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Patriots' defense last night
Romo touched on this, but they had an interesting approach that looked like it gave Mahomes a bit of trouble at times.
They only had 3 DL, and their 2 DE's rushed up the field and held the sides of the pocket, creating a "box" around Mahomes to prevent him from rolling/escaping/doing his magic tricks. They then kept everyone else in coverage in his line of sight to limit his windows and throwing lanes. The plus was he had lots of time in the pocket, the minus was he had no where to go to help his WR's get open via scrambling, reducing his throwing lanes/windows. Thankfully our WR corps is very fast and can get open, but again, with reduced windows, it made it harder on Mahomes. I would not be surprised if we saw this set up again this season a few times. |
They are also a very disciplined squad that wasn't falling for a lot of the trickery crap we tried to run.
At the end of the day when Patrick had to attack downfield we were successful. There's a lesson for him and Andy both there. |
Good thing Reid is an offensive genius. He's probably in his office drawing up plays to beat that defense as we speak.
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I don't think that Mahomes can be stopped. I'm sure he can solve that defensive look but no reason to bust out the answer during a regular season game against a team we will likely see in the playoffs
The biggest concern I had was that they were only rushing 3 but Mahomie was running for his life quite often. That's no bueno |
Have to get Mahomes under center and beat them with the running game when they do that.
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Not surprisingly, it is a variation of what has been somewhat successful in the past (all relative considering Mahomes has never had a sub-par day). You rush no more than 4 and put everyone else into coverage. Blitzing him allows for someone to be open and he can find them.
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Would help if the OL could open some holes for the RB inside from time to time Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk |
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That’s where the offense failed. Any team can make it hard to find open WRs if they’re willing to abandon stopping the run. By and large, the Patriots did that. And we weren’t able to punish them for it with the ground game. Get 5-6 yards on 1st down to keep them honest and that will stop. We weren’t doing that. There wasn’t a good reason for it so we kept going back to the well expecting it to stop but it never did. They kept using 4 guys to kill our running game. Just cannot have that. If they see a flaw in their run blocking and execution, they’ll get it fixed and that’ll be that. There’s no reason to have struggled that badly on the ground against a team that was barely trying to contain our running game. |
That's 2 effective approaches against us, though.
1 - Have a pair of superstars at DE and keep 7 in coverage, and hope that your DE's aren't gassed by the 4th quarter. 2 - Build a box to contain Mahomes and reduce his throwing lanes. For 1 - Very few rosters can support that approach. It has to be sheer numbers. If I'm the Chargers/Raiders/Broncos, I'm going all out to get 3-4 Edge stars and penetrating DT. |
Bellichek is a damn genius. With better QB play , they could have won the game last night.
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They didn't respect our running game one bit, and we proved them right. Our between the tackles running has by and large been abysmal this season. Need to get that fixed.
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We just aren't built to be a smash mouth run the ball offense so defenses are going to dare us to do that and until we prove we can expect more teams to try this.
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Is Mahomes stepping into the pocket as often? It feels like he is itching to scramble to the sides.
Our interior OL needs upgrading if we are to fully use CEH and play action. We can't seem to get more than two yards running up the middle. I am afraid that such an approach is more philosophical with Reid and may not be truly fixed. With the secondary being a team strength (what a turnaround in just two years) the focus must be on OGs. We need nasty. |
Thankfully the Chiefs have multiple ways to beat you now. They aren’t just relying on Mahomes to be magical all the time.
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Mahomes and the entire team looked like they had the China virus in the 1st half. Sluggish.
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The issue last night had nothing to do with the backup runningback. Quote:
I'm betting when the analysis is done on this you'll see a bunch of basic fundamental failures on the OL. Things where combo blocks and/or reach blocks just flat didn't get made. There were likely miscommunications where two guys focus on a single player and in the process someone else goes untouched. What we often see in plays where run blocking fails is a guy who's responsible for cleaning up the second level fails to disengage and go get their man. I'm betting that play after play after play in those running situations we were just being out-executed. And this OL isn't gonna be a bunch of maulers going out there and throwing multiple guys out of the way, but there's NO reason they can't execute when they have the numerical advantage they had so often last night. I expect they'll get a real thorough film-review session and we'll see some of that stuff tighten up. |
We need better IOL and a strong RB 2 - like a Spencer Ware type, who can fall forward for 4 yards, and still catch out of the backfield.
Takes pressure of CEH, and doesn't allow the defense to sit back in coverage all day. |
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Marched down field again and Sammy Watkins decided to get punched. I think that hurt the momentum for a bit though. |
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What you see as 'itching to scramble' is mostly Mahomes playing chess out there. He's trying to change throwing lanes to create havoc in the secondary. That's something that secondary just cannot anticipate, especially with a QB that can roll to his left and throw across his body to the right. His ability to move around simply cancels out the opposing DC's plan in the secondary because you cannot plan for the lanes he'll create. So if/when a team can keep him in the pocket, they can actually set up a coverage scheme that stays largely to script. Mahomes looking to move those throwing lanes is almost always a good thing. It's not happy feet and it's not 'itching to scramble' - it's intentionally creating havoc in the secondary. It's getting those guys to be reactive. The Patriots plan to contain him was a smart one and the Chiefs will have to execute at a higher level to keep more teams from doing it going forward. |
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"The Chiefs look like shit!" Nah, they really didn't. They had some areas where they needed to improve on execution, but really the Patriots just played a really nice game. Let's not act like BB isn't probably the best defensive coach in HISTORY fellas. The guy's a brilliant defensive mind. And he had his guys playing with a smart plan and executing at a high level. I don't understand why we can't acknowledge that fact and instead have to insist that they were flat or shitty or whatever. That's simply not the case. The Patriots have played SB level defense virtually every year for the last 20 years because their HC is a brilliant defensive mind. They had their defense largely intact yesterday so they played good defense. Not sure why everyone's all in a twist about that. |
Recievers need to settle in areas open in the zone defense. Need to run more floods to overwhelm zone areas. I didn't see a lot of that in the first half and Mahomes missed several throws as well. We started finding the zone openings in the 4th quarter, hardly had the ball in the 3rd, and made progress.
The above being said, we score two TD's on the first two drives instead of FG's from inside the 10, and Sammy doesn't fumble. This conversation is moot. |
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When he did that last night, they had success. |
I think moving the game had an affect on the players, they weren't crisp or sharp.
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Seems like every week, it's a new gripe. No team is perfect but this team is about as close as it gets. |
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Lots of people have serious fear of the Chiefs. |
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That 'congestion concept' BB wanted to use tonight showed up in a BIG way inside the red zone and it took some time for Reid to adjust to it. Especially when the running game couldn't punish the Pats in goal to go situations. I mean the Chiefs had like 150 yards of offense in the 1st quarter. They weren't exactly tripping over themselves, they just couldn't finish drives because BB had a great plan in close early on. Score even 1 TD, let alone 2, and that whole narrative is a lot different. I just think the idea that there was this overarching failure by the offense is overstating things. It was fine. They moved the ball well. BB just coached his ass off and REALLY did an excellent job in spots where we've seen the most development from the Chiefs over the last 18 months - situational defense. 3rd down and red zone stops. We've said for years that those are the two most critical areas in modern defensive football and it should come as a surprise to no one that the best defensive mind football has probably ever seen had his team playing extremely well in those 2 situations. It happens. |
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He usually 'jutters' with his feet a little on the latter. I saw very very little of that last night. And I saw none of those 'backward drifts' that you see when he's not feeling the pocket well. I think just about every decision he made w/r/t pocket awareness was done with purpose. You're making a chicken/egg argument here. Yes, he succeeded when he was tall in the pocket. But then again, he had throwing lanes. Why are you presuming he had those when he was moving? Isn't it equally likely that he simply didn't have those lanes, tried to move to create them and then found himself stymied by the BB bracket concept? I think you're identifying the symptom just fine - I think you're simply mis-diagnosing the disease. |
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With DE's bracketing and a light box....man, an inside trap should be REALLY easy to break. Especially w/ the threat of the pass making the DL need to hesitate just a tick more which would allow the G/T combo to get to the 2nd level a little easier. Just not real sure why we didn't see more of those. Maybe we did and I missed 'em. |
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But I think ultimately we're all extremely spoiled at this point. An 'average' offense is gonna leave 10 points on the field every damn week....if they're lucky. I think there's a margin of acceptable error that, if we were outside of, it wasn't by as much as is being lamented. |
Hats off to Bill Belichick for a good game plan, he seems to be the only coach in the league that can slow down Mahomes and company.
I wonder if Andy Reid held back a bit in regards to playcalling & adjustments knowing that he was facing Hoyer/Stidham, although the score was close for the majority of last night's game, it never really seemed like the outcome was in danger. Perhaps Andy didn't want to show his hand on how the Chiefs will counter the 3-man rush, with two edge defenders "boxing" him in look. Food for thought. |
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I'm not bitching. In fact, I was one of the people telling everybody last night to calm the F down. It was a fairly convincing win and if the offense plays up to its usual standard, the game is a blowout. I'm sure a combination of factors - the 1 day delay, the absence of Cam, and more - led to both teams not playing their A game and it made it ugly. But a win is a win. |
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Pretty sure you can't flip those roles and do it to the right very often. I wonder if the shotgun impacts the timing there. But you would think if you had CEH lining up to Mahomes right, he could still be right on time to hit that hole as Wylie opens it. Eh, Reid's a lot smarter than me so I suspect there's some reason for it that I wasn't seeing. It just seems like it can/should be a more common tool in our arsenal, especially on inside hand-offs. |
Our OL isn't tough. They have faced very good defensive lines so far but our ground game is average at best. They just can't get a good push on the interior. CEH is getting stuffed over an over again.
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Belicheck has also designed and put that defense together particularly to beat the Chiefs. I don't think it's nearly as successful against the Ravens or even say the Browns, who want to just run it at it. The Chiefs aren't built like that.
They need to get better at it for sure, but thats never gonna be the game they'll play and they shouldn't. You just aren't gonna play 16 games where you're emotionally invested and fully focused and things are clicking. The Chiefs just played one and they won by 2 scores. One of the podcasts I listen to summed it up perfectly. This game tells me nothing about KC, because there's nothing to be learned that I didn't already know. They're the best team in football, maybe by a wide margin and they're the Champs with the best QB/ Coach in the league. For this years KC team, the regular season really doesn't matter to much. |
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Is it just humans who have their whole lives structured for peak performance being thrown out of their rhythm? I think the Chiefs just relaxed way too much when they learned Hoyer was going to start. There was almost no intensity or focus on offense in the first half. Pat literally looked like he was there to **** around. |
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9 times out of 10 that's a fantastic trait. But he'll also press that tendency a little too much at times and turn a 4 yard run into a 1 yarder. As you noted, he's a rookie and he'll find that line. Last night he looked more tentative at the mesh than games past. Still ran hard as hell, but seemed a little less sure of himself and let the DL take the play to him at times. Nothing worth worrying about. The talent's there, the vision is elite - he'll be fine. |
And you can bet Andy is in his office today creating schemes to combat this.
Bring it bitches! |
We have a rookie RB and a OL that has been built to pass block 1st.
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It's why we were running the ball so much. They pretty much were daring us to.
Having watched most of the Manning/Belichick battles, it's kind of the same idea. Put everyone in coverage, keep everything in front of you and mix up your looks and coverages. It can be beaten, but you have to be patient and running the ball helps. Also the fact that the Patriots have a good secondary helps. Not every team can pull that off. You're basically trying to slow him down and make him go on a 10 play drive, and bank on the fact that he will make a mistake here and there, which Mahomes did. It's beatable, but the fact is even guys like Manning and Mahomes usually leave plays on the field and Belichick is banking on that. He hasn't been shutting down elite offenses for 30 years for nothing. It's the exact thing he did to the Bills in the Super Bowl 30 years ago. Facing a high flying offense, he let Thurman Thomas run wild and shut down their passing game, and it worked. |
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https://media.nyfootball.net/25/html...belichick.html
Here's a great article about Super Bowl 25. Bills had a HOF QB and a high flying #1 offense and were big favorites over the Giants. Belichick was just the DC but that was his plan, play 2 down linemen, let them run the ball and play the pass. The basic idea wasn't too different than what we saw last night. Lots of plays last night the Pats only had a couple guys with their hands down. Only difference now is Mahomes can run around a lot more. But Belichick's shut down the Bills, the Rams, Manning, Mahomes, doesn't matter. It still works because he gives you looks that force you to hand the ball off and take it out of the QBs hands. |
If they were dropping so many into coverage, why didn't KC gash them on the ground? We ran straight up the middle and got stuffed.
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Belichick deserves credit, but they should have hung more points on the board. |
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They're basically leaving the middle of the field wide open and shutting everything else down. |
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What you saw is Mahomes maturation process. When he was bad, he was LESS bad. That's hugely important against teams that typically don't beat themselves. You have to hang around long enough for them to slip up without cutting your own throat in the process. Earlier in Pats career, maybe he forces a throw or two that creates a big momentum swing and a hill we have to climb in the 2nd half. It's happened on a couple of occasions in the PM vs. BB matchup. Today Mahomes simply didn't make the key mistake, prodded for soft spots and eventually found enough to win a game fairly easily. We're spending an awful lot of time focusing on the negatives here when there's a clear positive to take away from how Mahomes approached this game vs. how he's approached Patriot games in the past. This was another step forward in his march to unassailable GOAT status. |
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The Chargers stretched 'em horizontally with 7/8 DBs and without a power back (Dixon wasn't that guy and Edwards was just really green and isn't really quite that guy), they couldn't force the Chargers back to the middle by attacking the interior. It was incredibly counter-intuitive. You figure pack the box, slow the run, force Lamar to throw outside the hashes. The Chargers did the exact opposite of that and Baltimore had no answer. It's one of the best defensive gameplans I have ever seen given the challenges the Chargers faced (and why Lynn will get more rope from me than most - that took MASSIVE stones). Ingram was a great get for that very reason. And w/ CEH the Chiefs have a back that can work inside in a different way - but it just didn't come together last night. Study it, learn from it, get better at it. |
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I'm not sure what the McCourty drop was. He almost seemed to get stuck in the middle and not know exactly where he was throwing the football. It wasn't that 'hero ball' mistake he made as a pup or just whiffing on the dropping LBer. It just looked to me like an execution error rather than a processing problem or being too gung ho/sped up. Dunno - that one was odd. |
It was the classic BB approach of "take away your opponent's best weapon."
In this game, that was our passing game. They wanted us to run, because it slows the game down, eats clock, and removed "splash plays" by taking away Patrick's ability to create new windows to throw through. On Offense, they wanted to run and eat clock as well, to keep him on the sideline. It almost worked, and we still won by 16, because we are a complete team. Huge punts from Townsend, big plays when we needed them on offense, and ball-hawk secondary combined with timely sacks on throwing downs from the defense. It can't all be on the offense every game. We'll take these learnings and apply them to future games. |
Mahomes needs to work on his deep ball. Russ is by far the best deep ball thrower in the league
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I’m not worried about it. I just think if he were on, he’d have put up at least 10-14 more points. I think they expected to coast to an easy W and got careless. |
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He has the arm strength to do the 'drop it in the bucket' thing and he oftentimes doesn't do that. Nothing wrong with that - it's really a learned skill. That touch/trajectory on a deep ball is something that absolutely can be taught. The rest of the remarkable stuff he does can't be. He has the talent to have the best deep ball in the game. He doesn't at the moment - I think Wilson and maybe even Goff have better ones. Rodgers is probably still a tick ahead as well. There's no cause for that other than Mahomes just hasn't quite gotten that feel yet. He's like 13 years old so this too shall pass... |
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Honestly, if Watkins doesnt fumble the ball inside the redzone on that nice drive we had (our first possession in the second half), we likely score there. We were moving the ball nicely on them. Also, when its 3rd and 5, and Mahomes goes for it all 50 yards downfield, that ends a drive. There were a few drives where the drive ended because instead of going for the first down, they tried to get a touchdown, or a huge chunk play. I suspect this was to catch belicheks defense napping. Didnt happen. And the drive ended there. Clean that up, convert those easy 3rd and 5s, and we should be alright.
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You want to know why the Chiefs are the first team in NFL history to start FOUR consecutive seasons with a 4-0 start? It's really ****ing hard to win in the NFL. Period. I'll take a 16-point win over the Patriots any day, even if it wasn't pretty enough for Chief Fan. |
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If the Chiefs are going to pull, they might choose Reiter honestly. |
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You almost need to have a spy on Mahomes. Him picking up first downs with his legs is something defenses have to account for at this point.
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