Jason Wright (30:17)
Could not have been more shocked watching a game than I was watching that one because I. The Chiefs are healthy for the most part. I know they don't have Pacheco. The Chiefs right now are a healthier than average NFL team for this point this season. They were off a buy. They had full motivation, a lot of familiarity with that opponent and Patrick was off and the defense could not get a stop when it mattered. And so. On the offensive side of things, first, second play of the game, you have Xavier worthy open for six. Yeah, it's a tough throw because it's 60 yards in the air, but those are the throws that in, you know, partly made. Patrick Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes, he missed him. That would have been a chance to just basically set the tone for the game, immediately miss that opportunity. Obviously, you know, they had a sequence right before the Patrick interception and this, this might have been the single biggest swing of the gang. Patrick throws a little swing pass to Kareem Hunt, he gets down to the two yard line, they're going to have first and goal from the two. Jawan Taylor, illegal formation lined up too far back. Instead of first and goal from the two, it becomes first and 15. Two plays later, Patrick makes a terrible throw. And instead of at least being without the penalty, it's probably going to be 13 to 6. With the penalty, it still should be at least 9 to 6. Throws a pick, Denver drives down and scores. Despite all that, Kansas City fights back, scores a couple touchdowns, takes a lead, has the ball in the fourth quarter with a lead, go down, score touchdown, game over, three and out, then gets the ball back. Tie game, four minutes, perfect. Not going to cover the three and a half, but still drive down the field, kick a field goal, win the game. Three and out. And then on the defensive side of the ball, first drive of the game, first play, sack, have them in second and 16, which turns into third and seven. Give it up. Later in that drive, have them in third and 11 outside of field goal range, give it up. And on the final drive of the game after those two offensive three and outs, you instantly have Bo Nixon third and 15 and you can't get a pass rush and you give up a 20 yard completion. Three plays later, it's third and six, still not in field goal range and you give up a seven yard completion. Denver made the high leverage plays, Kansas City did not. And Denver now is a stranglehold on the division. And I can think what I want and still think about Bo Nix and his long term viability as a franchise quarterback. But the fact of the matter is on Sunday he played, in my opinion, the best game of his career. In the second biggest game of his career. The only game that would have been bigger is the playoff game. And he was excellent, excellent. Might be strong. He was, he was good. Certainly more than good enough. And Denver now has a buy. And then back to back soft games at the Commanders, at the Raiders, and then a very tough final month of the season. But they should go into that month 11 and 2, then Packers Jags at the Chiefs, home for the Chargers. So tough month, but three of the four games are at home. The one road game is Christmas night at the Chiefs. And so Denver right now is the one seed. I would not my money would be on Denver finishing as the two right now. If I had to, if I had to handicap it, I would say New England 1, Denver 2, Indy 3. But Denver deserves credit. And Sean Payton talked shit at halftime to Tracy Wolfson and backed it up, said, I like where we are. They're a first half team, we're tight. I thought it was outrageous what he said. He backed it all up. What's so what's interesting is. Internally the Chiefs still feel like this team can be and should be better than last year's team with the offensive line being that much, so much better and the wide receiving core being healthy. And maybe it can be, but they are butting up against that potentially not mattering. And here's what I mean, They're five and five. Obviously if they go seven and oh, they're a lock for the playoffs. And at seven and oh, they actually would have a chance to come all the way back and win the division. But it would be and even though they're favored in every game remaining, given the fact that they're five and five, just sitting here saying they're going to rip off seven straight would be overly optimistic even for me. But seven and oh definitely gets them in six and one, which would put them at 11 and six almost assuredly gets them in, but five and two probably does not. And that is the thing that I think if we're going to have an honest conversation about where the Chiefs are, What has to be acknowledged is they probably only have one more loss to play with, barring a true collapse by the Jags or the Chargers. And that's the, that's the anxiety inducing part because I listen, I yes, of course you'd rather win the division, you'd rather be the one seed. You'd rather all these things. But as the Chiefs proved a couple years ago, they can go on the road in the playoffs against a gauntlet, a far tougher AFC that year than what potentially exists this year and win playoff games in Buffalo, in Baltimore, they can do that. So being even the 7 seed in the AFC this year wouldn't be devastating. Like if I'm right about how the bracket falls, if you're the 7 seed, what you're staring at is a rematch of that game we just saw this past weekend In Denver, third time playing each other and then a trip to New England. Again, you don't love any of those spots but historically the 7 seed in the AFC, what it would mean is they are going to Buffalo and then either to Baltimore or to Kansas City against those MVP quarterbacks. This is a little different. So as the seven seed I actually wouldn't hate the path if the bracket holds the way I, you know, it likely should. The, The concern is if the Chiefs just after starting 5 and 5 just go 5 and 2 the rest of the way and it puts them at 10 and 7, will that will because of tiebreakers, they miss out because here is what is noteworthy right now. The Chiefs have lost head to head to Jacksonville. They also have four conference losses already. They have lost head to head to the Chargers. They will get the Chargers again obviously. But the Chiefs are one and two in the division. The Chargers are three and oh in the division. The Chiefs have two AFC losses. I'm sorry, four AFC losses. The Chargers have two. So it is going to be very difficult for the Chiefs to make it in over the Jags. Well, impossible over the Jags if they have the same record and very difficult for them to make it in over the Chargers if they have the same record. So then again you start counting wins and the Jags, this is what they have left at the Cardinals, at the Titans home, Colts home, jets, at Broncos, at Colts home, Titans. So if we just say and again the Jags are known to blow a game or two, I understand that. But if we just give them the wins against the Titans and the jets that puts them at nine. They would then just need one win against Cardinals, Broncos and two Colts games to get to 10. And again a 10 win Jags team gets a spot over a 10 win Chiefs team. The Chargers are sitting at seven wins. They play the Raiders, they're on a buy. Then they play the Raiders, then home for the Eagles, then at the Chiefs, at the Cowboys, home for the Texans, at the Broncos. And that Broncos game is a tricky one because it's possible that in that game Denver is locked into its spot. Now again that's, it's too many moving parts to that, but it's possible. Denver goes into that game where they can't cat, they can't be the one seed and they're not going to fall below two or three and maybe they rest guys, I don't know if they would but that, that Charger game at Denver, it's at least on the board. They're playing the Denver backups So they're at seven wins if we give them the win against the Raiders, which puts them at eight. Eagles, Chiefs, Cowboys, Texans, Broncos. If they can win two of those, that puts them at 10. And again, it's not guaranteed. But a, a 10 win Chiefs team would not in all likelihood have the tiebreaker over a 10 win charger. They would if somehow like one of the Chargers losses was to the Raiders instead of the Eagles. But if the chargers get to 10 wins by beating the Raiders, the Texans and Week 18 against Denver and loses to the Eagles, Chiefs, Cowboys. The Chiefs don't have that tiebreaker and. That means a 10 win charger team would get in over Kansas City. So here's and I'm not even going to get I know some people are trying to force Houston into the playoff conversation. Houston is at 5 and 5. Their next three are Bills, Colts, Chiefs. Obviously if the Chiefs lose the Texans game, they're probably screwed anyway. And if the Texans lose the Chiefs game, they're screwed. So I'm not, I'm not worried about the Texans. It is though right now, unless the Chargers or Jags really fall apart, the Chiefs have to go six and one down the stretch. That's where we're at. That is the reality of the tiebreakers, the head to head, the awful loss to Jacksonville that should have never happened. That is kind of looming over this season right now and not being able to make plays in the winning moments this year. Crazy stat from Scott Kasmar. The Chiefs, the two years full seasons prior to this one. So the 23 and 24 seasons they gave up two total third and 10 or longer on defense in the fourth quarter of one score games. They've given up one of those in four of their five losses this year. That's how at this point last year they were 9 and 1 despite scoring fewer points per game, allowing more points per game and having a worse turnover margin than the team does this year they're not making the plays when it matters and that's a huge skill of being a championship football team. Now if that's enough doom and gloom. What definitively is true is if they are able to rip off six of the next seven, they will go into the playoffs incredibly dangerous and with a higher ceiling than last year's team. But that means you've got to obviously beat the Titans and the Raiders on the road. Beat the Cowboys on the road. Those are your three games against teams with a losing record. And then Colts, Texans, Chargers, Broncos, all at home. You got to go three and One with I guess the game you would like to lose. Of those, the most would be the Broncos game. And so that's the, that's the spot they're in and we'll see how they respond. It is I am not going to engage at all. And there seems to be a very concerted effort from folks in the media that are die hard Patriot fans to try to use this 10 games of Mahomes eighth season as some Brady Mahomes referendum or some Chiefs Pat's dynasty referendum. I It's obviously idiotic and it obviously just recreates history as far as what, you know, the ebbs and flows of the Patriots run actually were I I so I'm not going to spend time on that. In the first eight years of Tom they missed the playoffs twice. Just flat missed them twice. That the the I think that is we will see how this year goes and then we can do an accounting of the dynasties. Whether we want to start from 01 to 08 versus the first eight years for Patrick or if we want to compare it to their best eight years which was 11 to 18 versus these eight years. That 1118 team is the only, you know, they made eight straight conference championship games. The Chiefs record right now is at seven straight at the end of this season. We can do a dynasty for dynasty accounting. Doing it right now and pretending like by Tom's eighth year he hadn't already missed the playoffs twice, missed one entire season due to injury and like is just disingenuous. But it informed me in a way I didn't realize that there, there was a lot of dynastic insecurity potentially emanating from New England about what the Chiefs could potentially do to how the how people view the Pat's run versus the Chiefs run. I didn't view it that way. I think the Patron is one of the greatest things in the history of the sport and very unique. As far as you view it as three separate eras. 01 to 04, the 10 year Super bowl drought with the undefeated season in the middle of it, which is insane of 05 to 13 and then the unbelievable run from 14 to 18 on the back end. Is that how you view it? Do you view it as one long run? Do you like there's I think what the Patriots with Tom and Bill did is going to be almost impossible to duplicate. As far as the longevity of it. That's separate from what Patrick and the Chiefs are doing. But we'll see how this year goes and we can do like a, you know, greatest dynasties ever Tale of the tape. But there was just a lot of from folks that I a lot of chirping. Maybe it's because the Patriots are good this year out at New England. That feels a touch premature. Just a touch. And I'm talking to Colin about it today on tv. We're three weeks removed from the Chiefs and Patrick both being overwhelming MVP and Super bowl favorites. And now listen, we are where we are. I just laid out the scenario where they could miss the playoffs. I'm not going to act as if that's not real, but I'm also not going to act as if Let me fix this a little bit. I'm also not going to act as if this sky has fallen. It could fall. We have to acknowledge the sky could fall. But a little reactionary there, in my opinion. Hey guys, Buying men's jewelry used to be a nightmare, especially around the holidays. It was either cheap stuff that broke after a week or crazy overpriced with ridiculous markups. That's why I love gld. They've changed the game. You get quality jewelry that's built to last without blowing your entire holiday budget on one item. And unlike a lot of other companies, GLD only uses real gold. None of that cheap stuff. Every single stone is meticulously handset plus their proprietary production process. Make sure you're getting the highest quality jewelry possible. You can literally see and feel the difference. And listen, don't just take my word for it. Over 2 million customers and 50,000 5 star reviews back it up. Not to mention it's worn by some of the biggest names out there. Justin Bieber, Micah Parsons, Tyree Kill, Malik, Neighbors as Aparaki, and a ton more. Best part, every single piece is guaranteed for life. This holiday you have the chance to give more than just jewelry. You can give a gift that lasts forever with gld. GLD has an official collab with the NFL so you can get every NFL team on a pendant this season. They also have collabs with the WNBA w the NBA, wnba, mlb, ncaa, mls, and even DC Comics chains and pendants that let you rep what you love. And now check this part out. Work hard and change the game. GLD's holiday deal is unbeatable for a limited time only. New customers get 50% off.5 0 50% off plus a free chain@gld.com when you use code WRIGHT W R I G H T that's 50% off and a free chain with code WRIGHT W R I G h T@gld.com after your purchase they'll ask where you heard about them, support our show and tell them it was us. And don't forget that code right@gld.com hey there.
