Quote:
Originally Posted by rfaulk34
He doesn't have to play through the receiver. If he has any kind of awareness, he plays it on the side to completetely avoid going through the receiver.
The sad part is, he wasn't even aware a receiver was right in front of him because he "was playing the ball".
Honestly though, i put more on Lou for only rushing 3. Pre-snap i thought, "that's a bad idea".
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But again - he was the nearest guy with a chance to make the play, but he's not the guy that caused the play to happen.
I don't know who the DB was, but there was a guy who was going to be right in that throwing lane and either he drifted with Mahomes movement or he was tracking his eyes - in either event, the underneath DB moved and created that lane for Rice.
Once that happened, the defense had failed. It was now compromised. And Mahomes saw it.
Now you have a rookie where he had to make an incredibly difficult play that's a bang/bang pass breakup even if he does everything absolutely perfectly. He had to come screaming downhill from his deep safety position and Rice was posting up. This idea that he could've just come around him pretty much ignores basic physics.
Rice had put his body right between where the ball and the DB were. The DB really had no choice but to try to play through him and the only way he could've done that was to time it perfect. And that's borderline impossible playing at full speed.
I said it at the time - it's no different than a well executed blitz that puts an OL on an island and gives him no choice but to hold and hope he doesn't get caught. That DB was put into a nasty, nasty situation by a really good play by Mahomes and the other DB on that side of the field sinking on the underneath pass catcher a bit (I think it may have been Perine).
Blaming a safety for a not breaking up an in-cut that started 10 yards underneath him is missing the mark, IMO. That's simply not his man. You don't ask safeties to make that play because most of the time, the penalty (or reception) is what happens.
That's the nature of the beast now that DBs are so frequently penalized for separating a guy from the ball by just driving through his spleen. And 10 years ago, that's what you'd have had happen there. But now, that safety is in no man's land.