Weekly Chop Talk Highlights

After the Kansas City Chiefs loss on Saturday night to the St. Louis Rams, 31-17, there was much to discuss about the red and gold.

The hosts of Chop Talk: BJ Kissel, Matt Conner and Craig Brenner were there Sunday night with a couple special guests to breakdown all of the action and speculate on what this preseasons play means for the Kansas City Chiefs regular season outlook.

Sunday's edition of Chop Talk featured guests TJ Carpenter, from 810 WHB Sports Radio in Kansas City and Matt Miller, NFL Lead Writer for Bleacher Report and founder of New Era Scouting.

Highlighted below are a few points made by this weeks guests. However, if you would like listen to the show in it's entirety, then please just follow this link.

TJ Carpenter, 810 WHB

We have to start this conversation in a really boring place. We have to talk about the CBA and whether or not there is legislation in the league about how you can treat injured reserved players and whether or not you can put a guy on the IR and whether or not you can continue to carry him. There’s talk in place of moving forward with that, but the NFL hasn’t decided, because there isn’t a consensus on how they should treat those situations between the NFL and the NFLPA. So, that’s the first thing is that, when it comes to IR… it’s very murky about how exactly teams are going to treat that and where players are going to be placed.

Kendrick Lewis… he’s a good player. I think they’re going to keep him, but they haven’t decided yet. I actually talked with Romeo Crennel earlier this evening in conference call and he basically had no information about that... So, we don’t know exactly what is going to happen with Kendrick Lewis. But I agree, I think the signing of Abram Elam was really good, I think it does lessen the blow of an injury like that and fortunately, I think they’ve got a lot of guys that they can kind of rely on in that position as well, who can do multiple things.

I don’t think it’s as big as a factor as it would have been previously if they hadn’t shored up that position in so many ways and been getting guys and been getting production and having more confidence in the guys that are already on the roster. I think in the long run, it’s going to be sort of a footnote for the season. But look, if the season goes poorly then people are going to sort of emphasize it and blow it up and make it a more significant part of it… But I don’t think it’s a huge issue at this point.

I would say that the fact that you played Tyler Palko over Ricky Stanzi last year would be evidence enough to say that he is not ready to play at this level. But with Brady Quinn, I just make it look… he is the second string guy know and they were already leaning towards that earlier in the week before the game started. Because they took two extra days to figure out whether they were actually going to give Stanzi second team reps and that’s not a vote of confidence for Ricky Stanzi from the coaching staff as far as I’m concerned.

I think his performance in the game, as dismal as it was, it just sort of solidifies that in the coaching staffs’ mind and Crennel talked about Ricky Stanzi during his conference call today and he tried really hard to not be mean to Ricky Stanzi. Which I respect that, you don’t want to just kill the guys confidence, which is already pretty low apparently. So Brady Quinn is the second string quarterback and neither of them is going to play unless Matt Cassel goes down and if he does, it’s going to be Brady Quinn.

Quinn’s not going to be a game changer, but he is also not going to put you behind, he’s not going to put you in a terrible situation through making mistakes or being hesitant on throws.

The Reason why Matt Cassel is playing as well as he is right now and I believe that will translate over into the regular season… Is not because he has somehow figured it out, but because there is a system in place there now offensively and when there is a system in place and everybody knows their roles and everybody is working well together with one another and they’re all on the same page… You’re going to be a more productive offense and I think that is what Kansas City has right now.

Daboll fixes deficiencies, which is what I really like about him. We’ll have to see if that continues, once they lose their first game in the regular season; once they come against adversity, whether or not that deteriorates or whether or not it stays strong and they keep working and keep focusing on the same things that eventually rectify their issues. But, Chiefs fans should be very optimistic about just how good this offense is going to be, because I do think for that reason Chiefs fans should be happy that Matt Cassel is the starting QB and has looked as good as he has in the preseason.

TJ's Bold Prediction

A bold prediction? Huh… that’s a very good question. Okay, how about this one? Jamaal Charles and Peyton Hillis will both be 1,000 yard rushers. How’s that?

Matt Miller, Bleacher Report

(On his inclusion in Madden) In the new connected careers mode, which kind of replaces the franchise mode that I think we all loved so much. You will see a virtual twitter feed from various NFL experts and for some reason they threw me in there. It’s pretty cool, because it will kind of evaluate how you are doing in the game. If Matt Cassel has a great game, you might see a tweet from me talking about how Cassel lit up the Oakland Raiders or how the draft pick that you made for the Chiefs was either great or terrible. So, it’s pretty great to get some custom made analysis from guys you see at ESPN or guys you listen to on Sirius XM or a guy like myself that you might read in Bleacher Report.

I think I was the only Matt Cassel fan in Missouri last year.

I’m not a Todd Haley fan and I would say that even if he sitting here with us. I feel like he really handcuffed the team last year with not just his offense, but his attitude and the way he went about getting his team to perform. I like Matt Cassel, he took them to the AFC West championship in 2010. He was a Pro Bowl level quarterback and now like you said, everyone was ready to write him off and throw him under the bus. So, I’m definitely not something I understood and it seemed like every time I tried to talk to fans about it, or try to educate people through an article… I just kind of got a lot of backlash. So hopefully this is a prove it year for Cassel and the doubters will crossover to the other side.

The job in the preseason is to evaluate players, it’s like you said at first. You want to put guys in a situation where you can evaluate them. You want to have the first team offense running your base sets so that you can see where they’re at in terms of knowledge level. Where you can see if you switch it to a zone blocking scheme like the Chiefs are, you want to see if the line and the backs are in sync together and if the linemen are taking the right angle, if the backs are seeing the right cuts. Those are the types of things you are going to look for. Not so much, okay the defense is loading the box, let’s hit them with play action. It’s not so much the chess match that it might be in the regular season where you are trying to exploit a weakness. In the preseason, you’re really just trying to you know; we want to get this on tape, we want to evaluate 1^st,2^nd, and 3^rd teamers, we want to work in guys that might be on the bubble to see what they can do. But it’s not so much about trying to find that weakness so that you can win the game.

I like Dequan Menzie at Alabama a lot, I thought he was the best cover man on the team. Obviously, Dre Kirkpatrick was first round pick, the better athlete and has some development potential. But Menzie was their better cover man. I think he projects really well to a slot position, which is kind of where Javier Arenas has played a little bit when he is not on special teams. I think that Menzie could be a guy that has good short area quickness. He has nice choppy feet and he is strong at the line of scrimmage.

So, you want to put him in there to help cover the Eddie Royal’s of the AFC West and guys like Brandon Stokely in Denver. I think that is where he can make his money, but he could easily transition to safety. He’s not blazingly fast, but he is really quick and instinctive. I think you could hide him at safety and let him learn on the job. It helps that Eric Berry is lining up next to him and can be a guy that helps him and can overcompensate a little bit for what he can do.

Matt's Bold Prediction

Oh wow… Well I picked the Chiefs to win the west, but I don’t think that’s really that bold. I think that has become the popular pick. So, I’ll say I think Jon Baldwin leads the team in receptions, yards and touchdowns.

The quotes gathered here by SBNKC only represent a small portion of the quotes from the show, if you would like to hear them all,

Be sure to click this link right here.

Chop Talk airs live every Sunday from 7 - 8:30pm CT and runs for 90 minutes.

Joining the show next week will be Steven St. John of 810 WHB Sports Radio in Kansas City.

Follow Matt Miller on Twitter @nfldraftscout

Follow TJ Carpenter on Twitter @TJCarpenterWHB