Two of the Kansas City Chiefs biggest problems this year are third downs and red zone efficiency, particularly after last week's loss to the Cincinnati Bengals where the Chiefs kicked seven field goals and scored no touchdowns.
A user on the Chiefs subreddit linked a 2011 piece from the Press Democrat that included a quote from Steve Young talking about Alex Smith and those 49ers. The problems talked about in the piece sound familiar. Very familiar.
Here's what Young said about Alex Smith and the 49ers in 2011. Read the full piece here for context.
"I learned a lot from watching Brett Favre play. He was nuts. I would make the reads, drop the ball off, kick a field goal - thought I did my job. That's not your job. Your job is to create something, be "the artist" like these guys talk about, be the artist and create something to get the ball in the end zone, not read the play, see that he's covered, drop the ball down and kick a field goal. That's not the job. That's doing what you're told, but that's not...first of all you're not going to win, and second of all you're going to lose your job.
"So I learned very quickly that you had to figure out a way to create those touchdowns, and they are not easy. You say to me, "How do we get going?" Well, two things are really going to be a problem at some point if we don't get them fixed, is third down conversions. We've kind of gotten away with murder trying to win football games with two of thirteen, four of fifteen. That's not winning football. And when you don't score touchdowns, I have always said, and I learned this from hard experience - every time you kick a field goal you're closer to losing. You're that one step closer to losing. That's not always the case, but it's a general way to look at kicking field goals. To me, Alex has got to, that's his next point of development, is to be able to figure out ways to create touchdowns, and not just "doing the job." He's very competent doing those jobs, but we're kicking to many field goals, so he's got to - that means going out in the backyard with all the receivers and figuring out ways to create some space.
"But at some point you're going to take some risks of throwing some interceptions, and I can understand why Alex Smith would be afraid of that, because you start throwing interceptions with this defense and the history he has in this town, that's not good. So I could understand why he wants to be efficient."
You could've told me this was written today.