Are defenses playing us differently?
 

We've seen a higher blitz rate through the first two weeks. Are defenses now changing the way they play us because we don't have Tyreek? The cards didn't have the talent to get home and it killed them. The chargers have a great pass rush and gave us trouble. I feel like we could have called better plays vs the chargers but I still think that is one of the best defenses in the NFL.

Are the colts going to blitz? Are they going to play 2 deep? Do you think Hardman or MVS will start hitting killshots? Just curious, it feels like defenses are trying to put more pressure on and daring us to win deep.

Yes.

I don't think they respect our vertical passing attack like they use to.

Now, if you're going to blitz you better have the horses on the back end to cover. If not, you end up like the Cardinals.

The zone blitz while dropping 7-8 into coverage has been working.

They have to have the horses to pull it off, though. The Chargers do.

I don't think Mahomes has seen this many blitzes to start a season, ever. The Cards got some shots in on him but he still made throws, but the Chargers rattled him. The Chargers also have one of the best pass rushes in the league, if not one of the best all around defenses. Curious to see what the Colts do - I'll definitely be watching them this weekend.

yes, last season it was all cover 2 sit back it seemed like. This season they are blitzing a lot it seems.

It really depends on the opponent. Cincinnati beat us in the AFC dropping everyone back into coverage the second half, we had no answer. Arizona blitzed the daylights out of us and got torched. LA had stellar secondary play for the most part yesterday, so they were able to find success and win their one on one match-ups with Bosa and Mack.

We better play better the next time or it won’t be such a nice feeling.

This is ridiculous. We had over 5 ypc and 100 yds rushing in the 1st half with a commanding lead.

Run at that coverage. Make them come up close.

"We had no answer" my ****ing ass.

LMAO

This. In the past, opponents have worried about Mahomes beating them. It's time for them to worry about the Chiefs beating them. Run that FB at them. Put the 13 formations in. That will stop the deep coverage and blunt the pass rush. Let Bosa and his kind come wide and run themselves out of the play.

Yes they are but again the Chargers team is very talented. They are going to win some battles. I thought this was 1 of Reids best wins. We didn't play our best and still beat a good team.

If so, blitzing Mahomes won't end well for anyone.

At least 80% of the league couldn't play us half as well as the Chargers D. That said, we need a plan for the playoffs.

We have a new offense.

Reid is still understanding how he can call plays with the new dynamic.

Teams are going to challenge us to see what the new offense can handle.

As the offense settles in, opposing defenses will be faced with fewer options on how they can successfully handle our offense.

Well stated. Andy actually committed to the run. People can bitch when it didn’t work, but it’s definitely newer territory for him . There was only 2 cute plays all game: 1 the shuttle to Kelce in the goal line which works like 90% and the Hardman sweep which didn’t work. Otherwise a lot of good play calls. The chargers got a **** ton of pressure rushing 4, and played insane coverage: they are good. Plain and simple, And we still won…

Major credit to Spags for adjusting to move Jones in the second half to the other guard, as Mecca said. They also went to a 4-2-5 , which really really worked! Gay and Bolton were everywhere… the rookies in the secondary played great.

Chargers blitz rate was low, looks like 10%.

Teams will still play lots of coverage, we need to run the ball better.

Well, I mean, I'm pretty sure the plan is that the large amount of rookies and new players in general will play better together by then.

Chiefs need to play more 2 deep shell against these young QB's. Herbert struggled against it. They might have to move Juan into a buffalo corner in a nickle defense because I don't think he's got the speed anymore. Seems to be getting burned more often. Their SS second round pick looks like shit so far but that's a position that takes experience.

against the ELITE QB's, yeah.

I don't think Thornhill has lost a step. I think Mike Williams just is a specific physical mismatch that we probably should've bracketed earlier, but we were in zone most of the time. Williams also had himself a whale of a game with contested catches against what was often perfectly good coverage, so hats off to him, and to Herbert for excellent ball placement other than the 99 yard INT.

Cook had two penalties on ST's but I am not worried about him.

Chargers don't have to blitz to get pressure, that's the difference. And while the definition of 'blitz' means extra guys, they DID do a fair amount of 'zone blitzes', meaning dropping unexpected guys and sending guys from other places with the goal of confusing Mahomes, and sometimes it worked.

yeah, we need to run the ball better.

We need better play at RT especially.

And we need to just keep improving. It's a long season, and there are a lot of young players and new guys in general. It'll shake out. This team will look very different in January, I'm sure of it.

I wish we'd just start a game bracketing Williams and Chase when we face then. There's not many guys like that but those physical mismatches kill us. Best case for me is that Watson or Williams get to a point where they can lock down those big receivers and McDuffie has everyone else. But Chase has speed too, he'll need bracketing.

Yeah, first half it seemed they were in the huddle with us. Their D knew what we were doing.

Veach turned over entire units and with a lot of young guys to boot. They’re only going to get better as the season goes on.

Chris made a good point, they didn't have to blitz much in the traditional way. They had plenty of guys in our backfield with just Bosa and Mack. Take one of them out of the equation and it's a different story.

So how do you stop that? You run the ball. How do you stop the deep coverage? You run the ball. A little taste of Martyball goes a long way when the opposing D's on the field for 2 or 3 12-15 play TD drives.

The chargers blitzed 36% of the time. This wasn't rush 4 and drop into coverage.

ROFL

Bienemy has shown no creativity, easy for D Coordinators to anticipate his calls...we needed him to get a hC job by now or Andy has to find a way to move him out of the way gracefully

Except for the Arizona Cardinals who they just punch in the mouth.


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I don't know that Andy will ever embrace running the ball. Also, the OL and RB play needs to improve if they're going to run more; epecially in short yardage.

Imagine with Patrick Mahomes at qb wanting to play any type of Marty ball

Couldn’t be me


No defenses aren’t playing them “differently”. They aren’t playing that deep shell stuff they did last year as much it doesn’t seem

I think they are daring our WR group to get open fast enough. I think SKYY needs to hit the slot. Short area quickness to beat the blitz ala Brady and Edelman.

Maybe a little, I think they will still try to take the deep ball away, but I think the Chiefs are different now, and they really don't have a clue of our identity, nor do we... they pimped the Three Amigo show for all it was worth and became predictable and defensible.

Andy's biggest Achilles heal is to abandon the run, especially when it's efficient.
CEH, McK, and Pacheco are all capable. They started both games and the dolts game with three straight runs.

That's the key to me. ESTABLISH a damn running game and then let Pat pick apart the D with seven or eight weapons he has at his disposal.

I think we beat people by a thousand cuts, instead of counting on the jugular to win the game.

I know KC was down a corner...

But how much attention are they going to be able to give Williams in the rematch if Keenan Allen is back healthy?

First of all, I have to tip my cap to the Chargers defense. They had a successful night. It wasn't their fault Justin Herbert put up roughly a quarter of the Chiefs total points. (Great play by Watson though.)

Before the season I expected the Chiefs offense to sputter little bit as the freshly added pieces took time to gel. That doesn't appear to be the case. Overall things are looking really good. Mahomes playing at a high level is certainly covering up several blemishes.

By any account, that's a tough loss for the Chargers. The time to knock off my favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs, is early in the year. I expect this offense to settle in as the season progresses, defense too. We've seen a ton of promise early. Now let's get healthy between now and next Sunday! Colts in IND is no gimme, but very winnable.

It's called using 3TEs and a FB.

Exactly. If they want to play basically 9 on our 11, groovy, we'll just pound them into submission. See how long that Cover 2 lasts. Then you drop the bomb on them.

I said it in another thread, I fear their D more than Herbert.

I mean Mack, Bosa, James and Jackson on the same unit is disgusting. That’s possibly 4 of the top 15 defensive players in football on the same team. Not to mention a guy like Van Noy and their young players.

Absurd.

It's a small sample size. The Cardinals were stupid enough to do it. The Chargers were talented enough to try.

Mahomes has continued to perform so far above league averages against the blitz that teams will revert to rarely blitzing by October/November, and in January we may not see a single blitz.