Brain Fertilizer

Yeah, that sucked. It was a winnable game, and we didn't do it. The offense couldn't execute, and the defense couldn't stop them forever. Our kicker missed a chip-shot field goal. Welcome to the 2007 season! Here's hoping the events of our first game of the year are aberrations, rather than trends.

The Good
-Top two RBs both had 4+ ypc.
-Jarrad Page had a nice INT and made some good tackles.
-Bernard Pollard did a nice job knocking down a pass.
-The O-line gave Huard plenty of time, and the D-line put some nice pressure on Schaub.
-Converted 64% of third down opportunities (9/14)
-The defense gave up only 13 points; the one TD was a mistake that is fixable

The Bad
-Only 72 yards rushing on only 17 attempts.
-Three fumbles, two lost
-0/2 in Red Zone opportunities
-dropped passes by Bowe, Parker, Webb, Gonzalez

The Ugly
-Horrible play by Pollard to give up a TD
-An easy missed FG by our rookie kicker
-Some freakish turnovers made it impossible to get any momentum

Interesting Points:
-The defense looks pretty good, except for the one major lapse.
-The injury bug is causing us problems again, with both a starting CB and starting WR out for most of the game. Those are the two positions with the least experience behind the starters.
-Huard didn't look very good, but he didn't look very bad, either. A better game plan could have helped, but he delivered the ball on time and on target, and dropped balls and "lucky bounce of the week" turnovers ruined any chance for Huard's unspectacular, methodical style to be effective. Huard isn't the QB who will go out and win games for you, but he is one who won't lose the game with stupid decisions. The only bad decision I saw him make all game was when his shovel pass to LJ was picked off, but the game was already a lost cause at that point.
-Huard had time to throw longer passes. I think the coaches saw that we were going up a defense that featured multiple (three!) high 1st round on the D-line, and tried to use high-percentage plays to keep the chains moving while protecting the QB. But our WR drops made that approach fail. With as well as our O-line did protecting Huard in the first half, I think we'll see the Chiefs open it up a little more next week.
-Page and Pollard look quite good. Page may make the Pro-Bowl this year. I would be surprised if he doesn't have more than 6 picks by the end of the season.
-The Chiefs start slow, and it's hard to start on the road. A loss is a loss, no matter what the point of the season. The Chiefs are not going to 0-16, I guarantee it. We now can say without a doubt they won't go 16-0, either...but anyone reasonable knew that before the season started, anyway. I have seen many quality teams have worse games, so the key will be how the Chiefs respond to this. The Chiefs are entirely capable of going into Chicago next week and getting the strong showing, or perhaps even the upset win, that they need to jump start the march to the playoffs. But even a loss won't really prove much until we've played two games at home.

Bottom Line:
Don't jump off the bandwagon yet, or you'll look stupid trying to climb back on when we make the playoffs later.