This episode is brought to you by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like, you know to check you have the tickets in you while at first before you drive two hours to the big game. Seriously, you had one job. Now the closest you'll get to the 50-yard line is parking lot D. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Savings vary, terms apply, Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. Alba Camara is the key. I mean, it always has been. Everything that they do runs through Alba Camara. And so I think if if if Chris Jones and the front seven can really establish not allowed the Saints to establish to run early. And it's not just to run because they get Alba in the ball in so many ways, right? They get him out of the ball in screens. They get him a ball in the passing game. But if they can shut down Camara early on in the game and force Derek Carr and that staff become a drop back passing type offense, I think that's advantage for the Chiefs defense. Thanks for listening to Casey Sports Network. Proudly presented by Enterprise Bank. If you're thinking about starting a business or know someone who is, check out Enterprise Bank's SBA loans. It's always good to know your options and they can be your partner in possible. Hello everybody. What's up? What's up? What's up? My team here in NFL vet and host of the process where the process is always great and what it produces. This is week five of the NFL season. The Kansas City Chiefs are still undefeated. Four and O as they enter Monday night football versus the Saints. But man, before we get all into who's who the strengths, the weaknesses, what's going to come up. Man, listen, you know our title sponsor as you see at the bottom of the screen is the McGinnis group. Yes, I work for the McGinnis group. We specialize in employee benefits, health insurance for companies, retirement, financial services, life insurance, and also long term care. We would love the opportunity to review your company's current plan and learn more about your game plan for the game plan of life. And don't forget T E A M together. Everyone achieves more as team. We always believe in team work at the McGinnis group. So reach out to Scott, to Sonny, to Matt McGinnis and let one of us, one of our producers. We sit down and have a cup of coffee, over lunch, something. Let's talk about what your benefit coverage is off from your plan to see if we can put together a better game plan for your success overall. This comes to business. Without further ado, man, we got a lot of stuff to get into and we're going to chop it up. My guest today is my man, Kevin Locket, not only not only a personal friend of mine, but also a great father, a great husband, a mentor to many young athletes here in the Kansas City community, a graduate of K state. So he's a power cat. Man, Kevin, we don't jump into it, man. Well, I mean, you know, one of the first things you take away is like, this is another one score game, right? How many one score gains has this team been in, but consistently they find a way to come out on top. And I think that's the markup, not a good team, but a great team to have that many close games, but to always come out on the positive side. I think the other person that probably doesn't get enough credit is our Decornage Spags. You know, charges come in scoring roughly about 20 points game and here we hold an attempt, right? And so all of a sudden, what you're finding is the Chiefs are winning in different ways and I just think Spags needs to get much more credit in terms of the different schemes that he's drawn out weekend and week out to stop. Some of the most potent offenses that we've seen over the years. Man, winning close games also Spags in the defense. It's not often that an offensive player will come in and the first thing they say is the defense, but I think anybody can recognize that there's something that's been very consistent. Even going back last year is the defense of the play. The one thing about our defense each and every week, I think we get frustrated as fans because the opening drive. I don't know what the record is, but every team scores, they open the drive on us. The first quarter, the first half is almost like we can't stop them. And then right when we need to turn those, you know, turn those, this tighten up on defense and really get the notches going is when we see Spags come out with these exotic blitzes, brain pressure. And this is the thing that I think all the friends want to know. If we can do that late in games in fourth quarter, how can we just start games, blitzing and coming from the exotics? What do you say from a defensive game plan? What would be the reason or maybe a possible reason why we're not doing that at the beginning of the game? I mean, you think about most offenses in the NFL. And the first thing they'd like to do is they either have their first 10 or their first 20 players that they already have scripted, right? And so I think what Spags is doing is he's filling the offense out. He's trying to get a feel for what is a coordinator going to try to do today based on the alignment, based on the motions, based on the areas he's trying to attack on a specific defense. And so I think what Spags is doing is he's filling those out. And then once he gets an idea of what the offensive coordinator is really trying to do and what he's trying to attack, what you see as him make an adjustment. And I think he's always been a great in game adjustment coordinator. And I think that's what you've seen now. I think what he does, he comes out pretty vanilla, the first call it one or two series, really try to get a sense of who they're targeting, who they're trying to get the ball in the hands of, and the areas that they're trying to attack on defense. And then I think he makes his adjustments accordingly, and it's worked, you know, weekend and week out. All right, like you said, a 4-0 start. Even looking at last week more in detail, the chief start out pretty good on, let me say, start out pretty good. The first drive, we give up a touchdown, second drive, Patrick Rosa and a ball that I don't know where that came from. Unfortunate interception. I think he could take that back, not only because he ended up an interception, but it ended up with one of our star receivers, our star receiver, not one of them, but our star receiver, Rashi Rice getting hurt. They haven't really came up with a total diagnosis of whether it's a season ending injury or just a few weeks. So we're still waiting for some of that information to kind of unfold. But with him being gone, what does the wide receiver room for the chief look like now as far as going forward? Well, I mean, you know, what did the coordinator do immediately? First thing Andy did was said, okay, we already had a game plan to get the ball in Travis's hands. Now we really got to get the ball in Travis's hands, right? And so we saw it last year. I mean, I would say, you know, we won a Super Bowl with what many would consider to be sort of a subpar receiving, right? And so it's not something that's foreign territory to this team. They know how to win and they'll find ways to win. I think the addition of Hunt is absolutely incredible. I mean, love Pacheco, but Hunt gives us a different style of run. He's even even more violent, in my opinion, gets to tough yards inside. Great screen guy too. Does a good job catching the ball out in space and then getting some screen yardage. So, you know, Andy is so creative. I think he'll find ways to do it. Ideally, you have Rashid Rice is able to come back and it's not as bad, but you also have the option where I'm sure Vicha scouring the market right now looking for any potential opportunities that fit within our salary cap where you may be bringing a guy in that makes some sense. Ideally, hopefully you see Juju and some of those guys step up, but I think we know what we have with Juju and Skymore and some of those guys. I think now it's going to lean on Travis a lot. It's going to lean on Hunt a lot until we can get Pacheco hopefully rice back and maybe a guy through free agency. Yeah, like what you're saying. So, we talk about the guys we have in-house, not only receivers in the room, but if you look at the Prager Squad, a Justin Ross or a Nico Rameseo, one of those guys getting brought up. And if not, if we do look at the free agency, I'm going to list some guys and you tell me which one you like the best out of ones I list. There's a guy who's got drafted by the Giants in 2019, Darius Slaton, who's still with them. We got Amari Cooper who is with the Cleveland Browns. You know, their season is not starting out the way they thought they was going to start, so they might be in a position to get rid of him. People talking about, you know, D-Hop, what he's, you know, are they using him the right way. He's showing a little bit of fire last week with the Tennessee Titans. I think he had a pretty good game. We talk about Devati Adams asking to be traded by the Raiders and then Tyree Kiel with the Dolphins. Obviously, the last two guys come with big cap implications. They come with a lot of, you have to trade off some pretty high trade draft picks and stuff to get them. But up those, you know, maybe those five options, what would you like to be in one of the ones you think that you would do if you was a red beach views general manager? Well, you know, so I don't know what all their contracts look like. And so obviously that has to be a big part that you take into account. But if I look at it just from a football perspective, I wouldn't mind doing a Mari Cooper. You know, and the reason I say that is when I look at a Mari's game, he's now played in two or three different places. Everywhere he goes, he's just a great route runner. You put a great route runner in a system with Patrick Mahal, you have a win. He's on your 10. I think he's getting a bit older. He's not as quick as he was. I'm not as fast as he was still quick in and out of his break, still catches the ball well. Maybe not as much separation as you typically like. But when you have a guy like Patrick, you don't need as much separation. And so to me, he's the better fit. When I look at like D-Hop, I think he's lost the step, not as aggressive, not as quick, not as fast as he used to be. Definitely not a lot of separation. And then the other guys, you mentioned, you know, you're talking about the body. That's a big cap nerve. You've got to move some other pieces for that to work. So the potential plug and play here might be, you know, to go with an other Mari, but we'll see what, what, what bridge pulls out. Yeah. Well, Beach got some choices to make. He has some decisions to make when it comes to where I receive a room. One decision we don't have to make is when we talk about the running back position. Because not only is that, I mean, from last week, we saw that Kareem Hunt is actually not only available. He's on our team. He's on. He actually touched the field. He looked great to me with the carries he did get. But then you also got some Maji Piran. We still got Carson Steele. And then we also got Clad of the layer who actually comes off of the four week IR. And now he's available to be added to the roster. So that, that, that, the running back room now looks awesome. And that was, you know, at the beginning of the season kind of a, you know, once the check will get hurt, we was wondering what we were going to do at that position. So now, you know, the injury bug has bit us in a different area. The concern is now moved out of the white running back room and on the wide receiver room. But I think, like you said, the one thing that this team has is as Coach Andy Reid, you got Patrick Mahomes. And between the two of them, it seems like they always raises everybody's talent level and ability up to the next level. So I think that they have plenty of game plans, plenty of, when I talk about Andy Reid's playbook, it's just chapters and chapters. He doesn't really, I don't, I don't think he doesn't actually feature any specific person we can and we go out. He just chooses on a certain game in a certain day to say, hey, this game plan is going to be, we're going to feature Kelsey for the first half and then we can change and move on to one of the wide receivers in the second half. Last year, we will, we have a position we can feature Juju or we can feature MBS or we can feature Kedarius Tony. Wherever we need it to, we can kind of create scenarios and schemes schematically on the offense to allow a receiver to come open. So when you, when you have that kind of offensive mindset, I think that you don't succumb to injuries and they don't really affect your production on the offensive standpoint as much as, I think some other teams, when they base a whole offense philosophy around a certain player's skill set, and then when that player goes down, they have to find ways to pivot go out of the way. So, well, and don't be surprised if you see the rudder guys get much more involved in the passing game as well. You look at, I mean, when Pacheco comes back, catches the ball well, you know, P. Ryan catches the ball well out of the back, Phil Hunt does, I mean, so, you know, Andy's going to be creative and he's going to get different groups of different guys out there to sort of make up for the gap that we currently have with Rashid Rice being down. All right. Well, to end off segment one, I got to say, in 2017, Andy did create a great offensive game plan that featured Kareem Hunt. Kareem Hunt was drafted that year and actually ended up being led to League and rushing yards that year. Rookie, offensive rookie of the year, a phenomenal year. So being that he's back in the building, let's never be surprised if this chief's offense does start the feature of the running game. I'm a little bit more and especially with Kareem Hunt back in the building. So that's going to be in segment one. You're listening to the process. The process is always greater than what it produces. We'll be back with segment two. In segment two, we're going to talk about some ingredients for success. As we talk about, obviously, our segment is featured by a sponsor by Red Door Grill. It's one of the best neighborhood restaurants in this area. We'll be right back with you in a moment. Shop chief's tickets and more with no fees. Plus, save big with code KCSN at tickets4less.com. The official ticket provider of KCS Sports Network. This episode is brought to you by CarMax. Searching for your next car? Tense settle. Thrive. At CarMax, it's easy to shop online or in person. With upfront pricing and tools designed to help, finding a car you love has never been easier. Plus, you can sell or treat in your current vehicle with an online offer in minutes. No strings attached. Start shopping now to find a car you'll love at CarMax.com. CarMax. The way it should be. At Sierra, discover great deals on top brand workout gear, like high quality bikes, which might lead to another discovery. Oh. Oh. Getting back in the saddle isn't always comfortable. Good news is, Sierra has massage guns. Ah. And shave wipes too. Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving. Welcome back to the process where the process is always great in what it produces. And this is segment two. When we talk about ingredients for success, this segment is brought to you by Red Door Grill. A phenomenal restaurant here in the Kansas City area. Well, when I talked about week one and weeks two, weeks three, we talked about some different, some different entrees and some different things you like. Well, Red Door Grill has this great rewards program. And not only do they have a rewards program, it's just got even hotter. Um, you got to, you know, spend a little bit to get a little bit. As you are collecting your rewards, you can use your rewards for desserts. You can lose it for entrees. Um, you can even use it for swag, handheld food, beanies, t-shirts, hats, hoodies. As the points increase, the values increase on your rewards cards. You can reward, um, trade those in for different items. So make sure to always get your rewards card and get your points when it comes to Red Door Grill. Uh, we love their food. We love the way they've, um, just been a staple in our community. Uh, that's one of my favorite restaurants. I always go to the one down to 150th Night Street. Uh, so when you have a chance, go buy, visit, uh, Josh and the staff there, man. Give them a great opportunity to earn your business. Red Door Grill, um, the, the restaurant that definitely serves the, the Kansas community needs. And without more ado, we talk about rewards. Well, what, what I want to talk about when it's caused by reward is defense. Um, obviously I play a linebacker in a league for 10 years. When I look at these first couple of weeks, Kevin, the Saints defense has given up 10 points, 19 points, 15 points. And they really only gave up 12 points last week to the Falcons. And then we look at the chiefs, the chiefs have given up 20 points, 25, 17 and 10. So our defense has, you know, gone from week one to week four, getting a little stingier. Uh, that defense started stingy and gave up a little bit, but both teams are really only giving up around 14 to maybe 17 points again. And so when you look at, uh, recipe for success, I think the defenses are really kind of counseling each other out. And so it's going to come down to maybe whose offense becomes the most efficient on game day. So Monday night football. Um, I think the one thing we've seen in the league is, uh, the league is usually is kind of a copycat lead. So watching Sunday football, watching Thursday night football, well, maybe watch a few games. And if you see certain concepts, passing concepts, things that are, um, being done around the league, I wouldn't take it for granted that we wouldn't see those things emulated on Monday night. So what are some of the things you think offensive, either by the Saints or by the Chiefs that you think we might see on Monday night football? Well, you know, we talked a little bit already about a re-engineered offense, if you will, from, uh, from, from Kent City. I mean, we're going to, we're going to see some plug and play with some different positions. Uh, some, some different guys getting their hands on the ball early. Uh, so I expect that, but you're right, both defenses are going to be sound defenses. I mean, what I love here is now you go to the other factors, the X factors. You got home field advantage. I mean, it's laying an arrowhead. That's going to be huge for, uh, Kansas City, uh, parts of the game. Like special teams are all of a sudden going to become big field position will become big turnovers are always big. Um, you know, so my hope is that from an offensive standpoint, you know, Patrick sort of settles back in. Uh, it stops making a few of these sort of careless turnovers where we're, we're giving the ball away and not just giving the ball away, but giving field position away. Um, I do think that, you know, I got to give the nod to Kansas City. Uh, if I look at, you know, both defenses, I think our offense is harder to stop than, than the Saints offense. I mean, Derek Carr's doing a great job down there. He's moving the ball and putting points on the board. Uh, but at the end of the day, I think with us playing an arrowhead, uh, I don't know exactly what the record is, but I know that we play really well at home under Andy Reid. Yeah, and the same as they put up 90 points in the first two weeks, uh, which almost, I think it's a number three overall in NFL as far as records in two weeks of football. Uh, they have some weapons over there. Obviously, Albuquerque Mara has had a tremendous start to his, um, his year this year. Um, a latte, the wide receiver. Uh, they have another Shaheed. So those have kind of been the three headed monster in the Saints. Um, they've always featured the running game first and the running game has been used to kind of set up the passing game. Um, the offense coordinated air is using the same offense that the, uh, the dolphins and the 49ers use. It's a, it's a version of the Shanahan game using the run, set up the pass and then using the play action pass to when they do go for passes, it's big chunks. It's this 20, 30 yard shots down the field. Um, just reflecting to the game against the Falcons. Um, they had, uh, Taysom Hill, they're a jack of all trades. He had two punch, two rushes in for touchdowns. Uh, six attempts for 24 yards. Uh, Alba Kamara had a touchdown. He had 19 attempts for 77 yards. He also had seven receptions for 43. So another game of a hundred plus yards from scrimmage for Alba Kamara. I think he's on pace. Um, awful weeks he'd had over a hundred yards from scrimmage. But then his two receivers both had, uh, eight receptions, uh, Lave went for 87 yards and Shaheed went for 83. So I think that, you know, unfortunately they've been, they've been eating up, uh, time of possession. They, they possessed the ball. The offense has done a great job, uh, going back to one of the things you said about special teams. That has been the Saints Achilles foot when you talk about last week against the Falcons. Defensively, uh, they only, they didn't give up an offensive touchdown last week. All right. They gave up three field goals and then two of the touchdowns, they had up to 14 points was a muffed punt. They ended up getting recovered in the end zone and then a pick six. So, um, when you talk about defenses and playing really, really well, but it's not really receiving the, um, but the W's in the end, the wins in the end. You will look at one of these defenses and you say the Saints defense has probably been playing if not as well as the Chiefs defense. Maybe a tick better, um, than the Chiefs defense. So there's going to be a, you talk about a challenge on Monday night football. This is going to be two, uh, equally yoked teams that have really, uh, set themselves to come up. Um, and really, you know, we talk about Monday night football, man. It's, it's everybody has on us. Um, it's only one game being played. And so that's when all the stories got to come out. So I'm looking for big games, man. Uh, Chris Jones got to come out with Leo Chanel, um, Justin Reed, uh, McDuffy. Uh, all the stars need to come out on, on, on defense, uh, to really shut down this Saints offense. And I think if we can shut down a balanced offense like the Saints, it really, um, will just riot, just really, uh, increase the trust that thing. We already know we got a really good defense, but there's some, I think there's still naysayers that are still out here who thinks they will. We got the Ravens early. Uh, the charges were injured. Um, the Cincinnati, Cincinnati was a little injured. You know, so there's a lot of excuses of why our defense has been able to perform the way. I think this is one of the weeks we can really, uh, write the ship and kind of show everybody on a national setting. Uh, that it's not only the chief's offense you got to worry about, but the chief's defense. Yeah, and to me, Alachomara is the key. I mean, it always has been everything that they do runs through Alachomara. And so I think if, if, if Chris Jones and the front seven can really establish, uh, not allowed the Saints to establish to run early. Um, and it's not just to run because they get out of the ball in so many ways, right? They get them out of the ball in screens, they get them to move on in the passing game. But if they can shut down Kamara early on in the game and force Derek Carr and that staff become, uh, uh, a drop back passing type offense, I think that's advantage for the chief's defense. I think if you get, if you let Kamara get going, uh, all of a sudden play action, be boss to a lobby and some of those guys, all of a sudden become, become a possibility. So again, uh, it all comes down to, you know, we got to stop tomorrow. Uh, and I think that, uh, if I got to put my chips in one bag and put them in spags bag. All right, sounds good. Ingredients for success going to be, uh, the chief's actually, um, value in the possessions, right? No, no careless turnovers. Uh, defensively get making the Saints offense a one dimensional offense. And then the third key is going to be, um, letting the special teams be special. Not making mistakes, not giving the ball over short fields and then taking advantage of the weapon we have, which is bucker and making long field goals, making sure that we're, um, using our opponent the right way. He's been phenomenal so far all year long. Coffee, uh, kicking, uh, heavy offense and starting inside the 10, sometimes inside the five yard line. So that wraps up our keys to success ingredients for success when it comes to red door grill. Again, thanks red door grill for their sponsorship of this segment. Um, that segment two will be back right back at you. And with segment three, as we talk about the overall picture when it comes to the NFL and what games to expect to be the big games, the big matchups here in week five, I'll be right back at you. We appreciate you supporting Casey Sports Network by listening to our podcast. You have helped us become the highest ranked Chiefs podcast network in 2022 and 2023. And don't forget about our daily sub stack newsletter, the best written analysis you can find on the Chiefs straight to your inbox every day. Casey sn.substack.com So you want to be a marketer. It's easy. You just have to score a ton of leads and figure out a way to turn them all into customers. Plus, manage a dozen channels, write a million blogs and launch a hundred campaigns all at once. When that's done, simply make your socials go viral and bring in record profits. No sweat. Okay, fine. It's a lot of sweat. But with HubSpot's AI powered marketing tools, launching benchmark breaking campaigns is easier than ever. Get started at HubSpot.com/marketers. The time for holiday hosting is upon us. So make your second bathroom second to none with Home Depot.com's best savings of the season. Right now, enjoy up to 40% off select online bath. Find the latest entrant styles of vanities, faucets, showers, tubs, toilets and more. All at prices that will let your budget relax right along with you and your beautifully renovated bath. Get up to 40% off select online bath plus free delivery at the Home Depot. Subject to availability, see Home Depot.com/delivery for details. Welcome back to segment three of the process. The process is always great in what it produces. It's your guy, Sean Barber, 10 year NFL vet, man, been fortunate to break down. Week four, we talked about week five. We talked about some ingredients for success when we talking about the cheese versus the sates. And now we have a chance of breaking down the NFL as a whole. We're going to look at the AFC NFC playoff pitcher for a little bit and talk about what are some of the key components? What are some of the constants when we look at team in and team out, which teams are actually in the playoffs and which teams are now, even in week four, week five, almost on the brink of being out of playoff pitcher. So Kevin, really quickly, man, I'm going to list down the current state of the NFL when it comes to playoff pitcher in the AFC. We had chiefs at the one seed, the Texans, the Steelers at the three seed. We got the Buffalo Bills at the four seed, and then the wild card at this moment would be the Jets, the Colts, and the Ravens. So those are the 17s that would make the playoffs. And right outside of those 17s are the rest of the AFC West teams, which are the Chargers, the Broncos, and the Raiders, which come in at 8, 9, and 10, all two and two. Early season, and we know, I mean, we see the stats as the season starts, can't start off on two, you can't start off on three. On four is just the deaf sentence for trying to make it to the playoffs in the NFL. And there's only one team in league, the Jacksonville Jaguars are on four, the only winners team in the league so far. But just looking at those AFC teams and looking at the pitcher, what are some of the common threads you say you say you see in those organizations that are leading them to be successful. You know, leading them to be successful like they are right now. Well, a couple of things. I mean, you know, we continue to talk about, you know, what do winning organizations have. One, you have a quarterback who can play the game at a very high level. And so you mentioned the Chiefs, you mentioned the Steelers in the three and the two were Texas. I mean, so you got Pat Mahold, you got C.J. Shroud, and then you got Justin Bealson playing at a very high level. The other piece is high defensive level play. And then you go back and you talk about what Spags is doing with the Chiefs. You know what's happening down in Texas. I mean, that defense is flat. The Mikko. The Mikko got everybody rolling. And then you got the Steelers who already told it. Mike, Mike, always. C.J. Watt. So, again, it's not a difficult formula in terms of what it takes to win in this league. But it is very hard to a get a defensive play sound. Doesn't get penalties and allows the offense to put a small number of points on the board. But the hardest piece is always getting a quarterback that can play at a high level. I mean, there's five, six guys that really play at a high level, week in and week out. And if you don't have one of those five or six guys, then you have to be able to overcompensate in some other areas by being just very special on special teams or something or playing well on the road. And so that's what I see as a commonality just on those three AFC teams. And my guess is when you look across the NFC, which I'm sure we're about to do, you probably go see the same story. Well, let's do that. We look across there at the NFC and we have an undefeated Falcons team starting at 4-0 in the one seat. The number two team right now would be a little bit surprising. It's actually the Bucks. The Bucks are the two C with Baker Mayfield. And then we had the three seed. I think that's probably the most surprising of anybody is the commanders, the Washington commanders, rookie quarterback. I mean, some of the things he's done in the first three or four weeks of the season are setting NFL records. I think they went two games in a row without having to punt the ball. So 15 consecutive drives where they ended up with a field goal or a touchdown. So Jim, I mean, he's doing a tremendous job of kind of, I guess, settling into that offense. And that coordinator, I guess he was a guy. It's the guy from Texas Tech. There was also an Arizona round. I'm blanking on his name now, but the offensive guru that's known for putting people in places. And so, you know, it's him, right? So it's Jalen. It's, you know, it's Baker who's playing at a high level runner. And then Sam Darnell, who's sort of the sweetheart of the league right now at the quarterback position in terms of playing at a level higher than people ever expected. And let's have a look at the Seahawks in the 4-C right now as the Seahawks, obviously. Well, again, Geno playing at a very high level in terms of, I think he's in the top five in every quarterback category that there is right now through the first four weeks. I would say your son has something to do with that Tyler Lockett. Your son, I'd say he has something to do with the Seahawks being in that playoff rush right now. But then we're looking at five, six, and seven. It's the Lions, the Falcons, and then the Bears. Again, high quality quarterback play, whether we're talking about cousins at the Falcons. We're talking about golf at the Lions, or we're talking about another rookie, Williams at the Bears. So both of those rookies have been able, like you said, it's not just the offense, but if we look at these teams, the comments is defensive. These are some, we look at the seven teams in the AFC and the seven teams in the NFC. I think each of these defenses all list as top ten defenses in their conferences. I mean, you look at what Mike McDonald has done with Seattle. You take away the Monday night game against Detroit where they had a bunch of the front seven that were out. Those first three weeks, they were leading in almost every category on the defensive side. You move down a level, you go to the Lions. I think who was sitting at number five, they can always got an incredible defense. And we saw that actually take place on the recent Monday night. So, you know, that's the consistent thread is that you got to have a strong defense, especially when you talk about the NFL being built today as an offensive game. I mean, you look at the way the penalties are thrown. You know, a lot of penalties in favor of the offense. NFL wants a lot of high scoring games because that's what gets the crowd and the fans excited. Having a defense that can be able to throw, to a throw at that and slow that down a little bit is absolutely critical. Man, one thing we talked about, I think year in a year, everybody talks about this word of parity. How can the NFL create parity so every fan base can feel like their team has a chance to go into the Super Bowl. Their chance of going to the playoffs. I can name one, two, I can name five teams at the beginning of the year. You thought were locks to be a playoff team in the NFC. We talk about the Saints, the Cowboys, the Eagles, the Packers and 49ers. Before the season started, all of those teams were locked as playoffs teams. And right now, they sit outside the playoffs. They are on the outside looking in. And so when you talk about the NFL creating a product that, like you say, on the field, scoring points to get fans there, but then off the field, having the ability for every fan base to feel like their team in week five and weeks 10 and weeks 15 still have a chance to get to the playoffs. I mean, I don't see anything being different. I think that even come weeks 10 weeks 15, there's still going to be a one or two game difference between the team being the eighth, ninth, tenth team or being the fifth, sixth, seventh waiting for a wild card. And as long as that stays relevant and everybody still has their playoff life on the line, the fan base and attention to details and everything that the fans going to do to participate in, and see football, everything to make sure normal game day ritual of what you do to help your team win. Each and every Sunday, Monday and Thursday night football is just going to continue to increase as the season go. And it's going to just, it's going to be a buildup of momentum and energy. I think it's going to end up being one of the most exciting NFL seasons. And then the one thing everybody's waiting on is when is the champion going to be knocked off the shelf? Right. As we went back to back champions here in Kansas City and we're going for a three-peat. Something has never been done in the history of football. It's never been done because we know there are some things that you can't prepare yourself. You can't prepare yourself for your number one receiver to get hurt. No, no one will receive an annual number running back. And that's within the first four weeks of the season. So it's going to be a long season, the injury bug is going to pop up and bite us in the butt again at some point during the season. But I think the Chiefs have done a great job of creating competition levels across the board at all positions. In the depth that Brett Beech has created in position by position. You talk about the line back position, the corner back position, wide receiver running back. Even across the defensive line and the offensive line, there's some depth in this team that I think is missing at other organizations. And so when we go to face the team and they're on their backup tackles or their backup center or they don't have their first wide receiver tight. Listen, we don't have to make any excuses. Every team has the opportunity to set themselves up with the same parameters when it comes to 53 players being available for the season. And it's who can set up the most depth in their roster. That's usually going to be the team that's going to be around at the end. So, well, and I can say from the Chiefs perspective, I think we have a coaching event. I mean, from the offensive perspective, I mean, you got a lot of coordinators that are out there. We got a head coach who understands this game better than most. And then we got a defensive coordinator who's doing it at a high level, one of the top three that's in the league, you know, today. And so, you know, to win as many games that we have as closely as we have, you talk about the depth, that's one piece of it. I think we also have coaching advantage, both are on the offensive and the defensive side of the ball. But the other piece that I think why our coaches are so good is that I think in game adjustments is just something that both of those guys do very, very well. We talked about what Spags does from a defensive perspective. But even even when you look at Andy, if Andy is looking to focus on the ball, getting Kelsey to ball early in the game, and it seems like the defense is just adamant about taking that away, he's not going to try to take a round peg and stuff it in the square hole. He just adjusts. And all of a sudden he decides to feature someone else. And that's the deal. His offense is so fluid. It's so flexible. And it's really more about if you are in a position role and you do your job, then 15 is the one who's the captain. He runs the show and he will get the ball in your hands. And so what I love is no matter who's at a receiver, the offense is built in a way where all of our receivers, if you notice, they catch the ball on the run. There's very few routes like Curl Rouse, where our chest is facing the quarterback. We're catching the ball on the run. And so again, that's why a guy, like if you go out and get somebody, like I'm Marty Cooper, makes sense to me. Good route runner. Get the ball in his hands while he's on the run and get going. So there's just some small pieces that I think we have an advantage of as well. And that didn't even take into account. Man, great job talking about the arrowhead, the energy, the sea of red brings the coach and staff, Andy Reeve Spagnola. And also Dave Tobe, he actually got interviewed a few years ago back before a head coaching job. So we got three potential head coach in all three phases. And that's not even mentioning the staff under him, the man Aggie, Dave Merritt and everybody. So I mean, possibly five or six potential head coaches, all coaching the roster here at a very high level. And you add that all with Chris Jones, and you add that with Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey. And there's no surprise the Chiefs are 4-0 facing ability to go 5-0 here on Monday night football. All right, so let's talk about some of the good matchups to going into week five. And then we'll put a ball on this. The first game I wanted to talk about really quickly is the Buffalo Bills that are at the Houston Texas. Obviously, like you said, two of the top quarterbacks, Josh Allen is facing CJ. And the Texans defense, they're going to be at home. They're going to be very hungry. The Mico Ryan's is the head coach there. He has that defense plan at a very high level. I think that the Texans in the last two weeks have stumbled a little bit off offense. And I don't know is it because injuries to take their Nico Collins was a little bad up. And then they're running back position. They had two running backs go out. I know there was Joe mixing was a starting running back. And then they had their backup running back. So they had to start Cam Acres for the last two weeks. So maybe not having that consistent. Although the running back they were used to back there. I might have call some little hiccups in their running game. But he was still thinking is enough talent in the room offensively with Collins. And then with the running, the wide receiver they got from the Buffalo Bills. That's the match of home. He's away from home now. Now he's in Houston. That's his spot. And he's going back playing his old team with William Buffalo. So that's going to be a remarkable game. I think it's going to be a good defensive game. That defense that the Mico has is stingy. And they're very, very physical. And I'm going to assume as the season goes on, that Houston defense is going to get even better. So more they beat people up and people's bodies get beat up. The more effective that defense is going to be called. Well, they got some dollars there that can come up to the ball. Daniel Hunter, obviously Will Anderson is the rookie of the year on defense. They got some guys that can really get after the passer. Well, anyway, Josh Allen has been phenomenal. I think if there is a modern modern day in Roth's Burger, a guy that can kind of push some guys off and still make throws. He keeps his eyes downfield. And when they talk about him running the ball, he's a mag truck out the backfield. So interesting matchup. I got the text and still winning the game just because I'm a former teammate of the Mico. So I'm going to point. I'm going to root for him. The next matchup is the New York Jets actually are going and playing at the Minnesota Vikings. What do you think about that matchup? That would be a good matchup because typically I would say the Jets win this game. But the way that Minnesota has been playing, especially at home, you know, Sam Darnell, he's been playing, taking care of the football, been playing good football. I'm going to go with Darnell and go with the Vikings. I think there's just a lot of things surrounding the Jets right now, especially a little bit off the field issues that are going to be some challenges for them. So I think the Vikings win that game. I like that too. I'm going to go ahead and go with the Vikings also. I think the Minnesota's defense is a blitz first. Ask questions later. I think some defenses like to wait for the first or second quarter. They want to feel you out. They want to let you get through the first 15. The kind of seeing what's working was not and the defense of quarter in Minnesota, I don't think I think he's fearless. I think he is just saying, hey, either you're going to score in two or three plays or we're going to second. And he is bringing the house. He's bringing overload blitz. He's bringing dogs and pressures from every place in the back end is just holding up. They're finding the way. I think they have a veteran back in and he's got some guys. I didn't really know how to hunt the quarterback and they've been making a really good push to me. They've been one of the top defenses in the league so far through the first four weeks of the season. So I mean, like you said, having Sam Donald have a chance to have a little revenge game against the team he used to be with. I think when he was with the Jets, that was the infamous. I'm seeing ghosts. Yeah, there was a game where I don't know who he is playing against, but there was a game where they were not bringing pressure. But he was throwing it like it was pressure coming. They caught him on the sideline with a hot mic and he said, "Hey man, I'm seeing the blitz coming." And everybody was like, "Man, this game is getting out of hand really quick." But yes, Sam Donald has definitely turned things around. We're seeing a rebirth of slick when it comes to Sam Donald. So yes, I also got the Vikings defending the home. The school clap will be going out there in Minnesota. I think Minnesota actually remains undefeated and goes to 5-0. And then obviously the feature game is going to be Monday night football. The New Orleans Saints come here to Kansas City to face the Sea of Red at GEHA Field, Arrowhead Stadium. Our Kansas City Chiefs are really quick. How does that match up maybe a summary? We talked about it obviously with two segments. But what do you think the final product of that game is going to be? Probably another one score game if we know the Chiefs. Good close battle. But I think the whole field advantage is going to be big. I think Patrick does a better job of taking care of the ball. We have a couple of guys on offense step up that maybe haven't been big performers up to this point. And we end up winning by five or six or something like that. So I think the Chiefs remain undefeated just like the Vikings. All right. All the home teams win. I got Kevin the same way. I got the Chiefs defending their home field. I got him winning 24-20. I think the defense holds up, creates a couple turnovers. I think some of the special teams gifts or whatever you want to call them that the Saints have packaged up and given teams. I don't think they stop. I think they're in the mood of giving this man's the season for giving. So I think they give us give a couple of muff parts or just some some some block hunt or something from a special team standpoint. It works to our advantage gives us a short feel. We go score. I am so excited to see Kareem Hunt based his defense. We did the one thing the Saints do. Yeah, they get after the quarterback. They play good on the back end. But I think the soft underbelly of the beasts is their run deep. I think a running back can really run him back like Kareem Hunt. Ground pound. Just make awesome balance. Always running behind his shoulder pads. You see him. He's and every time he has the ball, always one of the best guys and making guys miss. So it always takes a group to get him down. So I'm looking forward to a big game out of Kareem Hunt. Again, Travis Kelsey controlling the middle. Keep no safety from getting too involved. And then obviously Xavier worthy over the top. That's been something even the big shots. I think a week ago against the Chargers. I still personally think that Patrick under through him a little bit. He still had to slow up. So I'm curious to see if we can actually throw a ball far enough to see how fast this young man can go. I mean, phenomenal world class speed and having that available each and every day out is going to be amazing. So we're going to see what goes on. Again, Monday night football, the Saints come to Kansas City. It's going to be a tremendous game. Don't you miss it. Man, I got to thank my man Kevin Lockett for coming and sharing some of his thoughts and nuggets and wisdom of what's going on in the league. And also, again, Red Dog Real, thank you for your support and also the McGinnis group who's our title sponsor. Without a do it, that wraps it up. Week five, the process where the process is always great and what it produces. I'm your guys, Sean Barber. I'll be right back with you next week. Peace. Thank you for listening to KC Sports Network. We appreciate your support. Don't forget to hit that follow button and leave us a review if you like what you heard. 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