SBNation.com User Blog: MountainManMike

A Belcher Theory... This may be an improbable theory but it was one that came to me while trying...

MountainManMike — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 11:16:06 -0000

A Belcher Theory... This may be an improbable theory but it was one that came to me while trying to make some sense out of this tragedy. This may have been mentioned before but I haven't seen anyone mention as of yet. So I preface this with a story from my college days. Years ago, I had a friend go out to the bars with his girlfriend. When he got home, he was very aggressive and violent. Now, he wasn't a violent guy sober nor was he a violent drunk. It was so out of character for him that some of my friends took him to the hospital. They did some tests and they eventually showed that he had been slipped a date-rape drug. Supposedly, guys were now using it to get their competition out of the way so they could have a shot at the hot girl. I guess my friend's girlfriend was the target. Now, onto Belcher. We know that NFL players can be targets when they go out. Maybe someone was drunk and pissed at the Chiefs season and thought it would be funny to slip one to him. Maybe he was attracting a lot of the women because of his pro athlete status. I don't know. I haven't found any reports about what happened while he was at the clubs. I'm not trying to make excuses for him. It was just a thought that popped into my head. It would somewhat explain the strange behavior...being found sleeping (passed out) in your car and the eventual violent behavior. Blacking out/passing out and violent/aggressive behavior are both possible effects of the drugs. Throw in a heated argument and guns laying around the house...not good. Does anyone know if this is something that would be tested for in the toxicology report? Can any doctors, EMT's, or cops shed some light on if this is even plausible?

Back away from the ledge...

MountainManMike — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 07:18:05 -0000

Seriously folks. The sky is not falling. There are very few reasons to be worried. Before the preseason started, most on this site blamed our poor season lat year on the many major injuries we had. My question is, "Were all those guys injured before the last preseason?" Nope. So which is it, was it our preseason which gave us our poor season or the injuries? It seems like now, everyone wants to blame the preseason on past season. In my mind, yes we got the crap kicked out of us in the preseason and still went 7-9 with all the injuries and Tyler Palko starting way too many games. If we're honest with ourselves and try not to react like junior high girls, we've got to say that how we looked last year in the preseason had very little bearing on how we looked in the regular season...unless the injured Pro Bowl or near Pro Bowl talent we had didn't mean a thing. Time to take some meds and stop all this crazy talk. Wash it down with some koolaid. It's refreshing and tastes great.

Joplin Tornado Relief

MountainManMike — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:35:35 -0000

Hey, anyone know how the Joplin recovery is going? I work with a college group out in Colorado and we were thinking of taking the students down to Joplin over their spring break to help out. If anyone could point me in the right direction on who to talk to about helping out, that would be great. Thanks!

Might our future OC come from the Kubiak coaching tree?

MountainManMike — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:34:11 -0000

A team that nobody is talking about around here is the Houston Texans. They are a team that runs a ZB scheme and consistently has a high-powered offense. They have turned undrafted RB's into the best in the league and backup QB's into quality starters that can win games. I would love if we took a look at some of their coaches to come in a be our OC. Now that I mention it, it certainly won't happen but I thought I'd throw an out of the box idea into the OC coaching discussion. What do you guys think?

Return to football after Achilles tendon rupture

MountainManMike — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 09:52:39 -0000

Return to football after Achilles tendon rupture

There has been a lot of talk about Siler returning and taking Belcher's spot. Knowing people who have dealt with the injury, I thought that idea was not something to put hope into. I'm not a doctor though. Wanting expert info on the injury, I tracked down this informative article.

What I need to see out of Cassel vs. the Texans

MountainManMike — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 22:13:44 -0000

With the leagues worst passing defense, there are some things we need to see out of Cassel this Sunday. Granted, we are a running team. Still, the doesn't give Cassel any excuse not to play well against the Texans. We need to see improvement. I want to see his completion percentage about 60%. Need to see his passer rating above 100. I want to see our 3rd down conversion percentage for the team much improved. I think yards per attempt above 7 is reasonable against the worst pass defense in the league. I don't care how many yards he racks up. That's not important at this point. It's more important that he keeps drives alive and the ball moving. Oh yeah, and no throws to wide open receivers coming 6 yards short and no dumb fumbles when no one is near you. If I see those improvements, I will rest a little easier as the season progresses.

Chiefs Passing Attack vs. Colts Passing Attack

MountainManMike — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 08:58:39 -0000

I think we all know where our weak links were Sunday. QB and WR stand out. It seems to be a trend in 3 of our last 4 games. I know that when I see Cassel drop back this season, I have very little hope of anything positive happening on that play. Our QB and WR positions are holding us back. They're holding us back from a Super Bowl. I think that's why the Cassel love/hate discussion is so passionate. After years of being terrible, we are so close to being a top tier team firing on all cylinders. The one thing missing is a passing attack. We can't rely on our receivers or our QB.

Indy is the complete opposite though. They rely mostly on a QB and a crazy deep WR position group. Personally, I don't think they have some secret formula that allows them to draft only good receivers. I think they look for guys with who can catch a football. We seemingly don't look for guys who can catch the football. It seems every receiver who goes into that system the Colts employ (baring injury) becomes a star. It's not even that they develop these guys. Many come in and contribute right away their rookie seasons.

How does this happen? Well, they scheme ways to get their receivers involved. They scheme ways to get separation, ways to get open. Cassel lovers here seem to love to blame our receivers for lack of separation. Maybe it's not their fault. Maybe our play calling doesn't allow them to get open. It's not creative enough other than when we throw in the occasional trick play.

The biggest thing that helps their receivers is a great QB. It's not rocket science. He is a QB who makes everyone around him better. Sadly, looking at our situation, Cassel does not make those around him better.

I'm starting to wonder if he actually brings them down. Now, Bowe has always had problems catching the ball. That was a knock on him coming out of college. The problem is that it's only become worse since Cassel arrived. Now, none of our receivers can catch, even guys who had never had problems with catching a football.

There are two variable that can cause a receiver to regress, coaching and QB. Which do we have? Maybe a bit of both. We have to remember that Todd is not coaching our WR's. Yeah, he pops in every now and then but it's not like his past coaching stints where he had a lot of success. We have someone else coaching them who doesn't seem to be getting the job done.

We also thus far have a poor QB who has show very little for us to be excited about concerning his play. Yeah, there have been a few glimmers of hope but not much. He looks at times like a QB who makes our WR's worse. If there are QB's at one end of the spectrum in making players better, there has to be QB's at the other end of the spectrum making players worse. There are hundreds of examples of this in the NFL. I think at the moment, Cassel is one that makes our receivers underachieve. He hasn't been able to ever get on the same page with our WR's. He can't establish any chemistry with them. With those problems, it makes everyone look bad.

I know Cassel will never be P. Manning but we need him to be more than R. Leaf...more than J. Russel. Those guys showed glimmers of hope too. We need Cassel to make our receivers better. We need our system to make both better. That in turn will make our offense better. That will turn L's like Sunday's into W's. It wouldn't be going out on a limb to say it would make us a Super Bowl team.

I know it's a ways out but it looks like Sunday could be another rain game for the Chiefs. ...

MountainManMike — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:56:17 -0000

I know it's a ways out but it looks like Sunday could be another rain game for the Chiefs. Weather.com is predicting a 30% chance of rain so far.

A Tebow Related Question

MountainManMike — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 07:12:14 -0000

I am wondering what the Broncos will now do with Clady being that Tebow is left handed. Do they try and make him switch positions? Do they leave him where he is at? This pick seems to only bring on more problems for Denver. It really makes me wonder what they were thinking?

More Safety Thoughts

MountainManMike — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:18:32 -0000

So I was thinking tonight/this morning while reading the Berry discussion and started thinking about another safety we already have, Morgan. He really hasn't shown us a lot other than having one good preseason game which probably saved his Chiefs career for at least one more seaosn. I began thinking about why he might have a good game then but nowhere else? I wonder if the defense was just too complex for him. He excelled in the preseason game because the defenses run are typically more vanilla. He didn't have to think as much. He could just react. I'm hoping that with a simpler defense, he might actually develop into at least an okay player and not be a wasted draft pick. I live in Colorado so I don't get to see a lot of game so maybe those who get to see more games could give me a little perspective on this. Is this just wishful thinking?

A name to keep on our radar for KC's next OC...Russ Grimm

MountainManMike — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:42:10 -0000

Though his name has not been mentioned at all in the talk about our future OC, he is a guy I think the Chiefs will look into. He coached with Haley in Arizona and knows Haley's system. Everywhere he has been, he has stayed a long time (for the NFL that is) meaning he's a good coach who doesn't get fired. The guy has 4 Super Bowl rings. He coached under Cowher. He was a guy who was mentioned as the Chiefs were looking for head coaches. Obviously, they liked someone else from Arizona better. OC wise, he is a guy we should certainly take a look at if we can pull him away from Arizona.

Looking to the Future

MountainManMike — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:15:56 -0000

It's been a depressing season so far and I've even found myself looking at the draft boards seeing who is out there for the coming year's draft. Well, one can only look at those draft boards so much before he needs to find something else to place his hope in. For me, I've graduated from the draft boards into looking at what coaches we could pick up next season. I'm not saying replace Haley yet. I'm talking about from the coordinator position on down. I've got to say, there isn't a lot out there. I've focused my search mostly on head coaches that are on the hot seat this season who have had success in the past as coordinators. I look at how Denver snagged Mike Nolan. Man, we really missed out there. Check after the jump for the ideas I have come up with so far.

Possible Offensive Coordinators:

Charlie Weis- Pioli connection obviously.

Gary Kubiak- If Haley wants to be a running football team, Kubiak has done it in the past.

Possible Defensive Coordinators:

Romeo Crennel- Pioli connection again

Jeff Fisher- His teams have been all over the place in terms of wins and losses. I wonder if Nashville is getting a bit tired of it. Starting out 0-3 doesn't help that. I'm not sure either if he ran a 3-4 in his past stints as a DC.

I know, I'm stretching it a bit with some of those. I know the list isn't very long yet. That's why I need your help in brainstorming. It's tough on Offense to find someone but even tougher on D because you have to find someone that runs a 3-4. Most of the coaches on the hot seat right now don't run a 3-4. Anyways, let me know if you guys have any ideas.