So the Chiefs game was blacked out in KC for the first time in 19 years.  Among other things, this led to the presence of two geniuses at the bar who thought the game would be on there by virtue of “the Cleveland feed”.  This also led to the asked and answered question series “So is there anywhere in KC showing the game?”  ”Arrowhead.  I hear they’re showing it out there today.”  And that’s about the best thing I can say about the game.

I wasn’t at Arrowhead, so I didn’t see the game, but thanks the score a minute pace and the magic of the NFL’s redzone channel, we actually caught a fair amount of it.  Jamaal Charles had another nice day.. and put a couple of more balls on the ground.  Charles can run the ball, but with all the fumbling issues, a good team doesn’t give him more than change of pace work.  Since we’re not a good team, that isn’t an issue for us.

There was a fair amount of talk about Cassel’s good day and all the dropped passes.  I have two things to say about this.  One, congratulations, but I wouldn’t put too much value on performing well vs. Cleveland.  It’s kind of like doing well vs. KC - see Jerome Harrison and Miles Austin for examples.  Two, a lot of Cassels “drops” are bad passes the reciever made a great play to get his hands on (some of them aren’t, in all fairness, the Chiefs’ receivers are terrible), but this budding narrative about Cassel being held back by his team is crap.  Tyler Thigpen did better last year with largely the same group, who also had drop issues.  Maybe we’ll be treated to an Elvis Grbac “I can’t throw it and catch it” type moment in a press conference soon.  I’m also starting to wonder if maybe Cassel’s throws have some sort of weird spin on them, because I’ve seen a ton of dropped interceptions from him this year.  Like the one that somehow turned into a 23-yard Dwayne Bowe catch.

And now on to the highlights.

1) The team cannot tackle.  You’ve got to put your body on the runner.  Half of all tackles are just getting the runners way enough that they lose their balance and fall down.  The more, and the harder you touch them, the better this works.  Arm tackles and shoves often are not enough to cut it.  Unfortunately thats all the team was packing today.

2)  Cassel looked terrible.  In pretty much every sinlge highlight play he was throwing a bad pass, getting sacked, or yelling at someone.  Since he threw for 331 and 2 TDs no picks, that obviously wasn’t the case all day long, but from the limited bits we had to view, this had to be one fo the most unproductive high QB rating days ever.

3) Haley looks like some kind of deranged fan on meth that managed to sneak onto the sideline.  Seriously.  The guy just runs around and jumps and yells and cusses.  And thats it.  I’ve got no idea what’s going on in his head, but its gotta be wacky in there.  Dude looks like he’s about to have a stress related stroke or something, and not in a good way.

I’m still in favor of canning both the coach and the GM after the season, but honestly, until Clark decides to let the team spend up to the cap limit (we’ve been between $30 - $50 million under the last few years, maybe CH is saving up to try and corner the Silver market again?) it won’t make a huge difference.  Allard Baird pretty definitevely proved that it doesn’t matter if you’re good, bad ownership will wreck your time as the face of a franchise.

Tags: bad football, browns, chiefs, jerome harrison, nfl blackout