Arsenalist

There was Lin Elliot and his three missed field goals, there was Steve Bono and his three interceptions, there was the Colts not punting the entire game and then there was today, a deserved 23-8 defeat in Indianapolis. If you had told me that the Colts’ high-powered offense would only score 23 points in the game, I would’ve said that the Chiefs would win by a couple touchdowns. You would’ve been right and I would’ve been wrong. Why? Because Kansas City’s offense proved to be about as potent as Mr. Burns and the Colts defense looked a lot like the Steel Curtain. If it hadn’t been for the uniforms you would’ve thought the Chiefs were ballet dancing on offense.

Lawrence Tynes can’t believe he sucks after
shanking a 23 yard FGI should’ve figured out that all this pre-game talk of Larry Johnson running all over the Colts “porous” run defense was nothing but wishful thinking and statistic generated nonsense. Larry Johnson may as well have been sitting in the stands and Trent Green may as well have been babysitting and letting his wife play instead. The Colts defense didn’t even have to work that hard to prevent Kansas City from getting their first first down until three minutes left in the third quarter! That’s right, no first downs in the first half and Kansas City still managed to only be down 9-0, courtesy of three Petyon Manning interceptions – of which two were by Ty Law – and the defense coming up big in the red zone. Chiefs even had God on their side as the Colts suffered back-breaking penalites on second and third downs which vastly helped the Chiefs cause. Earlier in the half Law, after intercepting Manning, had scrambled to the Colts 10 yard line giving Kansas City a perfect chance to go up 7-6. Trent Green then did a nice little dance and tripped over his high heels on third down and Lawrence Tynes then made him proud by shanking a 23 yard FG attempt. Pathetic. It was at that point I knew deep down that this was going to end in tears.

Obviously the Colts weren’t going to go without a touchdown. So after Peyton Manning realized throwing downfield isn’t working out, he decided to pick off the fatigued Kansas City defense underneath which was fairly easy since they’d been on the field the entire game. A touchdown later, and now trailing 16-0, the Chiefs offense decided to earn 5% of their salary and scored to make it 8-0. It didn’t take the Colts long to score again when Trent Green got the ball back trailing 23-8. This was the time that Kansas City needed to rally. So when the Chiefs really needed to score, Green proceeded to float one long enough for Bob Sanders to check his watch, book a tee time and then finally take out his baseball glove to nab the interception. The game was over.
Trent Green decides fumbling is fun

The Colts were even nice enough to give the Chiefs another chance by not scoring on the ensuing two possessions, but the good ‘ol boys from KC who were just happy to be there ended their misery courtesy of Trent Green who obliged with a fumble and an interception. The long list of playoff misery and disappointment continue for the Chiefs and Kansas City is a town you don’t want to be in right now. It really does suck to be a Kansas City Chiefs fan.

Herman Edwards was asked at halftime whether he’d consider benching Trent Green whose offense generated a whopping zero first downs in the first half and replied, “Not now, not ever”. Is Green really that good that he’s untouchable or is Damon Huard really that bad? Didn’t Huard get them in the playoffs to begin with? Maybe he should’ve been the one to start the game instead of Green who looked rustier than a coffin nail. Every time the camera focused on Larry Johnson on the sidelines, he looked like he hadn’t even broken a sweat and was just waiting for the game to finish so he wouldn’t be late for his pedicure.

Give credit to the Kansas City defense. They’ve been much maligned over the past decade but tonight they played their guts out the entire game and maybe with a little more support from their offense, they could’ve pulled this one out. My favorite part of the game was right after Ty Law’s second interception, the KC offense went three and out and that’s when the camera focused on Law who responded to the offense’s effort with a profound expletive. The amazing part was that I had just used that expletive a second before he had.

Let’s focus on the run-defense of Indianapolis defense and the running game (or lack thereof) of Kansas City. The Colts defense had been hearing how they suck all week long and Larry Johnson had been hearing how great he was and how he was going to plunder like a wild beast over them. The problem was that LJ and the Chiefs actually started believing that it was going to be that easy while the Colts were motivated by the bad press and decided to issue a statement. That and the unpreparedness of the Kansas City offense is the only way we can explain why LJ ended up with 32 meaningless yards. It was like KC had hoped the running game would be the answer to everything and didn’t bother drawing up a Plan B. You know what they say about keeping your eggs in one basket.

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