I missed watching the Chiefs first pre-season game tonight because of a couples dinner date of all things for fucks sake.
It looks like Smith played typically, but Chase Daniels had pretty good stats. I'm really hoping Daniels gets a chance to start once or twice during the year. If anyone watched, did Chase look as good as he did on paper?
I'll try to be as unbiased as possible here, despite my pretty obvious bias towards Chase Daniel and Jeremy Maclin...
Chase looked better at QB than maybe any QB has looked in KC since Trent Green. Not only was he accurate as hell, but Daniel was getting absolutely HAMMERED by the Cardinals D. The Chiefs O-line looks bad, and the 2nd stringers are even worse. I can't think of more than a handful of passes that Chase threw were he didn't end up on his back afterwards. He was pressured constantly, all game long. The thing is, he never panicked and started scrambling, he stood in there and delivered perfect pass after perfect pass microseconds before getting lit up by blitzing linebackers, over and over again. Chase's passes were very crisp, tight spirals on absolute ropes to the receivers, hitting everyone perfectly in stride on the hands every time. I don't remember a single receiver having to jump, dive, or even slow down their stride to catch a pass from him. His only incompletions weren't even accuracy issues, or bad decisions. He did have a tipped ball or two at the line of scrimmage(an obvious issue since he's short), and another was a 40-yard bomb to the endzone where Chase got hammered as he was throwing the ball(and still barely missed, out the back of the end zone by a couple yards.) And that was really it for miscues
And before everyone says "well, he was playing against second team scrubs on D", that is accurate, be he also had 2nd team scrubs around him, trying to protect him, and run routes for him. The Chiefs 2nd string RB during that whole time was an undrafted free agent rookie, and he was hitting receiving targets like Fred Williams and Da'Ron Brown (who?). If you think the Chiefs starting WRs are poor(outside of Maclin) you should see the guys they were throwing out there as 2nd teamers. Daniel was obviously the best 2nd string player on the field by FAR. I won't try to claim that he's a great QB, but I think he could easily start for probably 10 teams in the league right now.
Chase looked good. Really really good. Would love to see him get a chance to throw to players like Maclin and Jamaal Charles and Travis Kelce.
Unfortunately, it won't happen. The chiefs have to justify the $17million per year that Alex Smith makes.
