🎙️ ‘Making Deposits’ – Chargers vs. Chiefs Preview w/ Khyiris Tonga | Defending The Kingdom

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Matt, and you’ve actually scaled mountains in the Andes, right? So have you ever had a time? Technically, yes. You’re packing everything in a backpack of like, wow, this is going to be a tough climb. Do I have everything I need? Has that ever happened?

00:00:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, when my dad and I did Mount Rainier, we spent the night on the mountain. And there’s the mere snow field for those that have been out there. You basically just go up an incline of snow for eight straight hours. If you don’t have everything you need, you’re in some trouble.

00:00:31
Speaker 1: So if I said Mount Sunflower in Kansas at 4,200 feet, which is a gradual slope.

00:00:35
Speaker 3: Basically the same thing, yeah.

00:00:37
Speaker 1: Same thing?

00:00:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically.

00:00:39
Speaker 1: Your point is well taken. The fact that now on this defending the kingdom, the Chiefs coming off a bye week, an early bye week at 4-0, the only undefeated AFC team, now starts a long, hard climb. Very similar to you trying to scale and scaling Mount Rainier. But it starts with a game against the Chargers at Arrowhead Stadium. But when you look ahead, you’re thinking, deposit these wins. Make as much winning equity as you can because you’re going to need it all on the road ahead.

00:01:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s why in the offseason and during the summer, we talked all about the importance of getting off to a good start. We couldn’t let what happened last year happen again because last year we were just trying to climb out of the hole that we dug for ourselves all season long. And eventually we couldn’t do it because the competition was pretty good at the end of the year. Looking at the schedule, we knew that the last third of the season is going to be tough. It’s a lot of really good teams in a row. We can beat all those teams, but you don’t want to leave yourself like no margin for error. That was the problem last year is we had no margin for error all season. And the good news is this year, not only have we set the tone for the year, we’ve gotten off to a great start where we’re 4-0. You have the bye week, but now it sets up a lot of weeks in a row of football. And it’s a matter of continuing to keep that good start going because toward the end of the year, you want to have some wiggle room if things get a little difficult there with some of those really good teams.

00:02:05
Speaker 1: In a row. What made you most nervous about the Mount Rainier climb?

00:02:09
Speaker 2: Besides my dad falling off the mountain.

00:02:11
Speaker 1: Did he pack his underwear for that trip? He did.

00:02:13
Speaker 2: For those that don’t know, my dad and I went to South America when I graduated college for like a 35-day trip. And my dad thought it would be really funny when we spent the night in Atlanta the night before to unpack all of his clothes and to put them in the drawer in the hotel.

00:02:25
Speaker 3: Because who does that, right? My dad does.

00:02:27
Speaker 2: The next day, he put all the stuff back in his suitcase when we flew to Ecuador. When we land in Ecuador, he realizes he doesn’t have any underwear. After landing in South America, he has no underwear. So anyway, yeah, I was worried about that. Worried about his bag falling off or, you know, whatever. I was also worried about us falling into an ice pervas and being preserved for all eternity. There was a lot to worry about on Rainier.

00:02:53
Speaker 1: Well, on my climb of Mount Sunflower in Western Kansas, I looked at my almond joy thinking, how long will this last me? And think so, it’s the same. Basically, yes. Feels that way. So it’s a chance though, when you have a bi-week to kind of back up a bit and look at what’s happened in getting ready for this climb. of look at what has already been deposited and put in the backpack that can carry over starting with this Charger game. We’ll get into the Charger game here in a minute. By the way, we’re going to have Kyrus Tonga on later in this episode of Defending the Kingdom. And of course, we will check with Wolf Out West as we get off the rails in that one. But the first four weeks to me feels like the biggest and first paragraph is the canine ripple effect. Ken Walker III, okay. When you look at his average yards per game and what he’s been able to do himself in the touches and the 76-yard run against the Raiders and the 60-yard run for the touchdown against the Broncos. But it’s the ripple effect and what has happened. I remember after the game, Matt, against the Raiders, I saw Patrick Mahomes after we were done with our stuff. And I go, cover zero. You’re getting cover zero. You’re getting blitz cover zero. And he’s like, he just goes cover zero. Like I haven’t seen it for like five years or whatever. And the fact that the Chiefs are getting some chunk plays because of the canine ripple effect. And then you look at the balance and we’ve talked about this, but the Chiefs right now are 11th in the league after four weeks. And this is averages. Now, some of the stats, because of the bye week, will skew it because it looks at totals. You have to look at averages if you’ve got a bye week early. But the Chiefs are 11th in the amount of times they run the ball during the game. And in the first half, it’s 14. So it’s right in the middle of the league in the fact that the canine ripple effect has brought balance. It’s brought different defensive coverages. It keeps the defense off the field. There’s just a lot of things that canine has put in the backpack for the long climb.

00:04:54
Speaker 2: So everything you just said, I’m going to put it to some numbers because it’s kind of eye-opening. So last year, from our running backs, entire running back room, through four weeks, we had 266 rushing yards. This year, Ken, through four weeks, has 537 rushing yards. That’s the most for any player through four weeks since 2010. He has 367 yards just after contact, okay? So he has more yards by a wide margin after contact than our entire running back room did overall last year through four weeks. It’s just absolutely crazy. Even though we didn’t play a game last week, so through week five, he still leads the NFL in forced missed tackles with 39. Led to a bunch of big plays like you said. So last year we had three rushing plays of 20 or more yards all season from our entire team. It was dead last in the NFL. We already have six rushing plays of 20 or more yards this year. That’s most in the NFL. And it’s led to a bunch of big passing plays. We have 11 plays of 25 or more yards right now, second most in the NFL through week four. The play-action passing game, like we’ve talked about every week, has been, I think, the best play-action passing attack in the NFL. Last year, I talked about this all offseason, we had 396 yards passing on play-action. We have 342 already this year. In four games, you mentioned Mahomes with the cover zero. This is through week four. This is some great stuff from NextGenStats. So his yards per attempt average against man coverage, best in the NFL. Under pressure, best in the NFL. Quick pressure, best in the NFL. Cover zero, best in the NFL. Third down, best in the NFL. And fourth quarter, best in the NFL. He has the most passing yards, passing touchdowns, and throws at 25 or more yards through week four since 2022, all in 18 fewer attempts than he had in 2022. And by the way, he won the MVP, set the NFL record for total offense by a single player. We have 30 or more points in three games this season. We had 30 or more points in three games all of last year. I could go on and on. K-9 changed a lot. And Mahomes talked about it. Coach Reed talked about it. We talked about it in the offseason. He’s going to have a profound effect on this offense, more than just running the ball, but the ripple effect. And man, you’re seeing it so far.

00:07:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Pat’s top three in blitz passer rating. And when you look at that now, Pat’s back of where people said he’s back at 2017, 18, 19, 20. A lot of it’s the circumstances and the canine ripple effect. The other thing is the Chiefs are taking care of the football. When you look at only two giveaways in the first four games and only three giveaway points, remember, it’s not just the number of sacks. It’s the yardage in sacks, not just the number of penalties. It is the yardage in penalties. And it’s not just the giveaways. It’s the giveaway points. And the Chiefs have only given away three points in the first four games of of the season. And that’s when the Broncos got the ball at the five yard line with first and goal. So the giveaway takeaway, again, part of the canine ripple effect is the Chiefs have been near pristine.

00:07:57
Speaker 2: And we’re closing out games. Last year, we just didn’t. Last year, the team was better than the record indicated, but we couldn’t close out games. We were one and nine in one score games last year, already two and oh this season. And look at our numbers in the fourth quarter. So we have the third most points in the fourth quarter of any team in the NFL right now in terms of a scoring margin. We’ve allowed one sack in the fourth quarter and we have zero turnovers in the fourth quarter. That’s Chiefs winning football right there. You wait for the other team to make a mistake and you pounce on it. We saw it in the Raiders game and we’ve seen it all season long. Now it’s a matter of keeping that going because it doesn’t matter what we’ve done in the past. I think Coach Reed would be the first one to say that. But so far so good in terms of the trend of this season. We saw it early on last year where we were not closing out games. We were the ones making mistakes late in games. It’s not happening so far this year.

00:08:49
Speaker 1: I’m going to go to special teams next because Matt Ariza has been brilliant. The Chiefs have a history when you go back all the way back to Gerald Wilson, who was ahead of his time back in the old AFL Chiefs days. But Matt Ariza now leads the league in gross and net punting. He was the punt god at San Diego State. But when he entered the league, it’s like he could not corral it. He’s just punting 58-yard punts that would net out at 38 yards. Not this year. You can argue the Chiefs don’t win the Raiders game unless he puts five punts at the 15 or less, including one down at the one. He has become the Dustin Colquitt-ish, even Tommy Townsend in his prime, the 12th defender. That helps so much when you’re playing teams in our division right now that are not necessarily anxious to fire the ball down the field. You make them earn every single yard. Matt Arise has become a weapon for this team.

00:09:44
Speaker 2: He was the AFC special teams player of the week for week four. I don’t have this in front of me, but he has only 12 punts this season. I think that’s like 25th in the NFL. And yet I’m pretty sure he leads the NFL and punts dropped inside the opponent’s 20. I mean, that’s just incredible efficiency. And I go a step further. I think that game against the Raiders definitely goes to overtime if he doesn’t drop the ball at the one, but it’s more than just Matt. How about Wampa and Emmitt Johnson downing that ball at the one, two rookies in a huge moment on the road, on special teams, having the wherewithal to down that ball at the one, to not bring it into the end zone or to have a toe on the goal line or whatever it may be. I mean, just incredible awareness that play won the game because you’re forcing the Raiders with no timeouts to go.

00:10:32
Speaker 1: What?

00:10:32
Speaker 2: Like 60 yards to have a shot at a field goal, uh, where they still moved the ball.

00:10:36
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:10:37
Speaker 2: And got the ball to midfield, even though that, that pass was not actually caught. Don’t know how that happened, but, uh, they got the ball, the midfield air quotes. And, uh, Thankfully, couldn’t get any further because they ran out of time. So, Ariza was incredible, but also the coverage unit. Wampa and Johnson, two rookies making that play was huge. And honestly, in a lot of ways, was the play of the game.

00:10:59
Speaker 1: Matt, what excites you about the Chiefs defense this year?

00:11:02
Speaker 2: I think it’s the blend of veteran players, like guys like Chris Jones, George Karloftis, with our rookies that we’re really excited about.

00:11:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of a new school, old school approach. And we need defense. 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. Anyway, 10x. 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 from the Chiefs defense.

00:11:45
Speaker 3: I love that idea. Let’s roll.

00:11:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, we’ll get into later when we’re talking with Ari Wolf about who studies the game, watches the game, knows the game. That is Emmett Johnson, who loves football. He loves to watch football. He’ll watch it from junior high on up. He knew what to do, when to do it. And the same with Xavier Wampa, who played a lot of special teams, 446 snaps at Iowa on special teams. Finally… as we close out this part of DTK, or at least looking back at the four weeks, defensively taking the ball away. The Chiefs aren’t giving it away. They’re taking it away. Last year, this team had 10 interceptions the entire year, five in 17 weeks by DBs. There are four interceptions so far this year, three by defensive backs, including Wampa off the deflection or the force by George Karloftis. Defensively, it has been You can say opportunistic. It’s been kind of gritty when it has to, but it has now taken on the theme of the 24-23-22 Chiefs defenses, which statistically have been good, but when it matters the most is when they clamp down. Right now, red zone percentage defense is fifth in the league. You look at fourth quarter defense, it’s been good. So they’ve been gritty and tough when they need to be.

00:13:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and making plays when it matters most, like Bassa punching out that ball on the kicker turn. I mean, unbelievable play in that moment. The Chiefs were trailing by one, and then were leading by 11 in a span of 19 seconds. And, I mean, just an incredible play by Bassa. Really, we knew this coming in. One of the many areas we had to improve, we had to create more turnovers this year.

00:13:24
Speaker 4: Because.

00:13:25
Speaker 2: We’re just making life so much harder for ourselves. If you’re giving the opponent more possessions than you have, you’re letting drives get to the opponent’s 45, 35-yard line, and you get nothing out of it because you turn the football over. So far this year, it’s been the opposite, where whenever the opponent seems to get some momentum, we take the football away and got to keep that going now. But that’s a mindset thing, and mindset’s the whole theme of this year’s team, and I think we’re seeing it so far.

00:13:49
Speaker 1: So what are you still thinking about? In your mind that you can’t get out of your mind. And mine’s going to be a little bit different this week. By the way, it is our crucial catch week. Sure is. Okay. That’s big, as we know, because it touches every life. Cancer and the coloners represent different kinds of cancers. But it’s a big week for a message to get out there to all. But your thought, what can’t you get out of your mind?

00:14:14
Speaker 2: That the chief’s edge is back. And it goes hand in hand with the BASA punch out, where last year, kind of felt like everything was just difficult and opponents felt it in the Jags game felt it in the Broncos game felt it in the Eagles game the Chargers game could go on and on they kind of felt like they felt their mojo and they weren’t feeling the presence of us at all where in the past it’s like we’re playing the Chiefs right now they get kind of tight and they make a mistake didn’t feel like that last year felt like the opponent almost had the upper hand very unchief like Really all season, but especially in that Raiders game, it felt like we had our edge back where the Raiders are playing well. They take the lead. We then get the ball and we go right down.

00:15:02
Speaker 3: We score.

00:15:03
Speaker 2: We punch that ball out in the kick return. We score again. Last year, I think if all of that sequence takes place, once we get the punch out, I’m not sure we score a touchdown. I think we kick a field goal and who knows what happens. for all that to happen and for Walker on the first play of us getting the ball back to score around the edge, you know, the Raiders are sitting there like we were winning. We were winning 19 seconds ago. And that’s an edge thing. That’s one of those things where you look across the sideline and you see the Chiefs and you’re like, what do we have to do?

00:15:34
Speaker 3: We played a perfect game, you know?

00:15:36
Speaker 2: So that’s what I’m thinking about is it just feels like the mystique is back a little bit and that’s pretty scary for the rest.

00:15:41
Speaker 1: Of How many times in these first four games have you said, we wouldn’t have won this game last year?

00:15:46
Speaker 3: Maybe all four, at least three.

00:15:47
Speaker 1: I think you said it like, I think all four times after the game, but I concur. I’m going to go something completely different here. Okay. Okay. And it has to deal with the crucial catch. You and I are busy. We got, these weeks are 60 hour weeks. I work every night except Friday night. We’ll watch high school football. Even the home Saturdays, there’s some event going on. But then there’s something that happens that just freezes you. And this happened this week. Uh, The 32 play-by-play announcers in the league actually have a text line. So we all kind of communicate. It’s pretty cool. But one happened this week that froze time. Dan Miller is the play-by-play voice of the Detroit Lions. He has been since 2005. This weekend, he lost his wife, who had a very rare, nasty cancer. Lepomeningeal cancer. I hadn’t even heard of it. He said in the text line, he explained it to everybody. He said she was diagnosed a couple of years ago with two plum-sized brain tumors. And they worked through that. He said we had 15 pretty good months. And then he said everything just kind of went crazy and collapsed. And he just lost his wife. They have four children, I believe, and two granddaughters. But all of a sudden, life stopped. And Dan Miller and the Lions have been on my heart, others’ hearts. But it brings up what this week’s about. I think of our founder, Lamar Hunt died of prostate cancer. A brilliant man. But yeah, prostate cancer just stopped it all. I think of Dan Israel, who was the executive producer for 30 plus years of the Chiefs Radio Network, who got colon cancer. Would he have got colon cancer? He even talked about it, if he would have had colonoscopies and checked earlier. This week, and this hoodie that we have on, if you’re watching and listening, has a meaning to it. And that leads us into our guest this week, Kyrus Tonga. Because there’s way more to Kyrus than being, oh, let’s bring him in for big man carry the ball. There is a lot to Kyrus. The fact this is his sixth team, but he’s thriving here. Playing the defensive line, he’s on special teams, he’ll line up on offense. But as you will hear… He’s been in the kingdom before he was here because he was in Wichita, Kansas for two years on a mission. But there’s more to Kyrus than just football. You’ll hear football, but you hear a lot more. And it’s why this weekend and getting screened and helping remind others is super important. Because we can all just think about Dan Miller, the voice of the Detroit Lions. So let’s check in with the new number 92, Kyrus Tonga. We saw him make big plays in the AFC championship game. So we got really excited when he became a Kansas City Chief. And now he’s with us on defending the kingdom, Kairos Tonga. So we’re into this four games and through. But welcome to the Chiefs kingdom, DTK style. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. It’s awesome to have you here. So talk about the integration of you and your game and how it fits this defense so far and what excites you. No, I just.

00:19:07
Speaker 5: Love being able to come in and just be physical. That’s something that they just asked me to do. And being able to play in a room like this, surrounded by the players I’m surrounded, it’s super easy. So I’m just having fun with it, and it’s been really fun for me.

00:19:23
Speaker 2: It seemed like last year in New England, your career really took off. You set career highs and snap counts and tackles and run stuffs, all this stuff. What did you learn in New England to make you the player that you are now, and how are you bringing that now to Kansas City?

00:19:35
Speaker 5: I’m just grateful for the opportunity I was given. Last year, I kind of been a journeyman and New England gave me an opportunity just to go out and make plays. And that’s what I try to do every time I was playing. And so for me to be here and to continue I’m just blessed and grateful for it.

00:19:53
Speaker 1: Kyrus, and let’s be honest, this is your sixth stop, sixth team. But it feels like a fit. It feels like you should have been here all along. What does it feel like to you?

00:20:02
Speaker 5: Like I said, I feel blessed. I’m grateful to be here. And to be able to be at a place I can call home for more than a year, I’m just grateful. I’m just trying to give it my all every game, and I feel like I owe it to Kansas City and everyone that brought me here. So I’m just excited for it and grateful for the opportunity.

00:20:23
Speaker 2: And you’re a veteran now, so you have a chance to mentor some young players, Peter Woods specifically. I’m curious for your thoughts on Peter so far. No, Peter’s so cool, man. He’s such a good dude, and he has– crazy potential. We’re super excited for him. He’s a hard worker, continues to be a sponge in the meeting room and on the field. Yeah, the sky’s the limit for Peter Woods.

00:20:49
Speaker 1: Okay, we’re only four games into this, Kyra, but you got 11 offensive snaps, 119 defensive snaps, and 19 special team snaps. Like, where’s Kyra? What about the fact of all these things you can do?

00:21:02
Speaker 5: I’m blessed.

00:21:03
Speaker 1: They called my number to.

00:21:06
Speaker 5: To go out and perform, uh, grateful for the trust that they, they give me. So it’s super exciting and I don’t take it for granted. So it’s been fun.

00:21:14
Speaker 2: So you had 14 offensive snaps last year. That felt like a lot when I was looking you up. Now you have 11 already through four games. You’ve been on offense in three of four games so far. What was that first snap like though? In week one, you’re out there with K-9 and Patrick and you’re out there at fullback.

00:21:28
Speaker 3: What was that like?

00:21:29
Speaker 5: You know, it was, it was, it was super cool. You know, being in the, in the offensive huddle is, uh, It’s amazing, especially having the players that we do have and getting to share the huddle with them. The only thing in my mind was just like, don’t mess it up. And so, no, but I went out there, just have fun and makes it easy blogging for a guy like K9. He can score from anywhere. So he makes us all look good. So it’s been fun.

00:21:53
Speaker 2: Well, he has two carries too. You’ve carried the ball. You ever done that before in your life before this?

00:21:57
Speaker 5: You know, I got like a little full pass sneak in college, but it was nothing like that.

00:22:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:22:03
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:22:04
Speaker 1: Well, we run these flood routes in the red zone and we got Jalen the touchdown, but wait a minute. Were you thinking, I’m here, throw me the ball?

00:22:11
Speaker 5: I was just making sure I didn’t drop it. Just look it in all the way if it came to me. So it zipped past me, so it was okay.

00:22:18
Speaker 3: You know who Dontary Poe is, right?

00:22:20
Speaker 5: Yes, sir.

00:22:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dontary, Coach Reed made him famous by throwing touchdowns, catching touchdowns. Are you ready for that opportunity if Coach Reed says, hey, we’re going to dial this up?

00:22:28
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:22:30
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:22:31
Speaker 5: No, like having a guy like 15, I hope they don’t make me throw the ball. Uh, if, if, if we have to, then I’ll be ready.

00:22:40
Speaker 1: Okay. It’s like, this was meant to be when you did your mission, it was in Wichita, Kansas. What was that like? And how much of that? And then you, it’s like coming back here. How, what was the dynamic of that to you?

00:22:55
Speaker 5: It was, uh, man, it was full circle for me. Um, Kansas means a lot to me personally. That’s where I built my faith the most, where I became the strongest, where I met some of the most coolest people that I’ve ever met in my life. Seeing a lot of people come close to Christ. So coming back here was a whole different, surreal feeling for me. I haven’t been back since 2017, so almost 10 years. And I love it, being closer to home, basically. And I’m excited to get to see some Some familiar faces that I haven’t seen in years and to be able to play next to them. So it’s been really cool.

00:23:34
Speaker 2: There’s a lot of Chiefs fans down there, too. Did you kind of feel that at all when you were down there?

00:23:38
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.

00:23:39
Speaker 5: I saw a lot of Chiefs and I saw a lot of Royals when I was over there. So, yes, amazing feeling.

00:23:45
Speaker 1: Anybody hit you up for tickets yet down there? No, not yet. No, not yet.

00:23:49
Speaker 5: But they all know that if they.

00:23:51
Speaker 1: Need a ticket, it’s good with me.

00:23:53
Speaker 2: Playing at Arrowhead, obviously it’s an environment unlike any other. What’s it been like playing defense at Arrowhead so far?

00:23:59
Speaker 5: It is crazy. It is actually my first time playing at Arrowhead. In my whole career, I’ve always heard how loud Arrowhead got. So the fact that I got to be in it during some of these third downs and fourth downs, it’s the craziest feeling. Can’t hear nothing. Can’t hear Nick. So just go out there and ball. But it’s so cool playing in front of these fans, man. They’re wild in a good way.

00:24:22
Speaker 1: Final question. Hopefully you got a chance to take a breath during the bye week, but now it’s a long March and that March starts Sunday. What about how you’ve geared up for the March, but also this Sunday?

00:24:35
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, just being able to take it week by week. And like I said, I’m on a team where it’s a bunch of pros and they know what to do and everyone’s about their business. So being able to be on a team like this, you don’t really lose focus. You don’t really People were asking to come back earlier from the break. They were just ready to get right to it. It’s going to be a fun idea. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks, but it’s going to take a week by week. It’s going to be fun.

00:25:03
Speaker 1: And you need to stay focused because you never know where or when he’s going to show up, Kyrus Tonga. I remember seeing Kyrus Tonga blow up against the Broncos in the AFC Championship game. And then I go, we’re getting that guy?

00:25:18
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:25:18
Speaker 1: I’ll take that guy. Uh, man, he’s been a great fit.

00:25:22
Speaker 3: Love his attitude.

00:25:23
Speaker 2: He’s kind of like a gentle giant. His whole perspective is really great. And like we talked about in the interview, I think Vrabel and the coaching staff in new England kind of unlocked him. They gave him an opportunity to just go out there and play and do what he can do. And, uh, we’re getting the ripple effects of that. Now this defensive line is much improved. Uh, we need some more sacks. We’ve talked about that. Uh, Three weeks now without a sack, but those will come because the pressure is there. And we’ve been really good against the run this year for the most part, and Kyrus is a big part of that. The offensive stuff is just so funny, too. I mean, you just know that there’s going to be an opportunity for him to catch the ball at some point. I just hope it happens sooner than later.

00:26:01
Speaker 1: It just shows you how athletic he is.

00:26:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, it’s crazy.

00:26:05
Speaker 1: It’s not like a lumbering, bummering, stumbering. No, he knows what he’s doing. Not easy. And he can turn his hips, and he’s got quickness, and so it’s fun to have him here. And again, the depth of these guys that we see throughout our team and the chemistry of this team and what makes them in their soul is really good to see. And seeing that in Kyrus Tonga. Well, one of the things that’s always good to see or hear from is checking in with our spy out west, Ari Wolfe, who just continues to dig into the National Football League, even when it’s crazy. Here’s Ari.

00:26:38
Speaker 4: Hello, the Chiefs Kingdom. Excited for Out West this week with Mitch and Matt. And guys, it was a crazy week in the NFL. While the Chiefs were off having a bye, the rest of the league, what were they thinking was the model for the weekend? Let’s get right to the AFC West, gentlemen. Now, the Raiders, we talked two weeks ago, they were 3-0, and we thought these guys are for real. They go to New England, and the Patriots look like the team that won the AFC last They score 45 points. Drake May looked awesome. He goes for a total of five touchdowns. The Raiders had struggled to protect her cousins. We’ve talked about cousins. If he can’t throw from the platform where he wants to be, he can struggle at times. So now the Raiders are 3-2. They’ve lost two straight. I’d start with you, Mitch. I asked the question I asked a couple weeks ago. Are the Raiders for real?

00:27:26
Speaker 1: Well, we’ll start with Drake May going to the optometrist and realizing that the color jerseys that your guys wear… It’s the same that you wear. It’s actually a psychologist-optometrist combo. So Drake Mays playing better football. But we’re going to know in the next four weeks. Here’s the schedule for the said Raiders. Home with the Bills. Home with the Rams. At the 49ers. Seattle on November the 15th. And at Denver on November 22nd. By Thanksgiving, we’ll know all we need to know about the Raiders. But it also shows you how quickly things can change. If the Raiders beat the Chiefs and go undefeated or stay undefeated in that game, the world looks big time different for them. So just stay tuned. Let’s see what the Raiders are really about.

00:28:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ari, to me, I think this game was almost more about the Patriots than it was the Raiders. So yeah, just a complete breakdown for the Raiders on defense. So 10 total drives, the Patriots scored a touchdown on six of them. The Patriots, I don’t think, were nearly as bad as they’d shown yesterday.

00:28:32
Speaker 3: Early in the year.

00:28:33
Speaker 2: And now, you know, with wins over the Bills and now over the Raiders at home, looking more like what we expected. I mean, May shredded the Raiders. He had 374 passing yards, four touchdowns. The Pats averaged eight yards per play. The Raiders even got decent pressure on May. May was just really good in those situations. The Raiders also had over 100 yards in penalties. Now, that’s one thing that Mitch and I talked a lot about going into our game against the Raiders is the Raiders were playing smart football. They weren’t beating themselves, essentially. The Patriots played really good football, but the Raiders didn’t help themselves at all in this one with all the penalties. Kind of felt like a hangover sort of game where the Raiders put so much emotion and passion into their game against us. And they took us to the wire. I’ll give them credit. But they come out on the losing end. Then they go to New England and just didn’t really feel ready or prepared. So for me, it says a lot about the Patriots. The Patriots are going to, I think, right the ship here a little bit despite their struggles early on. But the Raiders, like Mitch said, kind of a crossroads moment for them. They feel a little bit ahead of schedule, It’s a team that no one really expected to be 3-0. Your expectations change when they start undefeated, but now we’re going to find out a lot about this team with their schedule coming up.

00:29:42
Speaker 4: We certainly are going to. All right, now let’s focus on a key AFC West matchup. I’m not sure I feel like I know anything more after watching Denver take on the LA Chargers. It was a game, if you like offense, wasn’t particularly fun to watch. I give the Chargers credit. They were up in the fourth quarter by a touchdown. Boy, were they bad in the fourth quarter, though. I mean, I guess you can give the credit to the Denver defense, but Justin Herbert at times looked lost. A terrible interception. He loses a ball with a fumble where it goes off one of his linemen’s foot. Denver survives. They win again with the late fourth quarter rally. But Bo Nix seems like he’s regressing. Let’s start this time with you, Matt. What was your takeaway from the Broncos winning against the Chargers in a game that, frankly, wasn’t that fun to watch?

00:30:29
Speaker 2: Just a total rock fight and not a rock fight in a good way. A rock fight where it looked like neither team really wanted to win. Just kind of ugly football on both sides. We’ll talk more about the chargers later when we preview our game against them, but just a quick thing on them. Like their whole injury situation is crazy. They had four rookies on their offensive line. They were the first team to start four rookies in a game since 2000. Uh, just nuts. The Broncos really early on didn’t take advantage of that though.

00:30:56
Speaker 3: And, uh, you’re right.

00:30:57
Speaker 2: The chargers had a chance here in this game, but like we’ll talk about later, a theme with the chargers this year is they just have really struggled to close out games, really struggled in the fourth quarter, uh, and just didn’t play well. Uh, Credit to the Broncos. Marvin Mims is a weapon. That guy, I would never kick to that guy. And his return might be the difference in the game.

00:31:17
Speaker 1: If you go to a baseball game and they’ll shoot hot dogs through the cannon out in the crowd, this was two teams with those two hot dog cannons shooting at each other with Nerf balls. It was like, what is this? And it boils down to the fourth down decision by Jim Harbaugh. a thousand things happened that game. It was all just kind of muddling back and forth. But the best thing that Chargers had in that game was their defense. Their defense has stayed intact in this 0-1-5 start. So why not pump the ball? You have four rookies on the offensive line. As we said, pump the ball and make Denver, who’s throwing five yard passes, make them go 80 yards to try to win the game. I mean, it was really maybe the biggest decision yet. I think in the NFL, well, there’s a bunch we can talk about, but, um, It just was a poorly calculated decision by Jim Harbaugh.

00:32:10
Speaker 4: Mitch, what was your takeaway from Sean Payton taking over play-calling duties? Did you notice anything specifically that you thought was either better or worse for the Denver offense with Sean back-calling the plays? No.

00:32:23
Speaker 1: It looked the same to me, quite honestly. And I don’t know what the over-under bet was. I don’t bet. We can’t bet. But people are into prop bets and side bets. The over-under, I think, was five quarters. before Davis Webb would lose the play calling duties, probably at the end of the Chiefs game, that’s four quarters. But it kind of looked the same. And Matt, in some ways, a little bit of a regression. But it’s kind of what they did all last year. There’s just this adverse feeling to throwing the ball over 10 yards. We’re going to throw bubbles and tunnels and try to get the running game going and throw a check down to a running back. And if it works and you win, I guess you keep doing it. But at some point, you’re going to have to go and throw the ball over 20 yards at some point to win a game.

00:33:07
Speaker 2: Ari, what I think I’ve noticed here with their offense, whether it be Mills or with Payton, is the Broncos don’t have an offensive identity at all. You don’t really know what this team wants to go out there and do on the onset. How do they want to set the tone I think they’re still kind of figuring that out. And when they came into the year, it’s like, all right, we’re going to air the ball out downfield now with Waddle. They haven’t really done that, like maybe here and there, but they haven’t really done it. They’re not running the ball super effectively. I just don’t really know what their identity is right now. And, you know, we’ll see these guys in a few weeks and maybe they’ll look different. But that’s kind of what they’re going through at the moment is I don’t think they even know what their offensive identity needs to be.

00:33:43
Speaker 3: All right.

00:33:44
Speaker 4: That’s a look back at last week at week five. Let’s now focus our attention on week six. We let off with the Raiders. Let’s go with the Raiders here. They’ve got the Bills who are staying out west after beating the Rams last night. Do they are staying out West? Whether or not you think that’s a smart decision, we can debate that. But Buffalo coming in clearly as a heavy favorite against the Raiders. Josh Allen last night, while the passing game didn’t look great for good big chunks of the game, his ability to run the football. I mean, he looked faster last night against the Rams than I ever remember being that fast. I mean, he ran away from Young on a scramble to his left and he left the guy who, you know, probably I think in a 40 time would beat him. But Josh Allen looked great. What formula can you come up with, Matt, where the Raiders can upset the Bills at home this week?

00:34:30
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, watching that game was so frustrating, the Rams and Bills game, because the Rams would seemingly kind of have it all covered, but then forget that Josh Allen can run up the middle for 35 yards and like every big third down. Like, are we forgetting that Josh Allen is the quarterback? It was driving me crazy. The NFC did the Chiefs no favors over the weekend and on Monday. Uh, the formula for the Raiders to try to beat the bills is that when the turnover battle. So the one thing that bills will do is they will turn the football over. I think we know that, uh, they’re going to probably turn the ball over in this game against the Raiders. The Raiders before the game against the Patriots were so good about protecting the football, uh, and really the game before us, uh, they led the NFL going into our game in week four and turnover margin and in takeaways, uh, If the Raiders can not turn the ball over themselves, force a bunch of takeaways, and make the Bills pay for it, they have a shot because the Bills’ defense can be moved on. Problem is the Raiders’ defense appears like they can be moved on as well. And then knowing how good this Bills’ offense is, it’s a tough task for the Raiders. But if they can win the turnover margin substantially, they have a chance.

00:35:37
Speaker 1: You have to dictate terms in this game if you’re the Raiders. And you’ve got to minimize the snaps for the Bills. The Bills do the opposite thing. They command time of possession. They like to have 10 play drives. And then if they need to get bailed out, Josh Allen bails them out. I don’t know how many times you can target Brock Bowers in a single game, but I’d put it up about 30 or 35 and I’d move him around. And the Bills look susceptible defensively in the secondary, right? That was a couple of great drives by Stafford to get him down the field. And Pukunukua is just a stud. But the Raiders can move the ball on the Bills, but they can’t. They’ve got to hang on to it, sustain drives, and then finish with sevens. If you make the Bills uncomfortable early, just watch the Patriots tape, then the Bills have to figure some other things out. But you’ve got to somehow take the Bills out of their comfort zone early if you’re the Raiders.

00:36:29
Speaker 4: And the Raiders, if they don’t come up with the upset, suddenly that 3-0 start, they’ll be 3-3, and you talked about the brutal schedule in front of them. Things have changed a lot for the Raiders in a short amount of time. The Thursday night game is also my game of the week, so we’ll double up right here. You’ve got the Seahawks visiting the Broncos. This is a fascinating matchup. You’ve got two teams that came into the season as Super Bowl contenders. You’ve got the defending Super Bowl champs. Sam Darnold hasn’t really looked right, particularly early in games. The Seahawks have turned it over a bunch. They look sloppy against the Niners. Denver right now I feel like is hanging on to be 3-2. They haven’t looked great. Here’s the thing that makes this game especially interesting to me. The winner, no big deal. They’re 4-2. They move on. Their season’s intact. The loser of the game, they’re both in divisions where the division leader is undefeated. So if you’re the Seahawks and you have three losses and the Niners are undefeated, that looks like a tall task. Same thing for the Broncos. If the Broncos lose, they have three losses. The Chiefs are undefeated. They’ve already lost directly to the Chiefs. That suddenly looks daunting. So I feel like it’s actually the loser of this game. It’s a bigger deal for them. But let’s get into the matchup. Let’s start with you, Mitch. What do you think about this blockbuster on Thursday night between the Seahawks and the Broncos?

00:37:42
Speaker 1: I can just hear John Schneider going, can we have K-9 back for just a couple weeks? It kind of feels like they’re missing Canine just a bit.

00:37:49
Speaker 3: And the answer is no.

00:37:50
Speaker 1: Thank you. We’ll keep him. This is a critical game for the Broncos. If you’re the Chiefs’ kingdom, then you’ve got to think this is a critical game for the Broncos to lose.

00:38:00
Speaker 5: Why?

00:38:01
Speaker 1: Everybody in the AFC West is going to go through these times. They will have already played San Francisco, the Rams, and Seattle. And the fact that the Broncos need to lose this game. So the Seahawks need to figure out a way to win it. If the Broncos win this game and they go to 4-2, they can go on a surge because the schedule here for all four AFC West teams is loaded up at certain points because we all cross-pollinate against the NFC West this year, the toughest division in football. So this is a critical game for the Broncos to lose. And the Seahawks can do it. Their defense is still really feisty. But offensively, man, JSN is everything to these guys right now.

00:38:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ari, my concern with the Seahawks, and we’ll see them in a couple weeks, is that they just run way too much of their offense through JSN and are way too reliant on him. And you look at their team last year, it makes a lot of sense where you have JSN who can do all these great things in the passing game. You also have Ken Walker and Charbonnet. Well, they don’t have Walker or Charbonnet right now. They just can’t run the football, and it puts a lot of pressure on that passing game. You kind of saw it in that Niners game where Darnold and JSN just couldn’t do it all against a really good opponent in the Niners. Like Mitch said, the Seahawks defense is still really good. If you look at advanced metrics like EPA, they’re the number two defense in the NFL right now. So they’re going to give the Broncos a lot of problems, hopefully. But the question is, can the offense do enough against the Broncos defense? And I think they can just a matter of going out there and doing it. Thursday games are always kind of weird, but we’ll see if Jason can make some big plays against the Broncos on Thursday.

00:39:45
Speaker 1: In Ari, I try not to be myopic, but what I see in this game is that Seattle will go from a Thursday to a Sunday night to get ready for us to play us at home. So we still need them to win this game, but they’re going to get extra days to prepare for us after the game the Chiefs have against the Chargers.

00:40:03
Speaker 4: Well, speaking of that game, that’s next for us. The Chargers pay a visit to Arrowhead to take on the Chiefs. The Chiefs coming off the bye week. Andy Reid, one of the all-time great coaches, coming off the bye week, 22-5 in his legendary career. The Chargers, look, I will give them credit. They’re playing hard, and the defense is keeping them in game. But at some point, the belief that you can turn your season around has to come more and more into question, right? I mean, you’re 0-5, and now you’ve got to go to Arrowhead playing a team that’s 4-0, that offensively looks incredible with great balance, and two MVP candidates, in my estimation, with Mahomes and Kenneth Walker. So take me through the mindset of your Jim Harbaugh getting your guys ready for this week. This is a daunting task to go to Arrowhead. Mitch, let’s start with you. Jim Harbaugh has been a great motivator, right? He’s won everywhere he’s been. This is a very unique situation he’s dealing with. How does he get the Chargers’ minds right to come into Arrowhead and compete this weekend?

00:41:03
Speaker 1: Do we still have the images or reels there of the parade in July for the Chargers winning the whole thing? Or the Chargers playing the Rams in SoFi for Super Bowl 61, which is what everybody wanted, I think, in New York. They’re like, oh my God, what a great marketing opportunity. That’s where I’ll start. You get me snarky on these segments. I’m never like this. I like it. I am now. That’s what you do to me, Ari. You put me in these spots. He’s never lost nine games in a row, ever. I don’t think going back to his college days. He’s done a lot of coaching in a lot of places, including USD on the West Coach for the Toreros. But he’s never lost nine games in a row. If Jim Harbaugh loses this game against the Chiefs, that is nine losses in a row wrapped around to last year. Remember what Matt was talking about in a stat that he and I both look at, and that is the hidden yards. The fact that it’s not just the sacks you take, how many yards do you lose? It’s not just the penalties that you have, how many numbers of penalties, how many yards do you lose? The Chargers now have taken the crown away from the old Raiders. If you look at the first five games of the year, they are close to hidden yardage worth 500 yards. yards. That equates to them being down seven points every time they play a game. They’re hemorrhaging turnovers, they’re losing yards on sacks, and they’re wasting a team defensively where the numbers have held up even though they’re 0-5. This Chargers defense is for real. They’re feisty, they take the ball away, but they’ve got to be looking at the offense going, really? We lose to the Broncos because you made us defend a 40-yard touchdown drive and a 41-yard touchdown drive. What do you guys want us to do? The Chargers are still legit on the defensive side right now.

00:42:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ari, just a lot to talk about here.

00:42:57
Speaker 2: Like Mitch was getting into, I think the Chargers have given themselves no chances to win these games, right? Just by the way that they’ve been playing in terms of negative yards and mistakes. Offensively, they lead the NFL in turnovers. And it’s not like it’s a bunch of interceptions or a bunch of fumbles.

00:43:14
Speaker 3: It’s both.

00:43:14
Speaker 2: They lead the NFL in lost fumbles and in interceptions. Herbert’s been sacked 17 times. Only Deshaun Watson has been sacked more times than Herbert. He’s also been pressured the third most of any quarterback in the NFL this year. Now, there are some positives with them. I mean, they can run the ball a little bit between Hampton, Vidal, and Keith Mitchell. We saw Vidal with a big play last week. So they can run the football. And for the Chiefs in this game, I think it’s a matter of making sure they don’t build confidence doing that because the Chargers are reaching a point where they don’t have a whole lot to lose. So I think for the Chiefs, got to make sure we shut down the running game for them. And the Chiefs have been pretty good overall against the run, a top 10 run defense this year. Then on the other side, the pass rush that Mitch was talking about, they still have good players on their pass rush. Guys like Tui Pelotu, Khalil Mack, Akeem Mesidor, a rookie out of Miami, is a good player. We can’t become one-dimensional ourselves. So it’s a matter of just going out there. It’s kind of rinse and repeat on DTK this year. But go out there with this balanced attack that we’ve shown, which the Chiefs are a top 10 unit, both passing and rushing this year. Go out there with a balanced attack that uses a play action. Don’t let the pass rush pin their ears back and get after Mahomes. Protect in this game. Let’s build a lead early on and then protect it. Because we’ve seen this year with the Chargers, in the fourth quarter, they have scored the fewest points. They have committed the most turnovers, allowed the most sacks, and committed the most penalties of any team in the NFL. That’s not winning football. The Chiefs, contrary to last year, have been really good about closing out games. I think we’re third best in the NFL right now in terms of scoring margin in the fourth quarter. The Chargers are dead last. But that doesn’t really matter in a divisional game. Can’t let those things get wonky. Let’s make sure those trends go the right way and keep going that way here in this game. Let’s close these guys out and get to 5-0.

00:44:59
Speaker 4: And just importantly, and Mitch mentioned this earlier, with what the Chiefs schedule looks like down the road, we just got to stack wins, right? Just win after win. It doesn’t really even matter how you do it. You got to stack the wins at this time of year because that NFC West gauntlet will still be there. There’s still some tough games ahead. This seems like a game that they should be able to take care of. But I agree with you. It’s a desperate team in the Chargers and it’s a division game. So who knows? Anything could happen.

00:45:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, one quick thing, Ari. Sorry, but we have to make sure we get to the quarterback in this game. Because it’s one thing to talk about all the sacks that opponents have had on Herbert. If we’re being honest, we haven’t had a sack in three weeks. Now, we got a lot of pressure on Cousins in that Raiders game. A lot of pressure. Karloftis had 11 pressures. R. Mason Thomas had five pressures. And even some other people like True Media gave him eight pressures in that game. A lot of pressure, but we didn’t get the quarterback to the ground. If you’re looking for a way that things get weirder for the Chiefs in this game, it’s if Herbert is escaping pressure consistently consistently. and making big plays happen with his legs. He’s heard us that way before and can’t let that happen here in this game.

00:45:59
Speaker 4: I’m with you.

00:46:00
Speaker 1: I’m with you.

00:46:01
Speaker 3: All right.

00:46:01
Speaker 4: Now to the Monday night game, we kind of touched on already, but I can’t believe the Rams are two and three because they basically already gave them the Lombardi trophy before the season started, right? It was like the Rams are this super team. You know, Sean McVay has a blind spot. It actually reminds me of the Mike McCarthy teams in Green Bay when Aaron Rodgers was in his heyday. They would lose in the playoffs every year because of some special teams thing. At this point, Sean McVay has had a brilliant run, but the special teams part for the Rams continues to be a miss. It happened again last night. It seems surprising. He comes across as incredibly bright. He’s got the incredible memory. He can remember plays for whatever. He hasn’t been able to figure out the special teams part of it. Mitch, it seems perplexing to me. You’ve been around watching this sport longer than I have. I just don’t get that the Rams can be so good but so bad on special teams year after year. What’s your take on that?

00:46:53
Speaker 1: It’s a matter of making it a priority. And it was so good to see the Chiefs get a dynamic special teams play in the Raiders game with the forced fumble by Jeffrey Bosa and the recovery by Jack Cochran. We’ve gone… next to last in the longest time since we’ve had a punt or kick return for a touchdown or a special team score, but you get an explosive play like that, but you have to be solid. And it’s a matter of, uh, prioritizing it in the off season, not just in personnel and the way you put your roster together, but also in the time that you work on it, situational, uh, special teams work. We’ve even been caught twice covering up the long snapper. It’s an NFL rule. It’s a, It’s a problem. You’ve got to cover those things. And I just don’t know if the Rams prioritize it. And if they do, it certainly doesn’t look like it. Now, in that game, I will add, though, the Bills, just like the Broncos did against the Chargers, won a game they should not have won. And the Bills win this game they should not have won. Even their sideline demeanor was, oh, I’m going to go kick my dog. And, you know, that’s not your gum that you dropped out of your mouth, is it? Because their chins are down. And then they come back and win the game. But that’s how you win divisions and that’s how you get one seats is when you win a game where you had the small probability of winning. The Bills just got one and the Broncos just got one. And you can argue right now those are the two biggest villains for the Chiefs kingdom.

00:48:22
Speaker 2: You know, Ari, I saw some people on Twitter after the game. saying, hey, that was great. Maybe we’ll see these two teams in the stadium in February for the Super Bowl. And my thought is the Rams need to get to the playoffs before we’re talking about Super Bowl. I think the Rams will make the playoffs, but I think winning their division at this point kind of feels out of the question, right? If the Niners keep going the way that they’re going, it’s kind of ridiculous right now to be talking about the Rams as like a shoe-in for the Super Bowl. Like they need to get back having a winning record. So we’ll see. The Rams have some issues. And one thing that I noticed in that game and really across the NFL lately is that I think is way too prevalent, is teams setting up for a game-winning 55-yard field goal and being content with that. The Rams are moving the ball right down the field after that fumble, and then it seemed like they were just content with a 50-yard field goal. How about let’s make it a little bit easier for your young kicker, and if you know your special teams aren’t very good, why are you just kind of banking on this, you know, 50 yard field goal?

00:49:17
Speaker 3: Really strange.

00:49:18
Speaker 2: I know kickers in the NFL are really good now, but you notice it too when you’re watching the broadcasts, like oftentimes the broadcasters will be like, oh, well within his range.

00:49:27
Speaker 3: I don’t know.

00:49:27
Speaker 2: It’s a 55 yard field goal. It’s still pretty difficult in the NFL. So that’s part of the issue as well as just not knowing that, hey, maybe setting up and being content and going conservative for a 48, 49-yard field goal to win the game maybe isn’t the best move. 10 yards can help you out a lot in that situation.

00:49:45
Speaker 4: I agree with you. All right, guys, in terms of the craziest thing I saw last week, there was a lot to choose from. We started this segment, what were they thinking? You can talk about the Eagles and the Jaguars. We just talked about the Rams and the Bills, but I want to focus on the Giants and the Redskins. What in the world was happening at the end of that game? Look, Kim Scadamore felt terrible. He fumbles the football. He literally looks like, you know, he’s like almost in tears on the sideline thinking, I’ve lost this thing for the team. Washington goes down. They’re in field goal range. There’s 12 seconds left. They run a play, a running play that looked like Daniels had no idea what he was thinking. And they don’t have enough time to run another play to get the kickoff. I mean, this is the National Football League. These guys are getting paid millions and millions of dollars. What is going on there? How does Dan Quinn keep his job? Isn’t that like a fireball offense in like the parking lot after the game? So to me, the craziest thing I saw was both the Giants fumbling away a chance to win and then Washington not even getting a field goal off with a chance to win. It ends in a tie. It was bizarre. So that to me was the craziest thing I saw. But gentlemen, there was plenty to choose from.

00:50:55
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, the Giants were celebrating like they won the Super Bowl by getting the tie to see them jump around was like just hide the game. Now, in that division, a tie may help you. OK, because who’s going to win that division right now?

00:51:09
Speaker 5: The.

00:51:11
Speaker 1: It’s like, do you guys work on the two-minute offense ever during maybe OTAs or mini camps? Oh, we’re not going to go to those because the agent said, you don’t have to go to those. We’ll work on two-minute drill and play Madden in the basement. That’s where we’ll work on it. Or camp. Are you working on the two-minute? Ari, do you know how much we work on the two-minute offense? And we do it in May. And we do it in June. And we do it a whole lot in August. It’s… And the other part of this is guys play the game, but how many guys really study the game in addition to what they’re taught? Who watches ball? Who really watches ball at all levels and all games to go, here’s what you do in this situation? It’s kind of sad when Joe Armchair guy can sit there and go, hey, here’s what you do. And the guy’s on the field with 25 coaches and you’ve got a microphone or you’ve got a– communication to the quarterback, and that happens. It honestly was really bizarre and super disappointing that it happens in the NFL. It should not happen. But love the game, study the game, know the game, even play Madden. You’ll get some of that in Madden.

00:52:24
Speaker 3: Spike the ball.

00:52:25
Speaker 1: You can spike the ball in Madden. Kick a field goal and win it.

00:52:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ari, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around that ending. I can’t figure it out because it truly makes no sense. So they run a play with 55 seconds. They don’t snap the ball again until there were 12 seconds left and then let the clock run out. So there’s a few things here. First of all, there’s no benefit in running the clock down to one and kicking the field goal. There’s no reason. You could kick the field goal with a minute left, with five minutes left. It doesn’t matter. At that point, they would have won the game by scoring.

00:52:56
Speaker 3: It does not matter.

00:52:57
Speaker 2: So I don’t understand why they felt the need to use the entire clock. Also, that play right before the clock ran out, they had guys running routes to the end zone.

00:53:08
Speaker 3: You don’t need a touchdown.

00:53:09
Speaker 2: And I’m not trying to be a hypocrite based on what I just said, but I think the field goal would have been 43 yards. 43 yards seems pretty doable in the NFL, particularly if there’s 10 seconds left.

00:53:18
Speaker 3: So I just, I have no idea.

00:53:21
Speaker 2: And in post game, the players and coaches were all saying like, yeah, we got to communicate better. We know what was the reasoning behind it. Like it doesn’t make any sense. I, I truly don’t get it. Um, one other crazy ending though, is that Jags Eagles ending that game was nuts. I think maybe the best London game ever.

00:53:37
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:53:38
Speaker 2: Uh, of course we left that one disappointed. I wanted the, uh, the Jags to lose that game. I don’t hate seeing the Eagles lose though. There’s kind of a win-win for me. Um, but I think for Sirianni and he’s talked about this, you got to kick that ball out of the end zone, right? I know it can go both ways. I can see both sides of it. And there’s been a lot of discussion about like comparing it to our 13 seconds game. The difference with our 13 seconds game is we had two timeouts. The Jags didn’t have any timeouts. Kick that ball through the end zone. They’re at the 35 yard line. They basically have to have a prayer toward the sideline. all in eight seconds to set up a field goal, it’s probably not going to happen. So to me, the Eagles gave that game away at the end.

00:54:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, you only needed a backup long snapper, who’s the defensive lineman. He’s already gaffed like two snaps. To have a high snap, pull down, that holder did a great job to nail a 57-yarder. And going back to the Commander-Giant game, the only thing that would have made that better was a bad snap over Daniel’s head that would go all the way back like 70 yards to And the Giants would win by the safety as he kicked the ball out of the end zone going the other way as time expired. I mean, it was, the league needs to tighten some stuff up.

00:54:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty brutal.

00:54:45
Speaker 4: All right, let’s get to our parting thoughts for this week. And Mitch, let’s start with you.

00:54:50
Speaker 1: It’s just that the schedule and what it means, all of these, where you look at it, you’ve already said it. Why you’ve got it, our theme of defending the kingdom this week is what you’ve said. You talked about stacking them up. We’re talking about making deposits. You’ve got to win when you get the chance. If you’re the Bills or Broncos, you just got wins you should have lost. So deposit these wins and get off as much as you can and get as much equity as you can. Because, man, some of these schedules get really rough, including ours, in the weeks ahead.

00:55:21
Speaker 2: Ari, my parting thought, you know, we’ve been talking about all this very serious football stuff, more about a lighthearted, selfish thing for me. It’s going to be 65 degrees at Arrowhead on Sunday. And we’ve been dealing with a lot of hot summer weather. Nothing against summer weather. And you’re in California. It’s nice all the time. I like a nice, crisp fall day. You know, it feels like real football kind of weather. And the last several days, like last weekend, it was like 90 degrees here in Kansas City.

00:55:46
Speaker 3: What are we doing? It’s October.

00:55:48
Speaker 2: It’s mid-October. It’s 90 degrees. So I’m ready for a nice 65-degree day at Arrowhead. Wear a hoodie, you know, and see the Chiefs go out there and get a win.

00:55:55
Speaker 4: All right, here’s my parting thought, and it’s a bit of a rant, gentlemen. In last week’s Thursday night game, Tampa’s up by two scores on Dallas. Dallas scores, and they immediately decide to go for two because the analytics tells them if they get the two here, they could then score and then win with an extra point. Call me a dinosaur. I can’t take it. I just don’t understand. I was taught in the summer of 1998 by an arena football league coach named Mike Daly. He said, never chase the points. Don’t ever chase the points until you have to. I just don’t understand the new age analytics because had they just gone for the extra point, your team’s only down seven. Then if you score again, you want to go for two in the win.

00:56:32
Speaker 3: Hallelujah.

00:56:33
Speaker 4: But I don’t understand the going for two on the first one, because if you don’t get it, it’s a buzzkill in your comeback. So I realize that I sound like a dated dinosaur, but if you’re me and you’re down two scores and you score that first touchdown, please just get the extra point. All right, that’s going to do it. That’s my parting thought for this week’s Out West. Gentlemen, always a pleasure. And let’s see the Chiefs go kick some butt on Sunday against the Chargers.

00:56:57
Speaker 1: Well, they’re getting, and I don’t know how Ari gets me in that spot, but I just start to like ooze it all out. I love it. It was a nutty week, crazy week, but it makes me appreciate how much we go over things with our team. We have long, hard practices. Oh, OTAs look like minicamp, or minicamps look like training camp, but there’s a reason for it. Okay. Danger and the Charger game. Let’s give the Chargers credit. Their defenses stayed held up, even at 0-5. And sometimes defenses can just wilt under the pressure or get like, come on, don’t give them the ball at the 40 and I got to defend a short field. I’ll give you one here. Last year, they had 19 interceptions with a defense that was feisty and nasty. This year, they have eight forced fumbles and four of those have been recovered. But Matt, eight of those forced fumbles have come from six different players. Tui Tui Pelotu is a stud. We know what Khalil Mack can do. But you and I both talked about Akeem Mesidor. People are talking about Bane on the Miami of Florida team. We’re like, wait a minute. What about the 49-year-old Akeem Mesidor, who is a 25-year-old rookie? But the point is, the dude’s balling out. And these guys will poke it out. The danger is they will force fumbles and get aggressive. They even have some interceptions. Hey, Hezekiah Mass has had three of them. We’ve got a dude named Genesis. who’s got two interceptions for these guys, all these biblical names. But the point is, the danger for the Chargers, in my opinion, is their ability to rip the ball out.

00:58:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the danger here is you just can’t go in there and expect to win and just play surface level and get out of there with a victory, right? You have to go in there and play Chiefs football. A lot of the Chargers’ issues this year have come from mistakes and shooting themselves in the foot, and you have to create those problems. So like we talked about with Ari, they’ve turned the ball over more than anybody this year, allowed the second most sacks of any team, a ton of negative plays. Well, you have to create those things and we can’t just rely on them happening. So for me, the danger in this game is if we can’t get home with the pass rush, like I talked about with Ari and Herbert breaks free for a big run and moves the chains, they convert in the red zone, they run the ball effectively because they can run the ball. We have to come ready to play on defense against these guys. And offensively, we have to protect and use a balanced attack to make sure they can’t pin their ears back and get after Mahomes. So the Chargers have not played good football this year. Really, any metric you look at, it tells you why. A lot of penalties, sacks, turnovers, negative plays, all that stuff. But we have to be ready to play against them because divisional games are weird. We’ve played the Chargers a lot over the years, obviously twice a year. We’ve played them 16 times since 2018. Well, I believe, I think 10 of those games were decided by a single score.

00:59:39
Speaker 3: Might be more than that, actually.

00:59:41
Speaker 2: So it’s probably going to be close. Can we close out in the fourth quarter? Can we make the plays we have to make in the fourth quarter? We’ve done that so far this year. Got to make sure we just do it again here in this game.

00:59:51
Speaker 1: There’s still some crazy mojo with this team, though, and the fact that even Dicker, the kicker, has missed two field goals. And one of those is from 40-yard range. And J.K. Scott is the only guy this year to have a pump blocked. The only guy. And Arizona did that to him in week one. So anyway, but there’s danger with them ripping the ball out.

01:00:11
Speaker 2: Do you ever go back and look at old college teams to see how loaded they were? I went back and looked at Bama when they had all the running backs, all the receivers. a couple of really good quarterbacks, great linebackers, and then J.K. Scott was their punter. It’s like even their punter was an NFL player. I always think about that whenever I see J.K.

01:00:28
Speaker 1: Scott. Yeah, check the 01 Miami Hurricanes. You want to go back. That’s still the best team of all time. Okay. One of the things about going on the road is Matt gets to watch movies. And so this is– You know, something’s really cool. And the kingdom wants to know. Do they? What do you think? The latest trip going to the Raiders. That’s kind of a two movie feel to it.

01:00:50
Speaker 2: So I watched Terminator 2 Judgment Day, the second half on the way back out to Vegas, which I saw someone in the comments send some respect to Terminator 2 Judgment Day. It’s a great movie. You have to watch it. The fact that they made that.

01:01:02
Speaker 1: I have to watch it.

01:01:03
Speaker 2: Yes, you have to watch it. In the early 90s, it looks better than a lot of movies today. It’s incredible. Terminator 2 Judgment Day is a five cheeseburger movie. On the way back, I could have taken a nap, could have just played on my phone. I said, no, I have to watch a movie for the movie review. And I think I watched the perfect movie for this segment because I talked about how I’m a little bit too nice, right? This movie does not deserve generosity. I watched Jack Ryan, Ghost War. I like Jack Ryan. I like John Krasinski. I liked the first season of Jack Ryan on Amazon. The movie’s not good. The movie feels like a knockoff version of other good movies. I give Jack Ryan Ghost War a cheeseburger and a half. It wasn’t very good.

01:01:46
Speaker 1: And the public saying gives it a 38. So it’s right there with you. They hate this movie.

01:01:53
Speaker 3: It’s just not very good.

01:01:54
Speaker 2: It’s one of those where it’s like fine, but 30 minutes in, you’re kind of dozing off, not paying attention.

01:01:59
Speaker 1: Does Tom Clancy get a chance to go, don’t ruin my book? by a bad movie. Because Jack Ryan’s now like James Bond. Do you realize that?

01:02:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, just over and over.

01:02:08
Speaker 1: Who’s playing Jack Ryan? Because to me, that’s a little bit of a key.

01:02:13
Speaker 3: Well, and I like Krasinski. He’s a good actor.

01:02:15
Speaker 2: And he was good in the show, at least for the first season, maybe the second season. But the movie’s not very good. I’ll raise you this, though. We had the bye week. So I had a chance to watch way more stuff. And I watched a great movie on a Wednesday that I saw in theaters when it first came out in like 2003.

01:02:31
Speaker 3: Master and Commander.

01:02:32
Speaker 1: Oh, that’s so good.

01:02:33
Speaker 3: You ever seen that?

01:02:34
Speaker 1: No, that is good.

01:02:35
Speaker 2: That’s a really good movie. Like the dialogue, the action’s great. But to me, the beauty of that movie is all the stuff that happens in between the big set pieces. Like when they’re just like sitting around eating dinner with the crew and like Russell Crowe is so good. And I don’t know, that movie was great. That gets four and a half cheeseburgers for me. I watched the Saban doc as well. Have you watched that yet?

01:02:55
Speaker 1: No. Okay.

01:02:56
Speaker 2: The Saban doc is worth watching. I see Dane off camera right now, our producer, giving me a thumbs up.

01:03:01
Speaker 1: He agrees.

01:03:02
Speaker 2: So it was made by the same people that did our Kingdom documentary, Words and Pictures. Clearly very good at what they do. I didn’t have a lot of interest in the Saban doc initially. It was just on TV, the first episode was. And I think Ellie was getting ready, so I couldn’t commit to something fully. And I was like, I’ll just put this on. And I was enthralled by it. I couldn’t turn it off. And the next day, I watched two more episodes. I still need to finish it up. But I think you’d find it fascinating.

01:03:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will at some time. I just got to get fired.

01:03:28
Speaker 2: He’s not in a cheesy blue suit doing an athletic commercial. So here’s the thing is he, I think that’s the fear going into it. He’s very genuine and honest and forthcoming. And one thing that stood out to me that I would have never guessed is basically before every new stop. So when he left Michigan State for LSU, when he left for the Dolphins, and particularly when he left the Dolphins for Bama, you kind of think he knows what he’s doing, right? He talked about how he was full of regret and The LSU job, he called his wife and said, I don’t want to do this.

01:03:59
Speaker 3: I’m going to leave.

01:03:59
Speaker 2: And she was like, get in there for your press conference right now. I just thought it was really interesting to see these larger than life individuals like Nick Saban have struggles and have regret, self-doubt. Because you don’t think about those things with him. So anyway, it was really good.

01:04:15
Speaker 3: We should check it out.

01:04:15
Speaker 1: Is there a scene in there where he’s at Mobile Bay signing his contract to go to Alabama? Because this year… I took Tammy to Mobile Bay. It’s actually kind of cool. Yeah. Right? So there’s a place called Frank’s Crab Shack or whatever. Great seafood. It’s obvious, right? And the guy goes, here’s where Nick Saban signed his contract. Go to Alabama right here in this chair. Is it in there?

01:04:35
Speaker 3: It might be. I don’t know. Maybe I haven’t gotten that far.

01:04:37
Speaker 1: Maybe you’ll want to watch it just to see it.

01:04:39
Speaker 3: But it’s good stuff.

01:04:39
Speaker 1: So ask me what I watched. Yeah.

01:04:41
Speaker 3: What’d you watch?

01:04:41
Speaker 1: Dutton Ranch.

01:04:42
Speaker 3: Of course you did. And how many cheeseburgers for Dutton Ranch? About 3.92.

01:04:45
Speaker 4: Okay.

01:04:46
Speaker 3: All right.

01:04:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:04:50
Speaker 1: Acting’s a little bit, but the writing’s pretty good. But I just want to go back sometime in my life and just start at 1883 and just let it rip for years all the way to Dutton Ranch.

01:05:00
Speaker 3: You have some time before you can do that.

01:05:02
Speaker 1: You can ask me next time and the answer will be Dutton Ranch. I love it. But I really am going to file a protest because I spaced out. I knew we got all these road games coming up. Landman. And I saved it. I was going to save it. I’m going to save Landman for, I don’t know, the Raiders trip or the Seahawks trip, or I don’t know, the Broncos trip. No Landman. Brutal. So thanks. I’m stuck with Dutton Ranch.

01:05:27
Speaker 3: Don’t you love how the Rams middle linebacker is Landman?

01:05:29
Speaker 1: Landman. Yeah. He poked the ball out on the nice play, but he might want to tackle somebody else during the night. That’s okay. It’s another matter. But yes, he’s Landman. I love it. Yeah. Okay. Around the world. We’re going to close things out here finally.

01:05:42
Speaker 2: I got two for you today for Taequann Thornton, who hopefully we’ll see later this year. So shout out to Josh and Shiloh in Kenya, Africa.

01:05:51
Speaker 3: How about that?

01:05:52
Speaker 2: I don’t know if we’ve heard from Kenya before. So shout out to you, Josh and Shiloh. And this is a really fun one. So shout out to Brian, a Marine veteran in Kathmandu, Nepal. So it’s his eighth season abroad. He has stops in Papua New Guinea, Hanoi, Vietnam, Stuttgart, Go Surge, Tokyo, and now Kathmandu. No matter where he is or what time it is, he’s always representing the Chiefs and locking into the Chiefs game. So he sent me a huge email that was honestly made my day. Some great stuff in there. Losing his Chiefs hat in the South China Sea, talking Chiefs football with people all over the world that might not know what it is otherwise. It’s a really cool guy. So shout out to you, Brian. Thanks for your message.

01:06:30
Speaker 1: And we’ve had a tradition now where people go to home games and stay over to go to the Kingdom Show. Yeah. And after the Colts game, I guess we’re going to bring this up, but Honduras.

01:06:38
Speaker 3: Honduras, how about that?

01:06:39
Speaker 1: They’re from Honduras. So they go like, hey, we just, they would hang out, stay for the show.

01:06:43
Speaker 3: I love it.

01:06:44
Speaker 1: I know, it’s crazy. That’s awesome. Around the world, the Chiefs kingdom continues to thrive. But wherever you are around the world or anywhere close to Arrowhead Stadium, make sure you get everything in the backpack. Just like Matt was able to scale Mount Rainier, we have got 13 tough weeks ahead, folks. So lock your jaw, lace them up, and start the climb this week against the Chargers. Thank you.