reactions to the big KC game win

A few impressions. Jist summ thotz.

* credit where it’s due: Mahomes is a monster. I had seen him before (highlights, snatches of games) making impossible throws, and he lived up to it. It’s like someone put Marino in Favre’s body.

* Goff was “off” a bit here and there, which I am starting to think will be a regular thing, but not a huge flaw. But last night he had his usual share of the usual “whoa did ya see that” throws that are just freaky for their timing, accuracy, and placement. That will always be the thing with him. He has a long list of traits you want in your qb, but those uncanny throws are the signature thing.

* On the Donald strip sack Ebukam recovered for a TD, watch Donald. He was in the air when he hit Mahomes’ arm. He hurled himself at the qb and his legs are a couple of feet off the ground when his arm hits the qb’s arm. It’s like he said, Mr. and Mrs. Kent said don’t show my real powers to the humans, but I can fly dammit so I will this one time. He hit the ball out while flying through the air.

* The Ebukam INT. He is being mauled by a lineman, reaches up and bats the pass to himself, then catches it one handed, all in a split second. I have never seen any play quite like it, not in 4,456 or so years of watching NFL football. KC is a load and a half and you have to make some extraordinary plays to beat them, and that was one.

* Speaking of making plays. Last year when the Rams lost to Seattle in LA, I posted about how Thomas swatted the ball away when Gurley dove for the TD, and how Seattle always just seemed to make plays. I said the Rams need to be like that. And darned if they didn’t morph into exactly that. From getting 1st downs on 3rd and long that you just don’t expect them to make, to Ebukam batting a pass to himself the way he did, and so on. No matter what else goes on, they make plays throughout a game.

* One example of just rising to the occasion–Everett maintaining his balanced while avoiding the out of bounds line running at full speed on his TD. Very athletic moment.

* This is a 4th quarter team. Looking just at 2017/18, Goff has now been in 8 comeback situations and the Rams won 4 of them. It’s hard to find career percentages on qbs in comeback situations, but last year I posted a chart showing that as of 2017. There were only 3 qbs at 50% or better (though better was not higher than 53%). Those qbs were Brady, Luck, and Wilson. So far, in just 8 opportunities, with 50% wins in that situation, Goff has joined that company. That’s quite something. And the defense? Look at the last 4 games. Rodgers had a chance to put that game away with 6:49 left and that series ended with a sack and punt. Wilson had the ball at the end of that game with a chance to come from behind and was pressured into some incompletions. Mahomes had the ball twice at the end of that game with a chance to come back and was intercepted. Brees came though in that game, but that is still 3 out of 4 against top qbs.

There’s more, as you might imagine, but, enough for now.

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After reading and hearing a barrage of commentaries about what a great game that was, I am actually tired of hearing it’s the future of the NFL when all some people mean by that is, there was lots of scoring.

To me in terms of what a great game is, it’s plays not points. For example the classic Miami/Chargers playoff game of 1981 wasn’t great because it was double overtime (to name another merely corrolary thing like massive points). It was great because both teams just kept making spectacularly memorable plays.

That ain’t gonna start happening regularly.

There were 4 legit league MVP candidates in that game.

But even the MVPCs aside, plays were made right and left, by practically everybody. Offense and defense plus Hekker. It’s the game that forced the USA to learn how to pronounce “EH-boo-kahm.” Among many other things.

That’s not going to become a routine kind of commodity.

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