that is playing with confidence all of a sudden and to still win fairly comfortably in the end, I think is a good indication about the character of this year’s team. We noticed it when the guys ran out of the tunnel after halftime. They looked ticked off like this is below our standard. We are not playing the football we need to be playing. And for the guys to come together like that and to know that it was below their standard, and instead of pointing fingers and complaining or hanging their heads, they said, we have to play better as a team. That bodes well, I think, for the rest of the season when we’re in inevitably situations like that. So I’m thinking a lot about the culture of this team. And while it wasn’t a pretty win on Sunday, I think we still learned a lot about the guys that we have here.

00:11:42
Speaker 1: So you’re still thinking about it? I’m still thinking about it, yeah. Here’s what I’m still thinking about. When we’re getting ready to do Rewind, I looked over to my left about 20 yards away, saw Tammy Reed standing there. But it was almost the exact spot at Super Bowl 54 where I finally come down from the booth. I want to hug everybody and celebrate. And Coach Reed came in on a golf cart. They brought him in that area. And it was almost at that spot. And I remember hugging him, like even knocking his glasses a little bit. But I couldn’t get that out of my mind.

00:12:20
Speaker 3: So even after.

00:12:21
Speaker 1: From 0202 to 0202, that game, I was still thinking about that moment. That’ll be with me as long as the Lord gives me oxygen on the earth. So I’m still thinking about it and won’t have that out of my mind. And that was after the game had nothing to do with the game, but it had everything to do with that venue. Yeah.

00:12:39
Speaker 2: We’ll talk about it with Ari as well. But being back there was so cool. Being at the same hotel, Walking by the places that, you know, after the game, we were hugging and celebrating. It just was so special. And being in the stadium, walking around it, a lot of memories came flooding back. What’s interesting is we’re now going to Allegiant, which we go to Allegiant every year, but still, the incredible memories there. I will never forget McColl catching that pass and Pat running arms out wide. I mean, it feels like a dream almost. And when we’re down on the field for field pass, this weekend. That is what I will be thinking about because, man, if you told me years ago, not only are the Chiefs going to win three Super Bowls in five years, hopefully more to come as well, they’re going to win back-to-back Super Bowls. And that second one that makes it back-to-back, first team in 19 years to do it, they’re going to do it in walk-off fashion in overtime in the Raiders stadium. And John Elway is going to present the trophy to Coach Reed? Oh, man. Are you kidding me? So I’ll be thinking about that this weekend.

00:13:43
Speaker 3: Would the NFL allow.

00:13:46
Speaker 1: The charger home game, which is after the bi-week, which is after the Raiders game.

00:13:50
Speaker 3: Yep. We could push it back to.

00:13:53
Speaker 1: January, early January when they, away charger game is scheduled.

00:13:58
Speaker 3: Uh-huh.

00:13:59
Speaker 1: Take the away charger game. And since they wanted to move their home game to Brazil last year, we move it to Glendale, Arizona. Let’s go to State Farm. Yeah.

00:14:05
Speaker 3: You like this idea?

00:14:06
Speaker 2: I’m in.

00:14:06
Speaker 3: I’m so in.

00:14:07
Speaker 1: That way it would be three straight venues where we won Super Bowls. So, I don’t know, just me. It’s a suggestion.

00:14:14
Speaker 3: Hey, NFL.

00:14:15
Speaker 1: Um, I’ll text you later today. One guy we don’t have to text about because everybody knows what he’s doing has been really the emergence and the growth of Tyquan Thornton at wide receiver. We had a chance to catch up with the Chiefs wide receiver who’s been good now all three weeks in a row. The deuce is definitely loose in the Chiefs kingdom. Tyquan Thornton, number two. How excited are you about the start of this season, both personally and as a team?

00:14:44
Speaker 6: Um, personally, I am very excited, um, how we started off the season.

00:14:48
Speaker 5: Um, definitely not easy winning in this league, but starting off the season three, you know, giving ourselves an opportunity to continue to win and going out there and playing clean football and just.

00:14:57
Speaker 6: Finding a way to win. You know, I’m very excited about that.

00:15:00
Speaker 2: I know that win in Miami was a big one for you. You grew up in South Florida. You spent a lot of time at Hard Rock Stadium. You had never played there before. What was it like playing at Hard Rock and getting the win? It was hot. It was hot.

00:15:10
Speaker 5: But, I mean, it was an early game. But definitely was excited. Had a lot of family in the stands and outside the stands, too. There was tailgating. But, I mean, I was so, like, I felt a lot of love, you know, from my friends and family and the support that they gave me. I mean, didn’t go unnoticed, but was excited about that for sure.

00:15:32
Speaker 3: We made the catch over on the boundary.

00:15:33
Speaker 6: I tried to point at him out there.

00:15:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was cool. That’s awesome.

00:15:37
Speaker 2: How expensive was it though? How many tickets did you have to buy? 20 tickets. Oh, man.

00:15:44
Speaker 6: 20 tickets. Lower level too. I wanted them to be like not too high, you know what I’m saying? I wanted them to see me for sure.

00:15:49
Speaker 1: It’s been exciting too to see the next level for you this year. We saw the deep balls in week one, but I said one of my favorite plays is your crosser with Sauce Gardner playing the trail technique and you made a tough catch in a tough situation. What about becoming Complete player, not just the double move third level guy, but hey, I’ll run crossers and rubs all day.

00:16:10
Speaker 3: I’ll catch it and move the chains.

00:16:12
Speaker 5: Just something that we’re trying to do here, you know, just, you know, building a bigger, you know, route tree, you know, going out there and running the crossers or the end cuts and the daggers and stuff like that.

00:16:24
Speaker 6: So just not.

00:16:25
Speaker 5: Being one dimensional, just being able to, you know, whatever they need me to do, go out there and just make them plays and catch the ball for Pat.

00:16:32
Speaker 2: I do want to talk about the deep balls, though, because it’s one thing to be fast, but your ability to track the ball and to go up there and get it and to come down with it. I mean, during your time here, you’ve made so many tough catches deep down the field when there’s a defender right there. What goes into that and how much pride do you take in that?

00:16:46
Speaker 5: I take a lot of pride in catching the deep ball. I mean, we practice throughout the whole week with it. I mean, when the offense is out on the field, then when the defense go out, the receivers we get with Joe on the sideline and we get tennis balls and do a lot of distraction drills. So we’re always working on, you know, the tough catches, you know, I mean, the over the shoulder, they may look easy, but those are really like difficult catches. So just trying to make those as easy as possible, just staying locked in, staying focused to like seeing it all the way through the tuck, you know? So that’s what they always say, catch the ball with your eyes. So just making sure like you keep your eyes going, catching tennis balls, you know, catching jugs after practice, doing all the little things.

00:17:24
Speaker 2: I’m still thinking about that one against New York last year, when you put your arm up in the air, that was so awesome.

00:17:29
Speaker 3: For sure.

00:17:30
Speaker 1: But that brings up a point, the Colts game, you’re seeing either cover one or cover zero. And I’ve watched it from the end zone. You’re in the middle of the field. Pat will throw it to the hash. And now all of a sudden, so when you see cover zero, cover one, and you know Pat’s going to throw it 25 yards from you, what about that?

00:17:51
Speaker 3: And figuring out how to make that play.

00:17:54
Speaker 5: Um that was really like a routine play like we were in that place so much you know um in the spring and training camp and repping that practice during the week so we kind of knew like the different looks we was going to get you know so like depending on the look it changed the angle of my route but once I stuck and I seen the trajectory of the ball come out of Pat’s hand I knew like it was like how fast I was running was right on time and how he threw the ball was right on time. It was just perfect timing. So I kind of knew how I was going to track it the whole time, knowing that I was going to catch it in this type of way. And a defender was trying to chase me down the middle of the field, but he was a linebacker, so he couldn’t really keep up.

00:18:33
Speaker 6: But that was a great ball by Pat.

00:18:34
Speaker 5: And I mean, I tracked it pretty well, but that was a great ball for sure.

00:18:38
Speaker 2: The one in overtime seemed a lot like Jet Chip Wasp. I don’t know if the terminology changed, but it reminded me of it. Your journey here in Kansas City, When you arrived here a couple years ago, mid-season in the practice squad, nothing was given. You had to earn everything. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey and how you earned where you are now with us?

00:18:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, when I got here, I was on practice squad, but definitely was getting some reps with Pat Dem on the look team, but just putting my head down, working consistently, making the catches, you know, trying to come in here and, you know, create a new identity for myself and show the world, like, who was Tyquan Thornton as a wide receiver and just continue to go out there and make plays. I mean, Coach Reed gave me some opportunities when I first got here in practice. And I feel like I took advantage of them opportunities with Pat. Man, last year, just making a team and going out there and having the opportunity to go out there and compete early on in the season. I mean, I feel like I just took advantage of every opportunity. I feel like throughout my career, it kind of taught me how to take advantage of those opportunities because you may get one target a game, you know, you may get two targets or you may get no targets, you know, so just whenever you do get them opportunities, just make the best of them.

00:19:49
Speaker 2: You’ve made them count here that’s for sure.

00:19:52
Speaker 1: One thing that I’ve always been impressed about you is getting the big picture if I walked the former wide receivers in this room Chris Burford Otis Taylor down through the years they would talk to you about Raiders week what about this week’s game against the Raiders the It’s a legit defense you’re going to go against.

00:20:12
Speaker 3: What about this week?

00:20:13
Speaker 6: This week is huge right here.

00:20:15
Speaker 5: Raiders is a good defense, good team. They’re playing well right now, 3-0. We 3-0 as well. So Raiders week, definitely a big week. Not taking this game for granted. Definitely excited, pumped up to go out there in Vegas and get another chance to go out there and win the game.

00:20:31
Speaker 6: So we definitely pumped up, man.

00:20:32
Speaker 5: We know we didn’t perform our best this past week, but that’s behind us now. So we definitely excited to play against the Raiders for sure.

00:20:39
Speaker 2: Somebody else you’re bringing to Vegas is Ken Walker. He’s made a big difference in the backfield, really opened up the play-action passing game. How nice is it when you have linebackers creeping up, safeties creeping up, and you can run right by him with this play-action passing game?

00:20:51
Speaker 6: Yeah, for sure.

00:20:52
Speaker 5: I mean, it helps a lot having a back like Ken Walker in the backfield because like you just said, when they see Pat stick the ball out to hand it off, them linebacks got to either step up, you know, or if they don’t and he hand it off, you know, then he’s going to gas you. But definitely going to help the play action pass a lot. And we’re just going to keep on dialing it up, you know, running the ball well, offensive line blocking well. Then when we call the play actions, wideouts going out there making a play.

00:21:17
Speaker 1: Final question. We had Roshian who said, no block, no rock. What about you blocking in this offense when you don’t touch the ball?

00:21:25
Speaker 3: Oh, man.

00:21:26
Speaker 6: I mean, you want to block.

00:21:27
Speaker 5: You want to go out there and go push crack on the safety and make that block because Kenneth, he’s coming, you know, and he’s going to make a crazy cut or a juke move and you’re going to see him, man. I mean, it feels, I feel like it feels low-key better when you spring like a running back on a block, you know, making that block.

00:21:45
Speaker 6: Nah, I like that. You know what I’m saying?

00:21:46
Speaker 5: Being able to be that guy to make that block to have can the Walker go score a 60-yard touchdown?

00:21:50
Speaker 6: That’s light. That brings a lot of joy to my heart, for sure.

00:21:53
Speaker 1: Also an indication of your unselfishness. Raiders week, but we’re taking Taekwon to Vegas. Just way excited for him. And as I mentioned, as we talked about, just seeing him catch the tough passes with tough coverage, the tight window catch, not just the double move to get the 50-yarder downfield to me, really excites me about Taekwon’s future.

00:22:16
Speaker 2: What a story he’s been. I mean… I remember when he first got here a couple of years ago, mid-season, was on the practice squad. And you know who he is because of all of our draft prep. But with a player like that, you don’t know where their career is going to go. You’ve seen it so many times where you have a high draft pick, they end up on a new team, but it just never really materializes. The way he kind of reinvented himself and checked his ego out the door and basically started over is really impressive. And he’s reaping the rewards here. I mean, He is a critical part of our offense, not just another guy out there. He’s a main guy. And it’s been so cool to see how he’s become a true complete receiver for us. And I’ve talked about this for a couple of years now. It seems like over the last two years, whenever we need a big play, Mahomes trusts him and just throws it up there. Last year, there were so many of them and it gets overshadowed because we lost some of those games. But against Philadelphia, Denver, in Denver, New York, Jacksonville, I’m sure there’s more that I’m forgetting about. Third and 10 Pass rush bearing down on Mahomes. He throws it up and Taekwon comes down with it. And we saw it again against the Colts and had that big play against the Dolphins as well. So I’m super excited for Taekwon. And it’s one thing to see the player that he is on the field, but when we talk to him and you can see his mindset and his attitude, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s finding the success that he’s found here in Kansas City.

00:23:35
Speaker 1: We talk about this publicly and then in private conversations about players who have the mental and emotional maturity.

00:23:44
Speaker 3: As well as the physical ability. You got to have that.

00:23:47
Speaker 1: But what we’re seeing from Taekwon as well is those traits permeate through the rest of the locker room and in the hallways. And that’s as important as the stats. And sometimes those go hand in hand. Well, we’re pretty reserved, Matt and me, like we’re just pretty chill. We don’t really, you know, get too intense until Ari Wolf shows up. And when the Wolf of the West comes in, Like we lose our mind.

00:24:16
Speaker 4: Hello to Chiefs Kingdom. Great to see everybody. Great to be with Mitch and Matt. And let’s get right into the AFC West. Another fascinating week in week three. Let’s start with this coming opponent for this coming week. We start with the Las Vegas Raiders who go to New Orleans, who I think is still going to win the NFC South. A 35-27 win. Kirk Cousins for the third straight game. Three touchdown passes. Brock Bowers is back. He had 10 catches over 100 yards and a touchdown. Mitch, the question is, are the Raiders for real?

00:24:49
Speaker 1: Yes, for real. Put it in italicized font. Make it big font. 64 point if you want.

00:24:56
Speaker 3: They’re for real.

00:24:56
Speaker 1: And if you start doing the study on them, you see they’re for real.

00:25:00
Speaker 3: And it’s happened.

00:25:02
Speaker 1: There’s a little bit of a Seahawkian element here with Clint Kubiak. But in the offseason, it was kind of sneaky. They pick up Woody Paye. They get Quay Walker, Terran Johnson, guys that we’ve all played in the past. I talked with Pat Mahomes on it last night on the Chiefs Kingdom show. They picked up some guys here. N’Kobe Dean, did I mention him? And then Max Crosby.

00:25:26
Speaker 4: He’s legit.

00:25:28
Speaker 2: These guys are all.

00:25:29
Speaker 3: Legit, and they’re playing legit.

00:25:32
Speaker 1: When they got the Chargers in week one, now I know it wasn’t some anomaly. And so what’s going on here is the fact that it reminds me of 2013 when the chiefs because when andy reed came in he totally changed our culture we started nine and oh that year and like what’s going on with the chiefs i think the raiders are in that point this is a gigantic game and i’ve got another one ask me later after matt jumps in here but i got a follow-up after matt of why i think the raiders are not the raiders of old.

00:26:02
Speaker 2: Yeah all right this game reminds me of a few different instances in the past where chiefs and raiders would determine first place in the AFC West. So 2016, way back in the day, that was the Tyree Kill punt return game when everyone was chanting his name and he rose to the occasion, returned that punt for a touchdown. People forget that that game, both those teams were jockeying for first place in the AFC West. That was late in the year. The Raiders went 12-4 that season, but the Chiefs also at 12-4 had the tiebreaker over the Raiders. So 2016, both teams were facing off for first place in the division. Then also 2021, I think week 10 or so, whoever won that game in Vegas, I think it was Sunday Night Football, would be atop the division. Chiefs won that game as well. So here we are again. The rivalry is better when the Raiders are good and it means something. So it’s fun from that element. One thing I want to point out, though, with the Raiders, I don’t mean this in a bad way. It’s a compliment. They’ve been incredibly opportunistic. They’re living off turnovers this season. Look at that Saints game. The Saints had a big lead in the fourth quarter, but they turned the ball over four times. In the fourth quarter, you can’t win football games if you’re turning the ball over that much. And I mean, the Raiders, to their credit, they have 23 points off takeaways this season. They’re living off the giveaway takeaway. And we’ll talk more about our matchup against them a little bit later. But the Chiefs can’t turn the ball over against these guys because they take advantage.

00:27:22
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:27:23
Speaker 1: On your bingo card, if you had Hezekiah Massis with three interceptions in the first three.

00:27:27
Speaker 2: Weeks, then bingo. Here’s where they are different.

00:27:30
Speaker 1: And I’m going to talk about this all week long on the other shows, is that They have leaked yardage for years. And you talk about that 2016 game. They were 10-2 coming here. And that was Jack Del Rio moaning about coming on the road on Thursday night. It’s also DJ. I could see him chasing Derek Carr and tearing his Achilles. There was a lot in that night. People forget about those games and the 21 game. There’s been some legitimate games. But Ari, they’re not leaking yardage. Meaning penalty yards, sack yards. You can have 10 sacks. but if you only lose two yards on a sack, that’s only 20 yards. If you have 10 sacks and lose eight yards on a sack, that’s 80 yards. Penalty yards right now, I’m pretty sure after the Philadelphia Monday night game that the Raiders are number one in the league in the lack of penalty yardage.

00:28:21
Speaker 2: The Raiders are last in penalties? It’s crazy. And penalty yardage.

00:28:24
Speaker 1: So I can have 10 penalties, but if they’re five yard penalties, that’s 50 yards. If I have 10 penalties and it’s 15 yards, it’s 115 yards. And that is seven and a half or ten points if you gave 100 yards for seven points. That has been the key element of the Raiders being brutal for a decade.

00:28:43
Speaker 3: That’s cleaned up.

00:28:44
Speaker 1: And so now all of a sudden they’re not going to give you things or give you yardage or give you– and they’re number one in the league.

00:28:50
Speaker 2: In field position right now. The turnovers help with that.

00:28:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this is a legit team, and so it’s game on.

00:28:56
Speaker 4: All right, now let’s move on to the Denver Broncos. The Broncos versus the Rams, the Sunday night game. It felt like a typical Broncos game. They look absolutely miserable for most of the game. They’re down 16-0 at the half. Second half, the defense plays great. Hufanga has a couple of interceptions. He’s got a sack. He had a tackle for a loss. I thought he was the defensive MVP for Denver. And then down the stretch, they were able to make plays Bo Nix making plays late. This just looked like this is the formula we saw from the Broncos last year. Lots of inconsistency, but in the fourth quarter when the game counts, they come up with the win. Let’s start this time with you, Matt. What do you think of the Broncos on Sunday night?

00:29:35
Speaker 2: Well, Ari, do you know how much I was looking forward to having a noon road game? and being home on the couch for the fourth quarter of Sunday night football? That never happens. We’re either in prime time on the road or best case scenario, it’s like a 325 game on the road and we get home at like midnight. I am never home after a road game for Sunday night football. And I was excited for this one because I wanted to root against the Broncos and thought the Rams had a great shot in this game. and watching the game on the bus watching the game on the plane i’m like things are going according to plan but to your point the broncos did what they did all of last season they hung around and turned it on in the fourth quarter and i know there’s a lot of controversy about that game i think what i’d say is the rams allowed it to come down to some things in the margins and i mean the rams had a 16 point lead as the third quarter began i’m pretty sure and for Denver to claw back into that game when their offense was doing nothing the entire first half. I mean, credit to the Broncos, but also it feels like the Rams kind of allowed the Broncos to have that opportunity. And, uh, it’s a good win for Denver. I was bummed out about it.

00:30:38
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:30:39
Speaker 1: Same thing on the couch, watching the fourth quarter after being on the road.

00:30:43
Speaker 3: Uh, but several things.

00:30:45
Speaker 1: One, they didn’t abandon the run, even though they didn’t run the ball in the first half, they stayed with it.

00:30:49
Speaker 3: Give them credit.

00:30:50
Speaker 1: Um, But Hufanga’s pick six is gigantic because they’re driving. I mean, that’s a 60-plus yard pick six. And so the Rams are driving. The other thing is the Rams scored too soon. When they got the touchdown on the out and up, they’re going after Riley Moss every play. And when they got the touchdown, I go, too soon. It was 321 on the clock.

00:31:08
Speaker 2: He texted me, actually. He said, too soon. Too soon. Too soon.

00:31:11
Speaker 1: And so the Rams move the ball and eat more time and try to get that. I know that you can’t be that picky. And then the other thing is maybe we can stop the narrative that the Chiefs get all the calls.

00:31:22
Speaker 3: Can we stop that narrative now?

00:31:23
Speaker 2: Or do we.

00:31:25
Speaker 1: I saw it on social media. It was like, well, it’s going the other way. And it’s a call or non-call that I see all the time, Ari, and it’s an issue in the league. And Matt knows that I’m irritated by it, and we’ve benefited from it some. But the offensive player, the wide receiver in this instance, and it’s going so fast. You’re standing at a NASCAR finish line, and it’s going so fast.

00:31:49
Speaker 3: Or IndyCar, I should say, or F1.

00:31:50
Speaker 1: But the offensive player grabs the defensive player and pulls them into them and then acts like it’s the Zapruder film. Then they go, oh my gosh. And the officials get deked into that. The official that’s in front of that play, who’s seeing it, does not throw his flag.

00:32:08
Speaker 2: I thought the same thing.

00:32:09
Speaker 1: And the back official, who all he sees is the receiver flailing like the worst flop in World Cup history, that’s all they’re seeing.

00:32:18
Speaker 3: Oh, that’s a flag.

00:32:19
Speaker 2: It was an interception.

00:32:20
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:32:21
Speaker 1: That was such a game-changing call, non-call, whatever you want. Until the league gets that figured out of these offensive guys are driving and taking the defensive player and then acting like they’re interfered with, they’ve got to get that figured out because it’s a spot foul. This is a World Cup flop, putting the ball right in front of the net for a direct kick. They win, and they win the World Cup.

00:32:44
Speaker 2: That’s what we’ve got going on right now. All right, let’s move on. I love it. We need to rebrand this. What are you doing to me, Ari? We got KC Wolf. We got Weird Wolf and Wolf in the West. We’re going to rebrand this. You unhinge me. Here’s what Mitch really thinks. I’m rarely like this.

00:33:03
Speaker 4: Yes, we keep it real on Out West. All right, let’s go to the Chargers. They make the difficult trip to go to Buffalo. The game was far more competitive than maybe some people expected. Buffalo ends up winning 24-16. Buffalo commits five turnovers. I feel like there should be a rule in the NFL. If you commit five turnovers, you’re not allowed to win. It’s just not the way football is meant to be played, in my humble opinion. But the Bills find a way. They play better in the second half. The Chargers can’t really get anything going consistently offensively. The Chargers are now 0-3. Mitch, is this already a lost season for the Chargers, or do you see them turning this thing around at some point?

00:33:40
Speaker 1: To me, the most impactful meme of the weekend. was the fact that if you are minus four giveaway takeaway and have five giveaways, the teams that have that are three, 81, and one since 2013.

00:33:56
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:33:59
Speaker 1: All three teams that have lost those games when they were plus four or the opponent had five are the Chargers. The Chargers, the Chargers, and the Chargers. You cannot make it up. 0-3 is a We know 0-2 is a hole. 0-3 is an abandoned mine. And to go and look at the schedule that they’ve got, I don’t know where they go from here. They’ve got to just keep clawing and digging. But you get plus five or plus four on the road and lose to go 0-3, not good.

00:34:35
Speaker 2: Ari, to me, in an alternate universe, if I was a Chargers person, this is the kind of game where upon landing back in L.A., I would not say a word on the bus ride. I would get to my car and I would just sit motionless in my car looking forward for 30 minutes until I drove home. So how do you not win when you have five takeaways? Buffalo had six possessions that didn’t end in a turnover and they won by eight points. It doesn’t make any sense. The Chargers forced three takeaways after being up 10 to nothing. So if you’re the Chargers, I mean, This is an opportunity going into that game to save your season and to really tell everyone, hey, not only are we one and two, we beat Buffalo in Buffalo. And to start up 10-0 and they’re forcing takeaways and they’re playing good football, I’m sure they were feeling pretty good about the whole thing. And then to not win after you take the ball away five times, it almost feels worse than when it began. I feel worse about the Chargers now than I did going into that Bills game because at least you can explain the other games weird things happened. You get five takeaways and don’t win. It’s hard to come back from that. We see these guys in a couple of weeks. They’ll give us a good game, I’m sure, but they’re not feeling good right now.

00:35:50
Speaker 1: It’s like smelling bad food in the fridge. You’re like, something’s smelling in here. The sign in here, and you say that, Matt, is telling me there’s some bad food in that fridge somewhere.

00:36:03
Speaker 4: Something’s wrong in that building. Look, they’re right here in El Segundo. I could hit a driver and a three wood and maybe a wedge and I could be at their facility. Something’s not right there. Let’s now, we just talked about what we learned this week. Now let’s, let’s move forward to next week to week four, the chargers get the boy. I mean, to have to now go after going to Buffalo and now you’re going to Seattle.

00:36:27
Speaker 6: I mean, wow.

00:36:27
Speaker 4: The NFL schedule maker is not kind to the chargers. I’ve tried to like flip my head around to come up with any scenario where the chargers go in at Seattle and, It doesn’t help them. The Seahawks are coming off a dud. They lose in Washington. They don’t play particularly well. I can’t come up with a scenario with the Chargers winning. I realize it’s the NFL. Anything can happen. What do you guys think about the Chargers and the Seahawks?

00:36:51
Speaker 2: A few quick things. First of all, I’m pretty sure Mitch was the schedule maker for the Chargers this year. I heard that. So there’s that information. The Seahawks game against the Commanders. Prayers to Leo Chanel and his family. Yes. Thinking about him, that was horrible. And so glad it seems like a surgery went well. All of us here at the Chiefs were just devastated when that happened. And just thinking about Leo. What a win for Washington over Seattle. Marcus Mariota throws three touchdowns. Seattle comes back from down 24-10. And when you see that, you’re like, ah, good run for Washington. Seattle’s going to go away with it now. The Commanders kept their cool and ended up winning that game. The Commanders forced three turnovers without committing one themselves. and get 21 points off takeaways, including a pick six off Darnold. I say all this to set up the point that Seattle is going to be in a very bad mood next weekend because the commanders gave them everything they could handle, but still you just feel like that’s a game the Seahawks should have won. Seattle knows it. They’re going to be back at home. Very tough place to play. And the Chargers, after forcing all those takeaways last week and still losing to Buffalo, I just, I’m with you. I think Seattle wins. going to win this game. And I’d be very surprised if it went the other way. Yeah.

00:38:05
Speaker 1: Let me echo the concern prayers for Leo. Leo’s an amazing dude. And Randy, the kids, they got young kids. And so you hope everything turns out okay. He’s the Grantsburg Ranger, man. I miss that guy. And seeing him in the hallways around here. So yeah, Matt and I’s heart both stopped when we saw that. I don’t know what to think about Seattle yet, though.

00:38:30
Speaker 3: I’m just….

00:38:33
Speaker 1: And Darnold coming back from the injury, and that’s a really tough loss for them because you’re going to need everything you get in the NFC West. There’s just going to be little wiggle room. I know the 49ers are having the injury issues, but they’re winning games. But I still think there will be so much, all the things, I’m going to echo what Matt said, it’s going to be the Chargers’ difficulty to go in there and try to figure out how to win. But we still don’t know a whole lot about Seattle yet. I love John Schneider, the GM.

00:39:01
Speaker 2: He was here, right? He’s a good friend.

00:39:04
Speaker 1: But I wonder if there’s ever a time he’s at the stoplight thinking, I wish we had K-9 maybe.

00:39:11
Speaker 3: But I don’t know. You can’t.

00:39:13
Speaker 2: We’re keeping K-9. Yeah, we’ll keep it. K-9 can’t leave.

00:39:15
Speaker 1: Schneids, you won a Super Bowl. Put on the belt again. But we’re keeping K-9 because we’re very glad he’s here.

00:39:21
Speaker 3: Yes.

00:39:21
Speaker 5: All right.

00:39:22
Speaker 4: Next up, a pretty good one, at least on paper. We’ve got the Denver Broncos visiting the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers, I realize, are dealing with injuries, as you mentioned. But I’ve been so impressed with Brock Purdy. Nine touchdown passes, only one interception. Their balance offensively, to me, has really stood out. 136 yards per game on the ground, 263 through the air. That seems like pretty ideal numbers. Yes, they’ve dealt with injuries, but this seems like it’s going to be a good measuring stick for both organizations, right? Is Denver going to be able to work their late game magic? Are the 49ers now the team to beat in the NFC West after everyone talked about the Rams in Seattle? Let’s start with you, Mitch, on this one. What do you think about the Broncos making a trip to Santa Clara?

00:40:07
Speaker 1: Well it’s impressive what the 49ers have done because this has not been an easy three weeks for them and they continue to have these key guys go down with injuries but I’m with you on Brock Purdy I think he’s playing the best football of his career he’s not only efficient which has kind of been his modus operandi but he has been at times explosive and creative because you’re seeing him plus their protection has been very good I think they’re close to the top of the league in protection index um.

00:40:36
Speaker 3: And even that’s with the injuries there.

00:40:38
Speaker 1: But even when the protection breaks down or the play breaks down, Brock Purdy is still making plays.

00:40:43
Speaker 2: And he’s got to make all those against the Broncos because we know, and.

00:40:46
Speaker 1: You just laid it out there, Ari, if you’re in a 12-round fight with the Broncos, you better either knock them out in the second round, which we did pretty much here in week one, or you’d be ready to box for 12 rounds.

00:40:57
Speaker 2: Ari, considering all the injuries the Niners have, they might need us three to suit up at receiver this weekend. But I think all three of us would catch a touchdown based on how they’re figuring this out so far. Some interesting numbers from last week. They averaged 8.7 yards per play against the Cardinals. The Cardinals ran 81 plays. The Niners only ran 50. I mean, just incredible efficiency. The Cardinals also doubled the Niners in terms of time of possession. Niners never had the ball in the game. It didn’t matter. They scored in three or four plays and got out of there with a win. Is Mike Evans okay, though? That’s my question.

00:41:31
Speaker 4: I don’t know the answer to that, but that will be critical because he changes their offense.

00:41:36
Speaker 6: He’s one of those elite guys.

00:41:38
Speaker 4: You could throw to him.

00:41:39
Speaker 6: He’s covered. It doesn’t matter.

00:41:40
Speaker 4: He’s catching the football. I think that one’s going to be a really good one. Now let’s get to a battle between the two leaders in the AFC West. Let’s break down the Chiefs visiting Allegiant Stadium to take.

00:41:51
Speaker 2: On the Raiders.

00:41:53
Speaker 4: Let’s start, guys, first with the Chiefs’ offense against the Raiders’ defense.

00:41:57
Speaker 3: We’ve talked.

00:41:57
Speaker 4: The Raiders’ defense has been incredibly opportunistic. They have not played an offense as good as the Chiefs. Patrick Mahomes, I feel like in this offense, have a level of balance we really have never seen since Mahomes has been there. The belief in the ground game, having number nine in the backfield. It feels like this offense, while at times sputtered against Miami, the potential feels like it could be like week two almost every other week of the season, where you’re talking about 500 plus yards of offense. How do the Raiders slow down the Chiefs? How do Max Crosby and those guys make an impact on the homes and slow down the Chiefs? Is that possible in your estimation?

00:42:33
Speaker 2: Well, I think one thing that we have to do a good job of that we’ve been doing a lot of so far this year is using the play-action passing game. So this is kind of strange. ESPN Insights and NextGenStats disagree on the number of play-action attempts we had against the Dolphins.

00:42:49
Speaker 3: I noticed that.

00:42:50
Speaker 2: I think it’s pretty clear when there’s a play-action attempt. I guess we’ll have to go back and chart it ourselves. Matt’s the authority on this, though, so he’s the tiebreaker. They’re both good, is the good news. Both the stats are good, but I’ll just use next-gen stats for sake of argument here. They say Mahomes went 11 of 12 for 183 yards and a touchdown on play-action last week. That’s an average of 15.3 yards per attempt. Eight of his 11 completions took place under center. That was the most completions, attempts, and passing yards for Mahomes under center using play action in his career. So it’s pretty impressive when you think about this play action passing game. The Dolphins clearly were selling out to stop K-9. He still had 70 yards on the ground. Well, it’s the pick your poison that we’re talking about where you either commit a lot of resources to Ken Walker or you open up this play action passing game for the Chiefs or let Mahomes just not have the play action passing game and throw the ball all over the yard. You have to decide. And so far this season, the Chiefs have made teams choose and punish whatever they choose. So for in this game, when you have a great pass rush like the Raiders have so far this season, high sack total, take advantage of that by using the running game, using play action. I think things like jet sweeps can help use motion screens. Chiefs have done a good job against guys like Crosby in the past with stuff like that. So Don’t end up in third and 13, where everyone knows we’re throwing the ball. Let’s stay ahead of the chains. Let’s take that pass rush out of the game.

00:44:16
Speaker 1: Protection, protection, protection. It’s back to what I said with the yardage. You don’t really look at the number of penalties or sacks. You look at the yardage. And these guys are fourth in the league. The Raiders, 66 negative yards and sacks. Again, if 100 yards equals seven points, do the math.

00:44:33
Speaker 2: Go ahead.

00:44:37
Speaker 1: One cool thing in the play action passing and talk with Patrick last night about it. He is so excited about that part. He’s not like fighting it or he’s fired up. But the second and third levels of the passing game now become key. The ball is going to come out. You almost have to copy and paste our discussion about the Broncos in protection against Benito in that front and Zach Allen and others and just paste it into the Raiders discussion. And Matt’s got great points here. You can do jet sweeps. You can slow down a pass rusher by not touching him. Again, we’ve gone under the Bosa’s armpit so many times. But the second and third passing level game, for it to become fruitful, especially in the last two weeks, to see Rashi Rice come alive, those second-level quick crossers, the rubs there, to see Taekwon, who’s on DTK this week, to see Taekwon become not just a deep ball guy but a second-level guy becomes key. What a pass rusher also does not want to see are the ball flying by them. And then all of a sudden the play’s behind him. So the second level becomes critical. Some hot reads, but K-9’s part of that too as a receiver. Same thing with Emmett. But the second and third level quick passing game, I should say second level quick passing game will be key.

00:45:54
Speaker 4: All right, now let’s flip it. Raiders offense against Chiefs defense. Kirk Cousins has been very efficient all three games. He’s had three touchdown passes. He looks very comfortable in this offense. The protection is what has wowed me, and they’ve had the ability to run the football. Again, the quality of opponents I still think is a little hard to know this early in the season. We know going up against the Chiefs, the Chiefs’ defense is legit. I guess my number one question is let’s talk about Brock Bowers because if there’s a player that Matt McMullen loves more than him that’s not on the Chiefs, I don’t know who it is. I know Matt loves Brock. Who’s going to be the primary guy if they’re in man with a linebacker matching up against Brock?

00:46:34
Speaker 2: Brock Bowers puts fear into my heart. He’s a great player. Last time we saw this guy was back in 2024. He went for like 140 yards, 10 catches and a touchdown. So yeah, we have to find a way to at least contain him. And really with the Raiders, last week we saw a lot of 12 personnel. So Michael Mayer is a good player too at tight end. And they weren’t running a lot of 12 personnel early in the season when Bowers wasn’t there. But last week it was like over 50% of their plays were 12 personnel. We’re going to get a heavy dose of two tight ends. this game and we have to find a way to slow it down we’ll see if chamari connor is able to go in this game we’re shooting this on tuesday so we don’t know yet sounds like he’s trending toward being able to play that would certainly help but this is where you rely on your safeties and your linebackers to try to slow those guys down.

00:47:19
Speaker 1: And honestly he could be creative here they detach him bowers was detached in that game 74 of the time meaning he’s either flexed or he’s in the slot and think about travis kelsey early in his career When you look at what Bowers has done historically in receiving yards, he’s second in NFL history for tight end receiving yards in his first 30 games.

00:47:40
Speaker 2: Actually, Mike Ditka’s first, like the Bears were. What?

00:47:44
Speaker 3: 1963, thrown to the tight end. Wow. But the point here is that it.

00:47:49
Speaker 1: Actually becomes a little bit of the conundrum defensively of what teams had facing Kelsey, even still now, but even early in his career, is that even a nickel corner that you put on him if he’s detached.

00:48:02
Speaker 2: Because of his skills as a receiver.

00:48:05
Speaker 1: And I think it’s a little bit of all of it, to be honest with you, Matt. And they’re not crushing the running game with Jenty right now. They’re not getting the big runs. But the fact that Cousins has not made mistakes, he’s been so productive, the three-plus touchdown games for him. And Coach brought up something on Monday night when I talked with him on the Chiefs Kingdom show. Hurt Cousins’ best year, and I had to go back and think about this, was when Clint Kubiak was his coordinator.

00:48:29
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:48:30
Speaker 1: So this isn’t just the moons of Miebzor coming together here. This is kind of contrived. Kubiak’s going, I’m going to bring him in and be the Alex Smith for Patrick Mahomes, and it’s working and winning games, just like when it was with Alex Smith apprenticing Patrick Mahomes. That apprenticeship was happening, but we were still winning games in 2017 when it occurred here. The Raiders are doing the same thing.

00:48:55
Speaker 2: And Ari, if we’re being honest, We have to get pressure on Cousins. I think we all know that. He’s a different player when under pressure. We haven’t got a lot of pressure the last two weeks. We were super excited about it in week one. No sacks in our last two games. Got to change that this week. Cousins has won seven straight starts. You know, it’s the longest streak right now in the NFL. Cousins has won seven straight games. So we got to give him some credit.

00:49:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we got to get him off his platform, right? I mean, he is not a mobile quarterback. If you just get him to move from where he wants to throw the football, that’s why the whole pass rush overall is obviously key. But I feel like if those interior guys can just make him move just one step or two off of where he wants to throw it, that could be one of the X factors to help the Chiefs defense.

00:49:37
Speaker 5: All right.

00:49:38
Speaker 4: I know you guys were busy traveling, but to me, the best game from last week came in Rio. I think that if you went to that game, you are going to be more in love with NFL football than you ever dreamed. Late in the game, Dallas is down three. They get it all the way to the Ravens one yard line. They end up having to settle for three. There’s only seven seconds left in the game. And then the Ravens get it at the 35, which I thought was a poor kicking decision. Then for some reason, the Cowboys were in man. The 25-yard pass downfield, they win it on a 56-yard field goal as the clock expires. They celebrated like they won three Super Bowls. Guys, I know you were busy. I hope you saw the highlights. The drama and the atmosphere in Rio definitely made it to me the game.

00:50:20
Speaker 3: Of the week.

00:50:21
Speaker 1: We were excited with Kelsey’s 13-second game against the Bills.

00:50:25
Speaker 2: The Ravens are going, hold my beer. Seven seconds? That’s nuts. I will say, though, I did some math on this because I’m seeing a lot of the comparisons to 13 seconds. So they went 27 yards in one play, started at their 35. We had to start at our own 25. We go 44 yards in two plays. I’m just saying. I’m wearing red, so I have to say this. But very impressive. Some questionable decisions there by the Cowboys at the end. And the Ravens made them pay.

00:50:52
Speaker 1: Congressional inquiry right now on C-SPAN. If you want to go over there, it’s on the Cowboys and how they handled that late situation. Feel bad for Brian Schottenheimer, former ball boy of the Chiefs.

00:51:03
Speaker 4: The craziest thing I saw last week was also the grossest thing I saw last week. So a lot of people, I’m sure, weren’t watching the Jaguars crush the Patriots. Drake Mays off to as terrible a start as you could have possibly imagined. But the grossest thing that I’ve seen in a football game is he has a play where literally he comes back and like the ball just slips.

00:51:21
Speaker 6: Out of his hand.

00:51:22
Speaker 4: You think, OK, well, that’s that’s a nightmare. Well, then you find out that the center had a gash in his hand. He’s bleeding and there’s blood all over the football. I mean, can’t we stop the game for a second? Doesn’t that guy, doesn’t the center need to come out for a play? Let’s wrap that thing up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. Maybe a drop or two of blood, but not blood covering the football. So that to me was the craziest thing I saw last week. What’d you guys see last week?

00:51:45
Speaker 2: You know, that’s a metaphor, like a microcosm right there for the Patriots season so far. Every year, and if we’re being honest, this kind of happened to us last year, Every year, there’s a couple of teams where anything that can possibly go wrong goes wrong. And maybe the Patriots will turn it around. But so far, it kind of seems like it’s that kind of year for New England. The craziest thing I saw was all the parity in week three and kind of an extension of week two. I’ll just run through a few of these here. The Bucs being 0-3. I don’t know who could have predicted that. The Browns winning two in a row. How about that? The Texans are 0-3. The Packers losing at home and getting kind of boat raced by the Falcons on Thursday night football. The Steelers are terrible one week, then beat the Bengals, uh, last week. And, uh, how about the bears beating the Eagles, uh, pretty comfortably with case Keenum at quarterback. There’s the parody in this league right now is a pretty cool. And with all that in mind, I’m glad the chiefs have avoided that. And that were three, you know?

00:52:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. If you had case Keenum on your bingo card, uh, beating the Eagles in week three, um, yeah, uh, put that one down. Um, The situation used to be blood on the uniform. There’d be a pinprick. It’s like, ooh, ooh, ooh, we’ve got to change the uniform. Now we have arteries throwing all over the football. It did remind me, though, of a story Len Dawson always told about Cheryl Hedrick. They were playing a super cold game in New York, and that was before they had the heaters on the sidelines. And Cheryl Hedrick, who was going both ways, I think, to warm his hands, put his hands down there.

00:53:16
Speaker 4: And.

00:53:18
Speaker 1: Did a biological function we all do every day, urinating on his hands.

00:53:23
Speaker 3: Oh, my God. To keep his hands warm. Desperation.

00:53:26
Speaker 1: Then he went over and grabbed the football to snap it to Len. So Len is getting not blood on the ball, but a urine sample on the ball, thinking, you know, where are we at as far as hygiene in the game of football?

00:53:41
Speaker 2: Like the movie The Revenant. Did he sleep in a bear afterward?

00:53:45
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah.

00:53:48
Speaker 2: What do you do this to us? We never in there in this mode.

00:53:53
Speaker 3: I love it.

00:53:54
Speaker 4: I love it. All right. Now let’s get to parting thoughts in this week. Let’s start the parting thoughts with Matt.

00:54:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:54:00
Speaker 2: All right. Well, we talked about this a little bit last week, but one exciting part of the game in Miami was being back at hard rock stadium. We stayed at the same hotel that we stayed at back in 2019. All the stuff was, kind of similar, you know, and it was just cool being back there. We had not been back since the Superbowl all those years ago. So to be back, to experience it, to have those memories that you kind of forgot about, but then you walk by the pool or walk by where the party was and you’re like, oh yeah, I forgot about that. It was pretty special. And to think about all the things that have happened since then, that we had no idea, we had a good feeling that we were going to have some success with Patrick Mahomes, but I don’t think any of us could have predicted what’s happened. Right. And It was cool being back there. And it’s kind of quirky. Now our next game, we’re going to another place where we won a Super Bowl in recent years. So just to think that back-to-back weeks that we’ll get to have some pretty awesome memories and think about what it’s all about, winning the whole thing in recent years is pretty cool. So looking forward to the memories we’ll think about here in Vegas and hopefully make some more memories coming up.

00:55:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, how many times do you have games in back-to-back venues where you won Super Bowls in both of those venues?

00:55:10
Speaker 6: Not often.

00:55:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we’ve got to get the Cardinals on for the next week and playing Glendale. Patrick said the same thing. I saw him at Chapel, and he goes, man, just walking into this place, it was like, whoa, all the memories are coming back.

00:55:21
Speaker 2: My parting thought is this. The Raiders are real.

00:55:24
Speaker 1: So I just think there is a feeling maybe around the Chiefs’ kingdom. It’s same old Raiders. Hey, let’s just go on.

00:55:31
Speaker 2: No, no, they’re real.

00:55:33
Speaker 3: It’s a transformed team.

00:55:35
Speaker 1: And so with Cousins at quarterback, the defensive guys that they picked up, with Kubiak’s influence, it’s, as I said earlier, I’m going to say it again, it is game on. So announce the warning throughout the Chiefs Kingdom. The Chiefs Kingdom, we have to play maybe their best game of the year or a very Bronco-ish kind of game in week one to win this game.

00:55:53
Speaker 2: I like it.

00:55:53
Speaker 5: All right.

00:55:53
Speaker 4: My parting thought is, how about some love for backup quarterbacks in week three? You guys mentioned Case Keenum. He’s not just the backup. He’s the third string guy. And If you look back at his college career, he was off the charts at Houston. I mean, still NCAA records for yards. He put up incredible numbers. To see him on Monday Night Football have that kind of magical performance. I mean, he made some throws I wouldn’t recommend, but boy, he was throwing off his back foot. Everything was perfect.

00:56:21
Speaker 2: Where are we at on teams he’s played for? Have we got all 32? He hasn’t been here yet.

00:56:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, between, so it’s just, It’s just a beautiful thing, I think, to see. And the way Case was with his family before the game and the emotion he showed after it, just one of those times you just appreciate. Because backup quarterback, look, like everybody, you know, that’s a tough job. You almost never play. You don’t get many reps. But when you do get a chance as a third-string quarterback on Monday night football, I mean, he’s responsible for the Minneapolis miracle. And this, I mean, 14 years in the league. So Case Keenan, Marcus Mariota. What a great weekend for backup quarterbacks.

00:57:00
Speaker 3: All right.

00:57:00
Speaker 4: That’s my parting thought for this week. That’ll do it for out West. Big thanks to Mitch and Matt and go chiefs in Vegas.

00:57:06
Speaker 3: All right.

00:57:07
Speaker 1: Thanks to Ari. We became so unhinged. We changed our wardrobe, uh, cause we brought in the season ticket member jackets.

00:57:14
Speaker 3: These are pretty cool.

00:57:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are super cool. So, uh, every season ticket member account got one of these and just one of the many perks of being an STM, uh, Our STMs are the best out there. We see it every game day. I was thinking about it in Miami. No shade to Miami, but some football atmospheres are better than others. And just I think going to these other stadiums around the league, I don’t really need this perspective because I grew up here. I already know how special the crowd is in Kansas City, but the crowd in Kansas City is different and the STMs are the lifeblood behind that. So anyway, these are pretty cool. If you are an STM and you got one of these, our fan experience department wants to see you wearing yours, so I’ll provide a link on the stream. Take a picture of you in your jacket and it might get posted on Aerovision or Chief Social.

00:58:00
Speaker 3: Pretty cool. Yeah.

00:58:01
Speaker 1: Did you ever have a letter jacket at Blue Valley North?

00:58:06
Speaker 2: I don’t think I did.

00:58:06
Speaker 3: They don’t wear them now.

00:58:07
Speaker 1: It was a cool thing. Like when I got lettered my sophomore year at Smith.

00:58:10
Speaker 2: Center, I was like, I don’t want to work the whole time. I took a shower.

00:58:13
Speaker 3: So I feel kind of cool.

00:58:13
Speaker 2: You still have it and like put it on, walk around sometimes?

00:58:15
Speaker 3: I still do. It’s in my closet. Oh yeah.

00:58:18
Speaker 2: Check it out, Tammy.

00:58:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. She’s like, go put it away. Anyway, down through the years, Tammy will go, you’ve seen this movie? Where’d you see this movie? I’ll say, well, I saw it on the charter flight. So we work on charter flights. We’re working, but there’s also time on these flights watching movies.

00:58:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:58:41
Speaker 2: We have a new segment that we’re going to introduce to DTK. It is our movie reviews on the the charter flights. Flying to Miami, you have a lot of time to watch movies. We have no Wi-Fi on these planes. We do, but it’s kind of spotty. There’s no live TV on our flights. Once you get your work done, not a whole lot to do except maybe watch some movies. Here’s our new segment. We’re going to talk about the movies that we watched on our flights. Uh, if you have no interest in this, you can turn the podcast off now, but on the way there, I watched disclosure day. Have you seen that?

00:59:10
Speaker 3: I have not.

00:59:11
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.

00:59:12
Speaker 3: You’re going to be like 15 and 0 on me on these.

00:59:14
Speaker 1: Cause I just haven’t watched a lot of movies, but no disclosure day.

00:59:16
Speaker 2: So Steven Spielberg movie, I think it was just okay.

00:59:19
Speaker 3: Personally.

00:59:20
Speaker 2: I think it was kind of divisive, uh, It was all right. Rotten Tomatoes, what would they… So Dane, who is our producer of this essentially, he came up with this idea. He wants us to do a scale of one to five cheeseburgers in honor of Coach Reed. I give Disclosure Day like maybe three to three and a half cheeseburgers. I’m kind of a nice grader. I’m bad at giving things like a bad grade. It wasn’t a bad movie. It had a lot of Spielberg elements, but it wasn’t my favorite. So I give it three and a half cheeseburgers.

00:59:46
Speaker 3: I think what Rotten Tomatoes actually gives it a 79% maybe. Oh, okay.

00:59:49
Speaker 5: So.

00:59:52
Speaker 1: What we’ll do is we’ll take Rotten Tomatoes and compare it to your cheeseburger rating.

00:59:57
Speaker 2: It feels about right. On the way back, I watched a movie called Pressure. Have you heard about that?

01:00:02
Speaker 1: No, but you’ve recommended it for me.

01:00:05
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Pressure is great. I give Pressure four and a half cheeseburgers, potentially five. It’s a World War II movie. The premise doesn’t sound that interesting. It’s about the head meteorologist for the Allies. Actually, I have seen this. Yeah. When he’s talking to Eisenhower. Eisenhower. I did not know. Yes, I did see it. I saw it in the off season.

01:00:22
Speaker 3: I thought it was outstanding.

01:00:23
Speaker 2: It’s incredible. The whole D-Day sequence is powerful.

01:00:26
Speaker 1: Well, and the story of how meteorology helped decide D-Day, basically.

01:00:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. And their pressure on the meteorologist. I did see that.

01:00:35
Speaker 3: I’m sorry. Phenomenal.

01:00:36
Speaker 1: I just didn’t remember this. They title it. Rotten Tomatoes gave that 89%.

01:00:39
Speaker 3: Okay.

01:00:40
Speaker 1: I think it should be over 90%. I’m going to give it four and a half cheeseburgers.

01:00:43
Speaker 2: It was really good. Just the whole concept of, think about the guts it took to tell Eisenhower, you can’t go. Anyway, it’s great. I also watched half of Terminator 2, which is a classic. Terminator 2 gets five cheeseburgers for me. I love that movie. We landed, so I couldn’t finish it. I might watch the second half on the way back to Vegas. I’ve seen that movie a hundred times, though. You’ve seen Terminator 2, haven’t you? Yeah.

01:01:06
Speaker 3: No, I’ve not seen Terminator 2.

01:01:08
Speaker 2: You’ve seen Terminator 1? Does me watching Dutton Ranch, does that even count? Yeah, that counts. Okay.

01:01:13
Speaker 1: Because I’m into kind of, I don’t get a binge TV watch. Like it just never happens. My wife will do Ted Lasso. We’ll do that maybe. But in the season, it’s just, that I love to binge on these flights. I couldn’t find Landman. Did they take Landman off?

01:01:27
Speaker 2: I never really look at the TV shows. You sound pretty heated about this.

01:01:30
Speaker 1: I couldn’t find Landman. Did anybody on our charter find Landman? You had to go knock on the cockpit like, excuse me. I was saving it for the Miami trip. I watched the first two episodes. I’m saving episode three and I can’t wait.

01:01:41
Speaker 2: Can’t find it. Where’s Landman?

01:01:43
Speaker 3: Where’s Landman?

01:01:44
Speaker 1: And so then I had to watch Dutton Ranch, which if you start with the 1883 and you start just taking.

01:01:50
Speaker 3: That on, just.

01:01:52
Speaker 1: you know, by trilogy or whatever, and you just keep going, it puts it all in perspective, but it’s okay.

01:01:59
Speaker 3: Okay.

01:02:00
Speaker 1: It’s 1883. It was incredible. I’m just going to put it that way. Well-produced and well-acted.

01:02:05
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.

01:02:06
Speaker 1: So yeah. But there you go. Matt’s movie review every week. And how does he compare against Rotten Tomatoes?

01:02:12
Speaker 2: Very exciting. The kingdom wants to know around the world.

01:02:17
Speaker 3: What do we have? Okay.

01:02:17
Speaker 2: So I have one for you today. You’ll love this. This is from at Flagstaff Chief. Shout out to you. He says, I have an Antarctica connection for you.

01:02:27
Speaker 3: Yes.

01:02:28
Speaker 1: I am a Chiefs fan living in Flagstaff, Arizona. Northern Arizona University, former home of Andy Reedy, coach there.

01:02:34
Speaker 3: For a year. There we go.

01:02:36
Speaker 2: He says, a friend here in Arizona spent two or three winters contracting with the military in the Antarctic summer around 2019 to 2020. He has a close friend who is also a Chiefs fan. This makes him at least a two-third equivalent of a Chiefs fan in Antarctica. We did it. The show can end. It counts. Yeah, I think that counts. That’s as close as we’re ever going to get unless you go with the DK Metcalf angle. Let’s wait for the New York review.

01:02:58
Speaker 1: It counts.

01:02:59
Speaker 2: It counts.

01:03:00
Speaker 3: Upon further review, that counts.

01:03:01
Speaker 1: Antarctica is our last remaining continent that is involved in defending the kingdom.

01:03:08
Speaker 3: So, all right, here we go.

01:03:09
Speaker 1: It’s Reader’s Week and a Reader’s team that needs all of our attention and spirit to fight and beat these guys.