- 7/16/2025
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SportsTranscript
00:00Welcome back in game live game day here on sports grid. And finally, I know we've been talking a
00:25lot of football throughout this show, but we can officially begin what is essentially our not
00:31only training camp, but regular season preview and the road to the Super Bowl. Find out the best ways
00:36to invest in each and every one of these teams along the way. And we start with arguably the
00:42toughest, most competitive division in all of football, the AFC West, the reloaded AFC West
00:48featuring a team that is perennially in the Super Bowl, if not out there winning it. And as of
00:53course, the Kansas City Chiefs, you can see some odds on your screen there. The Chiefs with an over
00:57under of 10 and a half wins. Big surprise. That's what they do with Patrick Mahomes. It's always in
01:02that 12 to 14 or so window and the up and comers, the Broncos, the Chargers, and maybe even if not
01:09this year, maybe the next year, those Las Vegas Raiders. But we bring in our first guest to help
01:14us do this. And it is Dusty Likens, who is a talk host, radio talk show host out there in Missouri at
01:2196.5 The Fan. Great to have you here with us, Dusty. You can get Dusty on Twitter at Dusty Likens.
01:27You must be ready for football, despite that just fat, out of shape quarterback that you guys have
01:33there this offseason, Patrick Mahomes. Yeah, the guy that led with that, he no longer does sports
01:40radio in Kansas City because of many reasons. Takes like that and being a garbage human being
01:46will get you, you know, it was what you can to scrape the bottom of the barrel for some clicks
01:50and some likes. So we didn't really pay him much of attention on our show for four hours,
01:55knowing he was probably sitting there hoping that we would. But look, man, it's
01:58to think that's the take. Like, I'll even listen to somebody saying they'd rather have Josh Allen or
02:04Joe Burrow or Patrick Mahomes when, you know, the guy's saying it's a fatty himself. So come on now.
02:10Dusty, let's talk about the Chiefs. And you've been blessed to be covering this team for the,
02:16you know, the Patrick Mahomes era, really. And the Andy Reid era, you've had a lot of success
02:21and a lot of, you know, fun stuff to talk about. Teams certainly hasn't been in the dumps for a
02:26long, long time. What is it? Eight consecutive division titles or something like that. But I
02:31thought the year before when they won the Super Bowl, the second one in the row, and I'm assuming
02:37you'd probably agree, that was a lot of luck. I mean, they had a turnover differential that was awful.
02:43The penalty differential was awful. And somehow they made it all the way once again to the final
02:49game. Now, then last year, they win 15 and probably could have won 16, but, you know,
02:54rested all the starters in week 18 like teams do. What do we expect now? Where does the pendulum
03:00swing in 2025? Is it a regression or do they hold serve? What do you think we have on tap for this
03:06coming season? Yeah. So I think that if you look at what this team can be this year, I mean, you talk
03:14about luck the two previous years, right? With, you know, going to 11 and six, you had hardly any
03:21receivers available to even do anything for him. You had NBS, Kadarius, Tony, Skymore. You won a
03:26Super Bowl and you won 11 and six. Mahomes only won 11 games once or fewer in his career. It was
03:3211. He wins 12, 13 every year. And I was listening to guys earlier about taking the over under wins.
03:37But last year, you could almost say it was luckier than the year before, right? Last year,
03:42Rasheed Rice gets hurt in week three. Hollywood Brown gets hurt on the first play in preseason.
03:47And then you win a game by legitimately blocking a field goal against Denver in the last few seconds
03:53of the game. You had a couple of other, you know, whatever they were, close games. And yet you still
03:59went to the Super Bowl. You ran into a freight train in Philadelphia with that defensive line
04:03against the just complete, obliterated offensive line. They had Joe Tooney at 33 years old playing
04:08left tackle, not left guard. So, I mean, you go into this year and you take away everything from
04:13those last two years and put it into this year. And you think about potentially maybe a suspension
04:18for Rasheed Rice. We haven't really heard of anything, if that's going to be a thing yet.
04:22We don't know. Hollywood Brown's back. Xavier Worthy coming off an exceptional rookie year.
04:27I think they're going to expand the playbook with him. And we know everybody's favorite player that
04:31they hate to love, which is Travis Kelsey and potentially a swan song of a season.
04:36We'll see how he shapes out in this, what they're calling a last dance as we steal the
04:39documentary from the Chicago Bulls, because I guess we can. But I'm very interested to see where
04:45this offense lines up, because there's a couple of gambles that they have on this offensive line.
04:50They got the backup in San Francisco, who they paid a lot of money to. They drafted Joshua Simmons
04:54at left tackle, who they say could be ready by week one. We'll see. We know there's been
04:58the injuries that led into the draft that had him slip to the Chiefs. And you still have
05:03Juwan Taylor on the right side. Other than that, you kind of have the same nucleus in your
05:07offensive line, which is still the big question. But you have a lot of weapons for Patrick Mahomes,
05:11who's now 30 years old. 30. He's old.
05:14So I look, if we're talking about luck, I don't think there's any argument that last year in many
05:21ways was a lucky season. That doesn't mean they wouldn't have, without some of these things going
05:25in their favor, won the usual, again, 11, 12 plus games. But to get to 15, as Brady talked about,
05:3117, obviously, including the playoffs, they were 12 and 0, Dusty, in one score games. You know,
05:36Patrick Mahomes was 5 and 0 or whatever. Yeah, 5 and 0 in division last year with three of those
05:41wins by a total of two points. So obviously, there was a component of luck. But I think it's
05:47fair, and you acknowledge this somewhat, to just at least pay attention to the health factor on
05:53offense among the skilled players last year. For instance, Hollywood Brown, Rashi Rice,
05:58Xavier Worthy, if I'm not mistaken, those three never actually played a single game together.
06:02So guys, very, you know, much in and out of the lineup. Isaiah Pacheco had his injury issues as well,
06:07which opened up the door for Kareem Hunt. And then, you know, I think Swan Song is probably
06:11the right way to look at it for Travis Kelsey, because there's just, there's not a lot left in
06:15the tank there. But, you know, all the, like, weight jokes aside and stuff like that, I do think
06:19it's fair to acknowledge that Patrick Mahomes, offensively, and he's still, you know, if not
06:25the best among the best, he has regressed a little bit statistically in recent years. You know, you look
06:30back, 41 passing touchdowns in 2022. In the last two years, 27 and 26. And along the way, the Chiefs,
06:40you know, NFL leading offense has come down quite a bit as well. We've only seen this team now,
06:4631 plus points, four of the last 41 games, once in the last 20. When you're talking about the Kansas
06:53City offense, that is shocking. So do you think we are going to get a bounce back offensively for
06:59this team? On paper, it would seemingly say so, because I always go back to the years before you
07:06look at Hollywood Brown being out last year. You've already talked about all that and Rasheed
07:10Rice and those guys. But you go back to 23 when you had MVS Sky Moore and Juju Smith-Schuster,
07:15who I think, or maybe not, Nicole Hardman was even on the roster. And that's not something that's
07:20going to blow the stats out of the water. Last year, the injuries happened too. That's going to
07:24cause offensive numbers to slip. And I can give you excuses all day. But one thing that they've done
07:28in the league is they've taken away that deep threat that Patrick Mahomes was so great at doing
07:33early in his career when he had a guy like Tyreek Hill. Now, the stats would say that that didn't
07:37really matter because they win a Super Bowl without him the next year. And Patrick Mahomes wins the
07:41MVP and they're number one in every offensive category there is statistically to look at.
07:46This year, everybody, at least right now, is back together. So you would think that the offense
07:51could step up. The offensive line has also been battered and beaten throughout the last couple years.
07:55So not a lot of time to throw, not a lot of options to throw to. So to give you some sort of
08:01credit to that, yes, it has slipped. The numbers have gone down drastically from where they were
08:04at 4,000, 4,500, even 5,000. But to see that Mahomes' numbers were very similar to Aaron Rodgers'
08:10last year, that hurts right here. That hurts because Aaron Rodgers and Mahomes' numbers,
08:14very identical last year. And everybody said that Aaron Rodgers was washed and that he's done.
08:19So hopefully this year with the new revamped offensive line, all your weapons back,
08:23and somebody who cut their hair and is getting cold fat and getting pissed off,
08:26I'd love to see that flame be reignited this year.
08:30Dusty, we've just got about a minute left here and we can bleed this into the next segment.
08:35But you touched on a gentleman that the Kansas City Chiefs have brought in over the offseason,
08:40and that is Elijah Mitchell, the backup running back out of San Francisco. And, you know,
08:46he had trouble in San Francisco with injuries and you can't predict if that's going to continue or not.
08:52I don't know if he's injury prone. I don't know if it's the style of the offense.
08:56But I'm a 49ers fan, grew up watching this team and keep a close eye on them.
09:01Elijah Mitchell is really good. What's your crystal ball say? What do you think they're
09:07going to get out of this guy? Is he going to be a tremendous compliment to Pacheco?
09:12Is he going to be the lead dog in that backfield? What do you think the outlook is for Elijah Mitchell
09:20in 2025? Yeah, if I can give it to you as quick as I can, I would say that if you want to see
09:25what his role is going to be, look at Samaji P. Right, right? Look at what he did for the
09:29Jarek McKinnon type of role. Can he block on third down and can he catch the quick swing pass
09:34third and four? That's what his role is. We can pick that up on the other side.
09:39More on the Chiefs with Dusty Likens here from 96.5 The Fan out in Missouri.
09:44We're back here on Sports Grid with Dusty Likens, 96.5 The Fan in Missouri,
09:48previewing the season, albeit still a little ways out, I realize, for the Kansas City Chiefs
09:53defending AFC champions, who, by the way, we can show you some odds as it surrounds this team.
09:58Again, the over-under for wins, 11.5. It's actually plus money to the over, sitting right
10:02at even money if you want to say there's value in that. They get their usual dozen wins, which
10:07they do historically with Patrick Mahomes here, averaging 12.4 regular season wins since 2016
10:13when he became the starter. Nine straight division titles, minus 115 to win the AFC West,
10:19plus 400 on FanDuel to win the conference, eight to one odds to win the Super Bowl. If you are just
10:25a complete skeptic, you can get plus 310 on Kansas City to miss the playoffs, though I'm not sure very
10:31many people would like to invest in that. Of course, if you'd done it with San Francisco last
10:35year going into the year, you sat on a pretty nice ticket. I apologize, Brady. Brady had mentioned,
10:41you know, speaking of the Niners, Elijah Mitchell going from San Francisco to Kansas City, and just
10:45to give you, Dusty, a little bit more time to address that, it's a fairly crowded running back
10:51room right now. I mean, when you project ahead into training camp preseason and then come week one,
10:56September 5th in Brazil for this team against the Chargers, who's on the active roster?
11:03Yeah, I mean, gosh, I want to say it's going to be Elijah Mitchell, Kareem Hunt, and Isaiah Pacheco
11:10in that order. We have Isaiah Pacheco in a contract here. He's your bell cow, which I don't even know
11:14if that means anything in Kansas City. I got to think Kareem Hunt's on this team. I want to say
11:19that Elijah Mitchell's on this team. They did draft a rookie out of SMU, who they like, and we'll get all
11:24this, you know, training camp talk, which starts in about a week from, let's see, Tuesday. It starts
11:29in a week from this Tuesday in St. Joe, which is just what we call camp hell, because it's in the
11:33Midwest. It's thick. It's muggy. Andy Reid works these guys to death. They live in a dorm room for
11:38a month. Everybody hates talking about it on that Chiefs roster, but I think one of the things that
11:43you have to look at is Andy Reid loves veterans that are in big roles, and running backs roles in
11:48Andy Reid's offense is can you block for the quarterback, and can you catch the ball on third down and
11:52short if they do decide to throw that little wheel route out to the outside left or the outside
11:56right? The other thing this team struggles with, with offense, which we had mentioned earlier in
12:00the previous segment, is they struggle for some reason at like third and one, third and two,
12:05and short and goal, and I got to think that if they can't get in the end zone with the weapons
12:09they have on the outside right now, that they're going to probably try to use one of these running
12:13backs in Pacheco and Hunt to kind of punch the ball in, and Kareem Hunt doesn't fumble. Pacheco doesn't
12:18really fumble. So if Elijah Mitchell can block and he can be that trusted vet, then I think
12:23that's your running back group, and maybe that rookie from SNU plays on the practice squad until
12:27one of these guys doesn't end up making it through the season, because we know injuries in the NFL
12:31happen all the time. I mean, San Francisco here, I'm not trying to throw shots. That's two to you in
12:35like the last 10 seconds, and I apologize. So I don't want to do that, because I really like
12:41Shanahan, but I do think that your running back roster room is going to be Pacheco,
12:46Kareem Hunt, and Elijah Mitchell. Well, no offense taken. You know, since I moved to Las Vegas,
12:52I certainly follow the team, but I've also learned to become very jaded, you know, when you're gambling,
12:58and you don't just bet with your heart, you bet with your head. So, but I do want to ask you,
13:03I'll go back to the 49ers, and Adam mentioned it, that they had a completely underwhelming season last
13:08year, and I don't necessarily think it was any surprise. This team has been to the Super Bowl a couple of
13:14times and come up short, and to climb that mountain again is extremely difficult. Now you have the
13:20Kansas City Chiefs in a situation where they were trying to get to the top of that hill for the third
13:25time in a row, and they failed. And we all know about that historical trend of being the Super Bowl
13:32loser. It usually doesn't go well in the follow-up campaign. Is it worth taking a stab at, you know,
13:37big plus money for them to not make the playoffs? Is it, is it worth taking a shot at going rogue
13:43and expect that this team could fall off quite a bit, maybe finish second or third in that AFC West?
13:49Let me ask you something. Did you ever do that with Brady and Belichick when they were together?
13:53Right, right. Good question. So, no, that's not, no.
13:59Yeah, for some reason, and look, I get it. We're all, we're all gambling degenerates. I'm,
14:04you know, doing it right now as we speak. There's something in the, in the books with the draft
14:07coming up for the MLB tonight. Please, Ethan Holliday, shock the world. But I stand back on
14:13that. No, I, I think that when you look at, when you look at this, this team, right, they lose in
14:18the Super Bowl to Tom Brady and the Bucs get blown out, right? And then the next year, they lose an
14:23overtime to the Cincinnati Bengals at home in the AFC Championship game. So, we talk about Mahomes' 17 wins
14:30in the playoffs a lot. How about his four losses in the playoffs? AFC Championship game, overtime to Tom
14:36Brady. Super Bowl, Tom Brady. AFC Championship game, overtime, which has made Joe Burrow's career
14:42a highlight. Then you look at the last year. They lost in the Super Bowl to Philadelphia. Now, in those
14:47Super Bowls, they were blowout losses. But Tom Brady, at one point, lost to Jake Plummer in the first
14:51round at Gillette, getting blown out by Jake Plummer. Nobody likes to remember that. Mahomes, this year,
14:57look, the last three years, they played more football games than anybody in the world, and
15:01it's not even close. So, I think this team does hate losing more than they enjoy winning.
15:06Trey Smith, I think, said that on a previous podcast last week. The way this team hates to lose
15:11is so much greater than the way they love to win. And I know that sounds crazy because they've been to
15:16five Super Bowls and won three of them. But the two they've lost, they've revamped their teams both
15:20times and made progressive, aggressive runs towards getting to that Super Bowl mountain. So,
15:25I don't see this falling off yet because 15's still throwing that ball. Big Red's still calling
15:30plays. Spaggs is still on the defensive side. And Travis Kelsey's got one more year to prove it all
15:35to everybody. He wants to propose to Miss Swift at the Super Bowl. We all would love that, right?
15:41Dusty, we'll leave it with this. Travis Kelsey, who you were just mentioning,
15:45his player prop on FanDuel is 675.5 receiving guards. Now, he has exceeded that number every year of
15:53his career by a wide margin. But you can't ignore that he has regressed each of the last three years,
15:58going from about 1,400 yards to just below 1,000. The last year, 823, appearing in 16 games. And he's
16:05going to turn 36 in October. This is not like a fade Kelsey kind of thing so much as it is,
16:10we got to be realistic, right? Would you go under that number?
16:14I want to go under that number. I hope that under does hit because I don't want him to be the main
16:19target. He ought to be the fourth option in this offense. It ought to be Rasheed Rice, who's a yak
16:24genius. You got Xavier Worthy. You've got Hollywood Brown. And then maybe you have Travis Kelsey.
16:30Look for Travis Kelsey to be a lot like Jason Witten was in his last year with Dallas. Inside the 25,
16:35you know, I like his touchdowns over and I like his yards under because I think he's going to be a red
16:40zone threat. I don't want Travis Kelsey to have 900 yards. If that's the case, we lost another
16:44receiver for a third consecutive year. Four and a half is that number for the touchdown prop for
16:49anyone wondering. Only three last year, but five plus, you know, for the last six or whatever years
16:55prior to that. Dusty Likens on Twitter at that very same name. Again, a radio talk show host out at
17:0196.5 The Fan in Missouri. Dusty, thanks so much, man. We'll talk to you again soon.
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