Mellinger Minutes: Some Chiefs game-by-game predictions, and our first lightning round
Two sleeps until the Chiefs play.
Two sleeps until the Chiefs play!
TWO SLEEPS UNTIL THE CHIEFS PLAY!
I am irrationally excited for this season, for football, real football, in real stadiums playing games that count in real standings. We will get into this more below, but this is as close to normal I’ve felt about anything since March 12.
I’m so excited that you’ll have to pardon me for ruining the suspense of this Chiefs season by telling you the exact scores of every game:
Week 1 vs. Texans: This is a game I’d be tempted to pick the Chiefs losing. The Texans have the quarterback to do it, and a good enough roster around him. But it’s such a big coaching mismatch. Andy Reid has had five months stuck in his house to prepare for Bill O’Brien. Chiefs win, 41-27.
Week 2 at Chargers: This will be fun. The Chargers’ first game at SoFi will have the same number of Chargers fans as every game at StubHub, and that’s the kind of analysis we created the paywall for. Chiefs win, 34-16.
Week 3 at Ravens: One of the most anticipated games of the year. Maybe the most anticipated. Last year’s Super Bowl champs, on the road, against the team with the best record last year, with the last two MVPs. The Chiefs have beaten Lamar Jackson twice, but both were at home, and both close. Ravens breakthrough. Ravens win, 28-27.
Week 4 vs. Patriots: I’m tempted to believe the Patriots are about to fall off the cliff, but I’ve always been a big It’s More Belichick Than Brady Guy, so am I now required to believe the Patriots will still be good? I don’t know. Doesn’t matter here. Chiefs win, 33-23.
Week 5 vs. Raiders: Nobody will believe this if you tell them, but when the Chiefs and Raiders played in week 13 last year the division was on the line and some thought the Raiders might finally do it. Lol. Chiefs win, 38-13.
Week 6 at Bills: I really don’t like road teams on Thursday nights. Bills win, 28-23.
Week 7 at Broncos: Andy Reid coming off a half-bye, against a division opponent, with a ticked off locker room. Chiefs win, 41-20.
Week 8 vs. Jets: Can’t say I follow the Jets closely, but they seem to be a mess. Chiefs win, 35-21.
Week 9 vs. Panthers: I actually think the Panthers could be significantly better than most seem to believe. Not here though. Chiefs win, 33-17.
Week 11 at Raiders: Another new stadium for the Chiefs. This feels like the season that Jon Gruden’s charade with Derek Carr comes to a screeching halt. Chiefs 38, Raiders 14.
Week 12 at Bucs: I’m not feeling the Bucs like a lot of people are. I get it, they’ll score some points, but they’ve been 31st and 29th in points surrendered the last two years. Chiefs win, 41-34.
Week 13 vs. Broncos: This is a potentially interesting game, if things fall into place for the Broncos. One of these years Drew Lock is going boss a game in his hometown. Chiefs win, 31-24.
Week 14 at Dolphins: Man, in a normal year, this would’ve been a trip to Miami in December. Chiefs win, 27-14.
Week 15 at Saints: We’ll get into this more below, but to me this is the Super Bowl. Saints win, 35-27.
Week 16 vs. Falcons: Lot of skill position talent in Atlanta, you guys. Chiefs win, 33-27.
Week 17 vs. Chargers: I’m assuming the Chiefs will have a new quarterback to prepare for by now. Chiefs win, 30-20.
So, says here the Chiefs go 13-3, which feels entirely reasonable for this group. When doing these things it’s tempting to pick a random loss — I saw where ESPN’s simulation had the Chiefs losing to the Jets — but the truth is Andy Reid’s teams haven’t really done that.
Three of the four teams the Chiefs lost to last year won playoff games, and the Colts’ 5-2 start covered the win over the Chiefs.
I don’t know, you guys. It still feels a little weird to be this optimistic about the Chiefs in the preseason. Old habits and all that.
This week’s eating recommendation is the Hook Em at M&M Bakery and the reading recommendation is Jerry Seinfeld: So you think New York is dead.
Thanks to everyone who’s listened to our Mellinger Minutes For Your Ears podcast, and here is a big warm invitation to start if you haven’t already. We’re out from behind the paywall and free on Apple or Spotify or Stitcher or whoever you kids get your shows these days.
Last week, we went through how Adalberto Mondesi can get out of his slump, the best way to watch the 2020 Chiefs, and a clip from Andy Reid inspired a weird small world story about Pat Mahomes and Brett Favre.
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My expectations are unrealistically high.
There are a few different tentacles of your question here, and I’m going to try to hit them all. But, mostly: my expectations are unrealistically high.
Baseball is great. I’ve found myself watching more baseball than usual, and even when it’s the Royals and ostensibly for “work” I find myself watching more as a fan and less as a columnist, if that makes sense. Less judgment about whether a player is doing well or not, less focus on strategy, more on simple enjoyment.
The pitcher-hitter battle. The sounds. The pace. The athleticism.
Basketball is great. The playoffs have been tremendous, and I’ve watched more than I would in a normal year. Soccer is the same.
When sports went away, like all of us, I found other things to do. We started riding bikes more, spent more time at parks, more time at the lake, more time together.
I have been undeservedly fortunate throughout all this, both in terms of health and employment, so I feel guilty saying this out loud but we’re all friends here and above all else I need to be honest: it’s been good.
I’d trade anything other than my wife and kids for normal — we all would — but the changes have forced a sort of re-evaluation that will make me and my family better. I hope that makes sense.
I present all of this as a prelude to answering your question. I have not looked forward to anything as much as I’ve looked forward to this NFL season since, well, shoot, this is going to make me sounds like a crazy person so let’s start the sentence over in case I think better of it:
I have not looked forward to anything as much as I’ve looked forward to this NFL season since our second son was born.
Holy cow. What is wrong with me.
But it’s true.
There are a million reasons for this. The biggest are probably obvious. Football holds a special place in a lot of our lives. I’m no different than a lot of you in this way. The athleticism, the strength, the speed, the strategy, the memories, the friends, the joy. The NFL hasn’t missed a game* but the five months from the Super Bowl have been plainly awful.
* You’re dang right preseason doesn’t count.
Sports are just sports, nothing more, but the return of the NFL means the return all those things we just mentioned, especially the joy. We need joy. Or, I do, anyway. I can’t wait.
I’m not traveling this fall. When the Chiefs play the Chargers on Sept. 20 it will be the first game I haven’t watched in person in 10 years, other than one or two during the Royals’ playoff runs in 2014 and 2015.
I’ll miss that. I like almost everything about traveling. That probably sounds weird. I think most people find it to be a hassle, and I get it, but for as long as I can remember I’ve loved airports, airplanes, seeing new places, doing new things, eating at new restaurants. I’ll miss that.
There is a silver lining here, though. I have never watched a Chiefs game with my kids. The older one, especially, is a huge fan. Honestly, now that I’m thinking about it, I haven’t been able to watch many NFL games with them. I’m gone half the weekends, and even when they’re home a day at Arrowhead starts before the noon kickoffs and ends after they’re asleep. That’ll change. I’m looking forward to that.
I know I keep saying this, but I’m not sure people understand how true this is:
Clyde Edwards-Helaire is going to be a star.
He is perfect for the Chiefs, and the Chiefs are perfect for him. Both sides of this relationship will make the other better.
I’m mildly surprised they kept four tight ends. If I did a roster projection it probably would have had three tight ends and either three quarterbacks or four running backs. Herbie’s report on the Chiefs’ interest in Adrian Peterson is a sign the Chiefs want some depth there, but they must’ve known they could get both quarterbacks and a running back onto the practice squad.
I also understand the case for each of those tight ends. Fans might be surprised at the number of snaps Nick Keizer gets, for instance. His reputation is more as a blocker, but he’ll catch some passes this season, too.
The Chiefs have stressed publicly how much L’Jarius Sneed needs to learn, but they’ve also been using him in practice like a guy they expect to play right away. Some of that will be by necessity with Bashaud Breeland suspended, but his speed pops. If they can get him in the right spot, with the right assignment, he can make a difference immediately.
Here’s one more: Darrel Williams will have more of an impact than some fans might think. This front office loves it some LSU running backs, and as high as I am on Edwards-Helaire the Chiefs will want to rotate there. Williams can play. He can do more than he’s been able to show so far.
Look, I’m anti-fantasy advice for a few reasons. One is that the guys in my league read this stuff and I desperately want to annihilate each and every one of them. But another is that a player’s value is so dependent on your specific league’s rules.
If I told you what guys in my league will do for a quarterback, for instance, it would blow your mind.
That said, I would think Darrel Williams might hold some low-end value, depending on how deep your league is. Also, he’s an injury away from being a fantasy stud.
We all deserve to see this through our own lens, which makes this an impossible question to answer broadly.
For some, the games will be communal, as much or maybe even more than before. There are more fans who watch games at home than anywhere else, and with seating capacities at bars maybe a watch party goes from four to eight.
Some of this might be seeing things through Kansas City’s lens, but I do think the last five months have set football fans up to be even more excited than this time a year ago.
But, sure. Something real is being lost. The Arrowhead Stadium parking lot is the biggest social gathering in the region. There are close friendships between people who only see each other at games. That’s a release for people. A party. Something to look forward to, something to belong to.
Most of that is gone now, and those who are going on Thursday have paid incredible prices, and been moved from their seats. They’ll be told to wear masks — thankfully the weather should be nice — and keep distance during what has always been Kansas City’s grandest collective experience. That’ll be weird, sure.
But what’s not weird anymore?
And also, it sure beats the alternative.
Well, you can’t prioritize everything. I don’t mean that to be trite. Just true. Because you’re right, the Chiefs have shown themselves willing to pay a premium for good players all over the field.
They have used first round picks on a quarterback, running back, and pass rusher (Frank Clark trade). They have given big contracts to a wide receiver, tight end, two tackles, a defensive tackle, an inside linebacker and a safety.
The position groups missing here are interior offensive line and cornerback, though it’s true the Chiefs did target Kendall Fuller as the return in the Alex Smith trade. Bashaud Breeland is on a one-year, $4.5 million deal.
A few things to mention here. The first is that when you get a legit starting cornerback in Charvarius Ward by trading a guy you were going to cut you don’t need a corner as badly.
Also, Steve Spagnuolo prioritizes versatility. Tyrann Mathieu played more slot corner than any other position last year, according to Pro Football Focus. L’Jarius Sneed will move around, too.
This may be a distinction you don’t care about, but I don’t think the Chiefs have just decided not to use big resources for a corner. I believe Andy Reid has decided he can get by with lower end starters as long as they can move a little bit.
With the defense, I do believe they’ve made a decision to have as many good pass rushers as possible, and pair them with some problem solvers on the back end. The Chiefs considered a corner early last year, for instance, but viewed the draft class’ value as a bad fit for where they were picking. It just didn’t work out.
They’ve made it work, obviously, but I’m still curious to see what this looks like without Breeland and against a start quarterback and talented group of receivers on Thursday.
Five is good.
Look, we’ve talked about this a lot but the Royals have mismanaged a lot since 2016.
They needed to see what that group could do in 2016, and that season was wrecked fairly early by one foul ball that took out two All-Stars. But after that season, the Royals had a decision to make.
They could have traded Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Sal Perez, Danny Duffy and Kelvin Herrera for prospects to jumpstart the next push.
Or, they could have kept their stars and spent in free agency (Josh Reddick would’ve been a nice fit) to make one more run at it.
Either of those strategies would’ve been justifiable, though the fire sale would have ticked off fans in real time.
Instead, they traded Wade Davis for Jorge Soler and pretended they could win and rebuild at the same time.
It was a seismic decision, and they got it wrong. That’s a significant part of what we’ve seen the last three seasons.
It looks like better baseball is close — ish. You can see the pitchers finding their way, and more are coming. They need to hit on a higher percentage of position players, and none of it may matter as long as the White Sox employ Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez, but you can see what they’re trying to do.
You can see how this might work — win with pitching, zigging when others zag, and support them with athleticism and enough hitting to make it stand up. They’re behind with hitters, and that’ll be especially true if Whit Merrifield doesn’t age well.
But, sure. Obviously it’s easy to understand the frustration.
The Royals had a head start on this rebuild, and they refused it. Their young pitching looks nice, but isn’t that what the Indians have always done?
They’re behind. They should be better than this. They do not have the surprise developments, if you know what I mean. Is Whit Merrifield the last minor leaguer to surpass the industry consensus? Josh Staumont is trending that way, but he was also a second round pick.
You’re asking about trades. My assumption is that the Royals would have traded Danny Duffy if offered the right return. I’ve written before that they wanted to trade him a few offseasons ago, but the offers didn’t materialize, so they signed him long-term.
But, let’s just be honest here. The problem isn’t holding onto guys that other teams aren’t valuing as highly as you do.
The problem is that you have too many guys that other teams aren’t valuing as highly as you do.
Speaking of frustration...
They’re behind, you guys. There’s no sugarcoating here.
There’s a hole in the system with young hitters. Even some of the guys casual fans might think of as young hitters — Hunter Dozier, Adalberto Mondesi, Nicky Lopez, Nick Heath — aren’t that young. Bobby Witt Jr. can only do so much.
If the Royals are going to get out of this, they’re going to need to find some offense. We’ve been talking about this for a while now. They were second-to-last in runs last year, but all everybody talked about was the bullpen.
I believe this is true: if the bullpen is the biggest problem, you don’t have a huge problem. Those positions tend to turnover so fast, and Moore has shown a knack for finding guys back there.
But the Royals’ biggest problem hasn’t been the bullpen.
Think about how much better they’d be if Bubba Starling was what they anticipated. And Mondesi. And Lopez.
Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez, Seuly Matias and others are still young, and have been done no favors by baseball’s decision to essentially cancel the minors, but they also have not performed as well as the Royals need. These are just facts.
One of the painful parts of following a small money team is that it always takes more time for players to develop than you want. The Royals had Lorenzo Cain for five years before he made his first All-Star team. They drafted Eric Hosmer seven years before he sprinted from third to home against the Mets.
To the outside baseball world, it probably seemed like that group appeared out of nowhere. People here in Kansas City remember how badly 2012 went.
OK, the point. The Royals are behind. That is true. This isn’t what the front office or coaches or players thought the results would be. The whole thing might not work. Nobody knows.
But we’re not yet at the point where that declaration can be made. If we were, the same declaration would’ve been made a dozen times before the 2014 Wild Card game.
I hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but yeah. I do.
This is too chalk-y for me to feel comfortable with, but I expect the Chiefs and Ravens to play in the AFC Championship.
I don’t know what I think of Lamar Jackson long term, but for now he’s proven himself to be a better pocket passer than most give him credit for, and he’s surrounded by a top end roster and strong coaching staff. The same pain that drove last year’s Chiefs after the 2018 AFC Championship has to be driving the Ravens now.
The Texans, Titans, Colts, Steelers and Bills have interesting cases, and are each good enough that you can talk yourself into it. But the Ravens have the best roster of that group, no worse than the second-best quarterback (Deshaun Watson) and no worse than the second-best coach (Mike Tomlin).
That’s a pretty good place to start.
In the NFC, you can throw a dart. The Packers are going to be really interesting. It should surprise nobody if Aaron Rodgers has the best season of his career. The Vikings are loaded. You can talk yourself into the Cowboys, Eagles, 49ers or Bucs pretty easily.
But I’m in on the Saints.
They’ll obviously score a lot, and their defense is better than it’s often given credit for. This may be the modern day version of betting on the 1990s Bills to win the Super Bowl, but they’ve been so dang close the last few years. It’s hard to believe Drew Brees and a competent organization will only make one Super Bowl*.
* If I’m wrong about those picks, the Chiefs also play the Texans, Bills, and Bucs.
I actually liked the fit then, and still like it now. Mostly because he came cheap, a shade under $3 million on a one-year deal.
Signing him was sort of like signing an outfielder or first baseman, because Dozier can play both of those positions.
They (rightfully) believed their lineup was far too short, and if you’re targeting dangerous-ish hitters who will come to a 100-loss team on a short and cheap contract your options aren’t going to be amazing.
Eventually, the Royals will need to graduate from this kind of move. They’ll need to be beyond the point of signing what the minor league system isn’t producing.
Franco isn’t a star. He probably won’t be around next year. But for the purposes of what the Royals needed, he’s been what could’ve been reasonably expected.
The blackout policy’s primary purpose is not to drive people to the ballpark. It’s to protect local TV contracts.
Those deals are the most important revenue stream clubs have, so MLB does what it can to help keep the money flowing. The cable companies want exclusive rights in local markets. The cable companies pay billions of dollars. Rob Manfred would rub Tony Clark’s feet for that price.
The blackout policy could change soon. Fans have (rightfully) complained about this for years. It seems pretty easy to draw, say, a 100 mile blackout radius around every stadium. Or, maybe blackout games only in places where people do not have access to them on traditional cable.
Do that, and whatever viewership is gained through MLB.tv is metaphorical gravy.
The shame of this is that MLB.tv is a terrific service. It’s great. You can watch either team’s broadcast, get on-demand highlights, and your choice of two highlight packages shortly after the last out. My kids watch those everyday over breakfast.
The Game Changer function changes how you watch the sport, for the better, sort of Red Zone for baseball.
Look. One thing that baseball owners and I have in common is that we all enjoy money, and would enjoy having more of it. So I don’t want to knock them for doing something they believe is in their financial interests.
It’s just that I don’t agree with the premise that lifting blackouts would hurt attendance or viewership. On the contrary, I believe more people would watch baseball.
But the other problem is that we as a society demand things to be easy. We demand things on our terms. Baseball is swimming against the current in that way, and turning off potential fans*, particularly young fans, at a time when the sport is desperate for young fans.
* Or, if you’re an owner reading this, replace “fans” with “customers.”
Baseball is a great sport. The people running MLB often suck.
Not long?
This might be a weird opinion, but to me Sporting is doing what the Royals should have known they could not do after 2016.
Remember that, a few answers up? About the Royals thinking they could win and rebuild at the same time? That’s like walking a tightrope through bullet fire for a small money baseball team, but Sporting might be showing it can do it in MLS.
What I mean is, Sporting is obviously going through a transition. Matt Besler, Graham Zusi, Roger Espinoza ... these guys are getting into their mid-30s. There’s a lot built around them, and others who have or soon will hit 30.
So the trick is to create a system that works behind them, and players good enough to pull it off when it’s time to move on.
What I see is a team that’s pretty close. They had the good start before the shutdown, but even since then have shown they can get some points while not playing their best. They lost to Houston in their last game, but even that is a point of evidence for my theory here.
They led, then gave up the equalizer, then failed in protecting the one point. If it’s true that the core is in here, and that they’re transitioning into something different, then that’s a point (or three) that Sporting will have next season.
That they’re in first place is almost like a weird distraction here. They’re building. They’ll get what they can out of this season, but the broader battleship is moving in a way that lines up better for next season.
Or, I could be completely full of it. We’ll see.
OK, now for the first ever Minutes Lightning Round to close us out:
Yes, but only because they’re convinced they’ll win the next 12 Super Bowls anyway.
I believe Andy Reid is giddy about the personnel groupings he can create with this.
Thirteen carries for 71 yards, nine catches for 106 yards, with two total touchdowns.
I feel like the only optimist left sometimes. I think they’ll play the whole season.
This week, I’m particularly grateful for a week where we probably won’t close our windows until Saturday. My goodness, a high of 65? Hoodies, bonfires, jeans, give it all to me.
This story was originally published September 8, 2020 at 5:00 AM.