Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Bye Week Breakdown Part 1: Hopes and Fears

 The Chiefs are now more than halfway through their two-week Peyton preparation, and fans are awaiting this week's Sunday Night Game O' The Week with high hopes and chewed up fingernails. Before we get into some in-depth Bronco talk, let's take a look at how the Chiefs got this far without a loss to their name.

KC entered this opportunely timed bye week after pulling out an unimpressive win against the lowly, injury-riddled Buffalo Bills. Once again, the Chiefs proved that they can make a game exciting in the ugliest of ways. Despite plenty of errant play, KC yet again found a new way to win – just outscore the other team with your defense. Oh, and get really damn lucky.

A multitude of dropped passes by Buffalo receivers, an Alex Smith fumble that absolutely should have been recovered by the Bills' starting punt returner Leonis McKelvin, a horribly overthrown pass from an unknown QB for an easy pick, several missed Bills tackles that included would-be sacks, a 100-yard INT return for a touchdown and several more fortunate turns of events helped the Chiefs to their current undefeated status.

People are pointing out this kind of thing constantly in the Chiefs Kingdom. Although the record remains unblemished, fans know this team has barely snuck away with more than one win against a sub-par opponent. How scared should fans be about facing Peyton at Mile High?

Pretty god damn scared. Were you expecting me to lie or something? This upcoming game is worthy of our fear, if only because it will be the biggest test so far for a team that has barely been passing the NFL equivalent of elementary school spelling quizzes lately. The Chiefs' last two games were harrowing, and they leave fans to wonder how their team will fare against legitimate, playoff-caliber competition.

In their last game, the Chiefs defense gave up 470 yards to a 3-5 Bills team led by a third-string QB. The week prior they allowed Jason Campbell to throw for 293 yards, 2 touchdowns, no picks and a 61% completion percentage. Fans have every reason to fear the most prolific quarterback in the league when their secondary has been this porous.

This weekend, the Report will return to explain why your hopes are just as legitimate as your fears. Tune in then to get a more in-depth breakdown explaining why the defense, on both sides of the ball, could make this game much more interesting than Donkey fans would like to admit.


Doug LaCerte operates this blog and does a bunch of other stuff for RantSports. Make him feel falsely important by following his Twitter @DlaC67, leave him rude comments on his Facebook and add him to your network on Google

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