The problem with calling it a strict cover two, though, is the LCB - I think it's Fenton. Look at how he's playing that. Hell, he's almost playing it like a cover 4 in the way he's dropping straight back and almost abandoning the middle. If Thornhill is in a Cover 2, why would Fenton give the receiver the inside that easily?

But gun to my head, it's a cover 2 robber and I say that because of how Thornhill plays it. He's keeping inside then convinces himself that the far WR is on a go so he starts to kick it into gear just as the WR makes the in-cut, so he has to turn himself back around. I think that flustered him and as he re-located the WR and saw how open he was, he assumed the ball was going to be there and drove on it.

But before he drove on that in-cut, he was gearing up to take the WR downfield after the left side corner passed him off and hung to the flat. I think confusion between Fenton and Niemann led to an opening in the zone underneath and Thornhill tried to freelance and drive on that route, leaving Sorensen 1v1 with no help over the top.

Either Niemann was supposed to take that middle with Fenton getting the flat/curl zone or Niemann had it and Fenton was supposed to have more of a middle half than he was playing. Once that happened, Thornhill was kindof in no-mans land which was compounded by him getting himself turned around when he incorrectly diagnosed a go-route. Sorensen bit on the double move and frankly even if he didn't, it was all over but the tears at that point.

I think something happened on the left side of the defense that led to Thornhill getting dragged down and leaving Sorensen in a completely unwinnable situation.

Buffalo destroyed Sorenson. They targeted Sorenson in the passing game and Sorenson missed tackles in the running game.

All game long, Sorenson was getting ****ed. It was putrid.

I never thought Dan was as bad as most people think and he has made big hits and big plays but he has been horrendous this year. Horrendous!

I think that's really the crux of the problem w/ Sorensen at this point.

Everyone gets beat on occasion. And many times guys get beat badly. The problem is that right now teams are targeting Sorensen and waiting for him to get beat. And as soon as he does, they hit it.

I don't think he's playing well or even at an NFL level, but I guarantee more of his mistakes are being exploited than most because teams are looking for them. There's blood in the water now.

From the stands you can find someone open, for both teams, on damn near every play. The issues is that the maelstrom on the field sometimes makes it difficult to locate and exploit the mistake. I think teams are essentially keying on Dan now and if/when he makes a mistake, they punish him for it.

Remember that game when Peyton Manning decided that on every play over the last 2 drives he was going to find Jamell Fleming and throw it to whoever he was covering? I'm pretty sure it was the Jamaal Charles fumble game. Every single snap Manning would find Fleming and wait for him to fail, the throw it at his guy. And they drove down the field like it was nothing. Now Fleming didn't fail on every play, but every time he failed, Manning punished him because he was looking that way and waiting for the mistake.

Sorensen is dealing with that right now, IMO. He's failing too often, to be sure, but he's also in a shooting gallery out there. He's created his own luck in many ways but there's no question he's dealing with some buzzard luck out there.

He was. He was always too slow to be an effective safety. A few "big" plays don't change that reality, regardless of what Chief Fan wants to believe.

I'd imagine that's some sort of cover 2 since there's no one else defending the short or intermediate middle of the field except Mathieu. If Mathieu is expected to defend the deep middle 1/3 here, that just wouldn't make any sense.

You are a better man than I, George. After that second long play he allowed (for a TD?), I just started yelling as loud as I could about how Sorensen is terrible and get him out of there. There was a guy wearing a DS jersey two rows in front of me but I didn't care.

I find it kind of distressing that people are actually wearing Sorensen jerseys to Arrowhead.

RaiderHader was sitting behind me last night with his Joe Delaney jersey on. That was a very cool jersey. Right up there with my Otis Taylor jersey :)

Good point. I was looking at a way to maybe improve the shit show using player capital and HB is a lot of player capital. Granted, you diminish one area for another but right now I'm alot less concerned about the secondary sans whatever you want to call Sorensen than I am with the other groups.

My Willie Lanier jersey remains the coolest jersey in the stadium...

The problem is that there aren't any contenders with pass-rush depth that are willing to help us.

If you're in the AFC, there's no way you send us a pass-rusher for a DL and allow us to firm up our front 4.

And if you're in the NFC - well there just aren't any teams I can immediately think of that would match up. Maybe Green Bay would move Preston Smith for him? Amos and Savage are better served in the box at this point.

The problem is that Tyler Lancaster really isn't starting caliber in his own right and that's who they'd have to backfill for Smith. I guess they could put Gary on the line or just try to hold serve until Z'Darius is off IR (dunno when that would be).

But it's gonna be hard to find a fit.

Yeah I was thinking about this earlier today when I was pondering over why that side of the ball is so devoid of talent. We do seem to swing for the fences in the draft and sometimes it bites us in the ass. Sometimes it works too with guys like Trey Smith.

I'm talking out of my *** a bit, but it feels like the reason we've hit on late round picks is the same reason we've missed on picks from the 1st-3rd rounds -- and that's the hyper focus on projects.

I totally am all for drafting high upside projects from Rounds 4-7. In fact, this is the time to take big swings and get 1st round upside -- Trey Smith and Sneed are great examples of this (I think Sneed is fine, btw, he's just playing on a dumpster fire of a defense right now). For years, the Chiefs played it safe in these rounds and it's how we ended up with JAG after JAG with these picks.

The problem is that Veach has also seemed to apply this high upside philosophy to earlier rounds. Drafting Gay and Hardman, two guys with great measurables, high upside, but questions around their production is a great argument for a late round... but not when there are players who have had much better production available at those slots.

Mahomes is the obvious standout with this philosophy. But Veach hasn't been able to replicate that success in the earlier rounds since (convincing Dorsey) to pick Patrick.

But then again, I'm a schoolteacher on my day off for a reason, and not an NFL exec, so what do I know?

Disagree completely. If you don't swing for the fences, you don't have Mahomes, Kelce, Hill, Smith. Every one of them was a homerun swing, although with different amounts of risk.

Hell, keeping Hunt would have been "swinging for the fences."