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At some point this season, I fully expect our Kansas City Chiefs to get exploited. I am already embracing the fact that some team out there, I do not know which, is going to figure something out on us and use that to their advantage. Whether it is exploiting our defense, finding flaws in our offense, or shutting down our special teams I am preparing to witness it on televison. After the jump I will tell you all what we have on our side that is going to help minimize this exploitation.

The Generals in their motorcade.

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Now don't think this is going to be another doom and gloom post, because it is not. We all know that we are going to get scored on, fail to score, fumble the football, miss field goals, and such. Its how we bounce back from these miscues, how we are going to plan to eliminate them. Every team in the NFL has some sort of flaw. The Colts got ran all over on Sunday, the Vikings couldn't move the ball, the 49ers got spanked, etc. etc. etc. Even in our own victory there were lots of things that need to be worked on. That is were Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel come in.

Several times watching the game the cameramen zoomed in on Romeo Crennel. To many that probably don't know it they would have thought he was the head coach of the Chiefs because I honestly think I saw him more times on screen than Todd Haley. At times they tried to zoom in on Charlie Weis high up in the booth but usually the rain was blocking him. The reason I bring this up, is because not once (that I recall) did they zoom in on the Chargers sideline and show their coordinators except for their Special Team's Coordinator Steve Crosby. Everyone across the league knows we have something going on here in Kansas City.

While you can never look to far ahead in the NFL, I guarantee you the Coaches have already watched Cleveland's game film. They probably watched that game live on Sunday. I am not going to get on here for one minute and write Cleveland off, we all know what happened last season, but I will get on here and tell you that I doubt they are going to have another 351 yard rushing performance against us, even if Tyson Jackson is going to be out. Do I think our offense is going to do better than it did last year, I can't say. But they did put up their best performance in a loss that game with 491 yards total offense. Second highest on the year to the final game of the season against Denver.

I think this year the overall planning of the team is going to be better. The 4th Quarter goalline stand on Monday Night  is proof of it. Watching Mike Vrabel call a timeout just to get a look at what the Chargers were going to throw at us was brilliant. "We really needed to save those timeouts" I was thinking in my mind for a march down the field. We were playing for the win, with our backs against the wall our Defense stepped up, played smart, and was prepared.  In the past we would have played for Overtime. There was honestly a part of me that expected the Chargers to score. I know that is sad to say, but I fully believed that we were either heading to Overtime, or they were going to go for two against us.

In the beginning of the game I was sitting on my couch screaming "were in the hell is Jamaal Charles!?!" I'm sure I wasn't the only one in Chiefs Nation thinking this, but I had to calm down and remember that I'm sure there is some sort of gameplan to all this. Coach Haley and Coach Weis had to have planned it this way. I know they weren't planning on the three and outs, but they were saving Jamaal Charles, and luckily for us when they unleashed him, Charlie Weis had figured something out in the Chargers defense. Now its a given that the touchdown can only happen if the appropriate blocks are laid and the god given talent of Jamaal Charles shines through, and it did.

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

Eisenhower, Dwight D.
1890-1969 Thirty-fourth President of the USA

I said it up above that I think this team is going to have well prepared plans this year. One thing I think we were lacking in season's past were the, as we call them in the Marines, "on the spot corrections". No matter what happens at any point in your plan you are going to have to improvise. Something is always going to happen that is going to require some on the spot, improvised, fine-tuning.

On Monday my wife wanted to know who this "Eric Berry guy is that your always talking about". So I pointed him out and where he was on the field. She paid attention and even though being a Colts fan, added her input to the game. I'm almost certain you all know when the Chargers scored their first touchdown, it was against Eric Berry, yeah she saw that also. My words to her were this "I bet you that doesn't happen again tonight", and while it didn't happen it led to another touchdown for the Chargers later. In the end I feel the "on the spot correction" was properly taken care of by Coach Crennel. While he couldn't forsee that Naanee would be wide-open later, after the Antonio Gates touchdown, Eric Berry and help, for the most part took him out of the game.  In the past he would have burned us over and over and over again. But our planning has improved, our on the spot corrections have improved, and this is going to pay off in the long run.

I'm confident that this year, we are for the most part going to elimate the career days. Some players are better than others and will have better games, like I said I'm fully preparing to witness big plays and long touchdowns against us at some point this year, but I don't expect to witness them weekly. I don't expect to see our guys walking off the field with their heads low this year, both our Head Coach and Coordinators won't allow it.

Before I finish writing I will leave you with one more quote, one good one that I really think sums up Phillip Rivers. Even though we have beaten the Chargers and are in first place in the AFC West, they according to everyone else still are the team to beat. Everyone was saying that Phillip Rivers is just passionate about the game and his meltdown on the field was because he is a "competitior", well its pretty funny to me how last year all these same analysts were dragging Coach Haley across the fire for the way he acted on the sidelines.

"You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates."

Richard M. Nixon

1913-1994 Thirty Seventh President of the USA

Coach Haley still has a long ways to go as do the Kansas City Chiefs, but our planning and preparation are going to be better, and having Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel around are going to help him. Phillip Rivers and the San Diego Chargers, we read your book.