Chiefs-Rams was great fun, but it’s bad football

Kansas City and Los Angeles put on a great offensive show on Monday Night Football, but this is not what the NFL game is supposed to be

I’m not Walt Kowalski. I’m not telling you to get off my lawn, or, in this case, my turf. The Monday night game between Kansas City and the Los Angeles Rams was fun.  I LOVED the entertainment factor. I LOVED the excitement. I LOVED the playmaking.It just wasn’t good football by NFL standards.

This was Big 12 football. That’s not an insult. I live in Big 12 country. I love Big 12 football. I sit in my man cave every Saturday and watch it. I study it. It’s great. But that’s not what the NFL is supposed to be.

The NFL is supposed to be a higher level of game. It is supposed to be art. It is supposed to be genius. It’s supposed to combine the art of physical ability and playmaking with the genius of great design and strategy. I know it because I played it. I study it. I wasn’t great at it and I wished I was better, but I understand it. The NFL is supposed to be all the entertainment combined with the intellectual challenge of chess.

Instead, what we had was a game that was fun, while at the same time sloppy. The theatre was great. The scriptwriting left something to be desired. To a certain extent, I can’t blame the people involved. Andy Reid is a genius of a play caller. So is Sean McVay. Wade Phillips and Bob Sutton are great defensive coordinators.

But when the rules are changed the way they have been this season, the game deteriorates from what it’s supposed to be about. To put it another way, the NFL is becoming something akin to Major League Baseball, where hitters either hit a home run or strikeout because the metrics say that’s what you should do.

In the NFL of 2018, you can’t hit the quarterback and you can’t hit receivers after they catch the ball. As a result, offensive coaches such as Reid and McVay realize there is less risk to simply chucking the ball downfield. Pat Mahomes and Jared Goff are great young talents, but they are often just dropping back and winging it.

That’s not good football for this level. Again, the NFL is supposed to have sophistication, intellect and class. I’m a football purist. I’m a football snob. The careless turnovers drive me crazy. Mahomes is a great young player. He’s one of the most exciting players in the game. But him just throwing the ball around at times makes me concerned that he’s going to become the next Brett Favre.

I loved Favre. I’ve never told anybody this because Favre destroyed my career. I was 0-10 in Lambeau before I ever won there. But I loved to watch Favre play. Once my season was over, I cheered for Brett to win because he was so talented and so much fun. It was a shame he only won one title. He was surrounded by talent. They were loaded on defense and had great offensive players.

But Brett won only one title because, inevitably, he was sloppy with the football. He would do something somewhere along the line that would cost his team a chance to win in a big game. I fear the same thing is going to happen with a guy like Mahomes because of the way the rules allow him to play.

He can get away with chucking a deep pass to Tyreek Hill for a touchdown in the first half because Hill is running free. The Rams defense was in trouble from the start because Sam Shields was taking Hill by himself in the slot. But when safety LaMarcus Joyner reacts the wrong way and doesn’t run with Hill, that play becomes an easy pitch-and-catch.

Is Joyner being careful not to hit Hill because of the way the rules are being enforced? I’m not inside Joyner’s mind, so I don’t know. All I really know is that the sloppiness of that defense is emblematic of what happened the entire game. It is emblematic of what the NFL is becoming for much of this season, but especially on Monday night.

Anybody who studies the game knows that’s what is happening. I said on radio before the game that if the Chiefs put Hill in the slot, it was going to be a problem for Phillips’ defense. Phillips likes to rush four or five guys most of the time and go with man coverage.

With the rules set up the way they are right now and with Kansas City having so many weapons, this play becomes nearly impossible to stop. Now, Phillips and his staff adjusted and played more zone as the game went on. Some of the biggest defensive plays of the game came out of playing zone.

Still, the overarching point is that Phillips, who is a brilliant coach, is left toothless in this situation. Instead of trying to find ways to cover people, defensive coordinators have little alternative but to take the same boom or bust approach. They must simply rush the quarterback and hope for some big play while at the same time hoping their defensive players don’t get called for roughing the passer every other play.

And to me, reducing the NFL to that type of game isn’t what I want. Yeah, it’s fun. Sure, it’s a show. But it’s the candy I’m supposed to eat on Saturday, not a good Sunday (or Monday) dinner.