2024's Red zone failures
 

Boy, we sure have sucked balls in the redzone this year.

Thought Kareem and Dhop would help but last game we were 1 of 5 and this year we are at the bottom of the bottom third.

Can blame some on tackles but down inside the 20 you aren't holding the ball for very long.

I think the play calling has been poor and it seems our formations are so recognizable.

The inside shuffle pass has lost its luster.

We seem to have forgotten the jet sweep or quick slants.

I don't think we have had too many penalties inside the 20 but don't have the stats.

Who gets the blame here? :hmmm:

Seemed like penalties and sacks took us out of scoring position against the Raiders. We lost like 30 yards on at least two possessions once we got into scoring position. Abominable!

Run the football and don't be afraid to go for it on 4th down.

We run the ball more between the 20s than we do in the red zone.

Not to pile on Mahomes, but he did flat miss DHop in the EZ once. I think it's a combination of factors, such as the OT issues, Mahomes inaccurate passes (missed Travis wide open vs. DEN), some whiffed blocks by the IOL, penalties (both real and fraudulent), as well as some play-calling gaffes mixed in.

I’d be good with the shovel pass to the TE taking a vacation for a few years. Seems to have been figured out.

The easiest way to score in the red zone is to run the ball.

That said, in 2022 they were #2 in red zone efficiency. Don't know if they ran more, whether it's because the shovel pass worked better then, or if it's just Mahomes playing better.

Not just a RZ issue however the WR/TE naked screen pass has been getting blown up. LV/DEN both have good lines which impacted the RZ performance however CAR blew up our line as well. I think it's a symptom of the OL more than anything else. Lately, there's been a penalty or sack that puts the team behind the 8 ball almost immediately. And Kelce isn't what he once was.

I really don't understand why we just won't RUN THE ****ING BALL.

Especially this week, with Hunt AND Pacheco.

RUN THE ****ING BALL.

Then play-action pass some in there. Slow the pass rush down. Help your terrible offensive tackles.

RUN THE ****ING BALL.

Run the ball or throw it on time.

We tried a quick slant to DHop in the RZ, but the corner shifted inside at the last second and took away his leverage

That was a good play by the CB, I wonder if the Chiefs tipped their hand or he just read the play well. I don't think the Chiefs run the fade route very often and that would have been a great time to change the route given the pre-snap CB shift.

Yep, that one little shift wrecked the whole damn play

It's one of those low sample size stats that don't mean a ton... Mahomes hits a few passes and they at least go from bottom 3rd to the top half.

Nothing with that shovel pass makes sense at this point besides some big reach that they keep going to that well so other teams will prep for it, just to do some fake shovel play in the playoffs or just setup looks for later... :shrug:

Andy doesn't love running the ball. I'm not counting shovel passes or WR reverses as runs. It's just not in his mindset.

They keep running those gimmick plays that go nowhere. Wasted snaps.

We have poor blocking and protection. Fix that and the run game as well as the passing game will be fine.

Yeah, I know.

Love Andy, but wish he would just RUN THE ****ING BALL.

Especially when your OT's suck ass, and you have TWO really good RB's.

If for nothing else, go run heavy so that when you DO pass the ball, you've slowed the pass rush down a little and play-action will work.

Avg Expected Points Per Drive
2018: 3.12
2019: 2.59
2020: 2.74
2021: 2.71
2022: 2.71
2023: 2.01
2024: 2.42

Percentage of Drives ending in a Score
2018: 52.6%
2019: 48.8%
2020: 47.9%
2021: 48.2%
2022: 46.4%
2023: 39.3%
2024: 46.6%

Red Zone Plays:
2018: 171 plays, 68 Ru Att, 16 TD's, 63/96 Comp/Att, 35 TD, 1 INT, 7 Sacks (29.8% of red zone plays ended in a TD)
2019: 138 plays, 67 Ru Att, 16 TD's, 33/67 Comp/Att, 11 TD, 1 INT, 4 Sacks (19.5% of red zone plays ended in a TD)
2020: 152 plays, 63 Ru Att, 10 TD's, 51/85 Comp/Att, 25 TD, 2 INT, 4 Sacks (23% of red zone plays ended in a TD)
2021: 187 plays, 79 Ru Att, 15 TD's, 62/101 Comp/Att, 26 TD, 3 INT, 7 Sacks (21.9% of red zone plays ended in a TD)
2022: 209 plays, 84 Ru Att, 16 TD's, 73/123 Comp/Att, 34 TD, 3 INT, 2 Sacks (23.9% of red zone plays ended in a TD)
2023: 171 plays, 72 Ru Att, 8 TD's, 58/94 Comp/Att, 25 TD, 2 INT, 5 Sacks, (19.2% of red zone plays ended in a TD)
2024: 144 plays, 64 Ru Att, 10 TD's, 49/75 Comp/Att, 15 TD, 2 INT, 5 Sacks (17.3% of red zone plays ended in a TD)

Could be. I have thought that maybe they keep running it just set up something different in the playoffs.

The offensive line didn't get any push at all. The running game was ass on Friday and that's why they abandoned it. Can't be in 3rd and 8 all the time.

Nagy/Reid play calling

Reid: We're getting a lot of pressure to run the ball in the red zone. Let's line up Kelce in the shotgun. Direct snap. He'll RPO to Worthy in motion right to left then pitch it to Mahomes who's standing to the right of Kelce, who will then hand it off to Hardman who comes from the left.

That should shut them up for a week.

Just to compare (Baltimore Ravens)

Avg Expected Points Per Drive
2018: 2.06
2019: 2.95
2020: 2.56
2021: 1.97
2022: 1.90
2023: 2.37
2024: 2.82

Percentage of Drives ending in a Score
2018: 40.7%
2019: 51.8%
2020: 45.3%
2021: 38.5%
2022: 38.9%
2023: 43.1%
2024: 47.7%

Red Zone Plays:
2018: 159 Plays, 91 Ru Att, 18 TD, 32/64 Comp/Att, 14 TD, 1 INT, 4 Sack (20.1%)
2019: 173 Plays, 104 Ru Att, 18 TD, 40/65 Comp/Att, 25 TD, 4 Sacks (24.8%)
2020: 156 Plays, 94 Ru Att, 19 TD, 39/59 Comp/Att, 19 TD, 3 Sacks (24.3%)
2021: 150 Plays, 67 Ru Att, 16 TD, 45/75 Comp/Att, 17 TD, 3 INT, 8 Sacks (22%)
2022: 168 Plays, 88 Ru Att, 12 TD, 36/76 Comp/Att, 15 TD, 2 INT, 4 Sacks (16%)
2023: 180 Plays, 107 Ru Att, 23 TD, 45/68 Comp/Att, 18 TD, 2 INT, 5 Sacks (22.7%)
2024: 107 Plays, 58 Ru Att, 14 TD, 33/48 Comp/Att, 22 TD, 1 Sack (33%)

I would agree most any week. But Friday we were running for 1.9yds/carry, so I can't blame Andy for trying to pivot.

Mahomes has missed a lot of wide open receivers for short and long TDs this season but I don’t blame him for most of it. I think playing without a LT really affects his timing a lot more than most realize or Mahomes will admit.

That’s pretty much what Andy said. But his short passing game didn’t seem to be there either.

Yeah. OTs and the IOL both were inconsistent, to say the least, which didn't help at all. JJSS seems to be invisible in the RZ, and most anywhere else for that matter. We need the OL to do better, and someone else besides Nuk has to step up a little.

I've been wondering if it's Nagy. Last year, the offense struggled all year. But after the Christmas Day loss, something changed. I'm thinking that Reid quietly took over the play calling at that point. But he let Nagy take it back for the regular season this year. Andy will take over again when it's playoff time and things will turn around again. Maybe. I don't know. Just seems to make sense to me.

Someone should let Andy know they discovered several different types of rushes, and that it's not against the rules to call something other than hb blast.

Just stop the only people who think there’s red zone problems are negative assholes who aren’t real fans.

It isn’t possible at all that mahomes getting creamed 1.5 seconds after the snap has anything to do with the dip in red zone efficiency. 2% from last year. On top of the OL possibly being tired from playing two games in 5 days? People around here will find any excuse other than the obvious. I’m surprised aliens have kidnapped Andy or Goodell has paid Patrick to “slow it down”. Good lord read what you are posting.

It’s really sad when the “hot take” is common sense and the garbage theories are main stream.

2% at this point of the season is one attempt... pick one dropped pass, missed throw, that dumb sequence when they had like a million attempts within the 5 yard line against the Bengals, one sack.

That's not some glaring issue between last year and this year, they just aren't particularly great at it over the course of years because they choose to try shit out instead of consistently running the ball (and it's also a pretty misleading stat anyway)

Without getting too in-depth, this is probably a good start.

Redzone stats

Vs Ravens 1/3

Vs Bengals 1/2

Vs Falcons 2/4

Vs Chargers 1/2

Vs Saints 2/7

Vs San Fran 4/5

Vs Raiders 3/4

Vs Tampa 4/4

Vs Denver 1/4

Vs Buffalo 3/3

Vs Panthers 2/5

Vs Raiders 1/5

If we just find a way to convert a few more trips to the redzone the games would look a whole lot different. There's evidence there that they can do well in that area but consistency is clearly lacking.

The TD to Hardman to the In the Superbowl was a shovel play with an option.

It wouldn’t be a big issue if we could actually score from outside the redzone a little more .

I am optimistic. I feel like we have a few things going here….

Kareem is gassed
While Kareem is good for the shorter yardage id rather have Pacheco get bigger chunk red zone gains. I imagine Pacheco gets a very normal workload after a long week going into a key division game. A rested kareem on the short stuff is inevitable.

Mahomes needs to use the next few weeks to get comfortable with DHop contested catches and he’s getting there. I feel like this year he is trying to be so careful with the ball that he’s sailing it over DHop and kelce way out of reach. He needs o be more comfortable with tight windows in the red zone.

We will see way more creativity closer to the end of the season. I imagine the shovel pitch will be retired and used to set up something different.
Humphries will help, because… duh

The OL, and not just the Tackles. Play calling has been suspect as well.

2024's Red zone failures
 

We can’t run well in the red zone because we lack shifty backs and those inside runs are very difficult in the more congested space. We also don’t seem to have any off tackle running plays. Just deciding to run it more isn’t going to fix the issues.

Yeah off tackle always seems to be gimmicky in nature. And there's the infamous 2nd & long run-into-the-center's-ass-for-2-yards play, which is basically the only run play they have for that situation.

Yeah - I looked into this several years back when Jackson had something like 80% of his touchdown passes inside the red zone or goal to go or something like that.

And ultimately it's just not repeatable year over year. And there doesn't seem to be anything specific that is determinative. Very few teams have ever shown themselves to have a rosetta stone in the red zone.

I think it's a sample size issue. 3-4 conversions in any given year can move you halfway up the list and ultimately that could be as simple as a couple uncharacteristic drops, misses or penalties across the board. You can get 6-8 failed conversions by just having normally reliable players fail at a bad time.

With guys like Kelce and Hopkins, not to mention Mahomes, who have a history of reliability, I think you're really just looking at wonky sample sizes and the fact that some of the spam plays we have had in the past have been sniffed out.

I want to blame it on primarily running out of shotgun.

I’d love to see us run some off tackle, outside zone, and sweeps from under center.

I especially love zone blocking schemes. I feel like it simplifies things. Just ask your linemen to block the guy in front of them. For whatever reason Andy seems to prefer the power blocking scheme so that’s whatever..

At the end of the day, I still think Mahomes un****ing himself is the key. If he starts clicking the way he can/should, the run game is mostly immaterial.

There was a lot of talk about it amongst Bills fans in 2020/2021, which is probably the first time a I got annoyed enough to confirm my suspicion...
https://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthre...e#post15500345

And the Bills would design a play for Allen to run into a brick wall up 4 touchdowns in the 4th quarter if it meant scoring in the red zone, so of course they're going to convert a few more over the course of a season while Mahomes will save it for the playoffs (usually).

Hell, in terms of that stat being wonky, the Bills and Bears are tied for the 3rd best red zone percentage right now due to how fee attempts the Bears have this season... each Bears attempt moves them 3.5% up or down a ranking where 2/3 of the league are separated by about 10%.

No, it didn't. It's puzzling that we consistently are inconsistent in the RZ, considering that Andy is an offensive genius.

I mean, look at TB for instance. They get into the RZ at a high rate, about 4 times/gm, good enough for third-best in the league, and then they convert TDs at a 3rd or 4th-best rate as well, about 66%.

And that's even without Evans and Godwin, with a middling IOL, and a RB1 that's not very good running between the tackles. But they run the ball well in the RZ and score most of their points from within the RZ.

Tbh, I've been kind of hoping Andy's been checking them out and stealing some of their RZ plays, particularly their run plays.

So, Andy's this big offensive genius, yet he needs to steal plays from Liam Cohen in order to figure out how to score touchdowns in the redzone with the greatest qb that ever lived, and arguably the best te to ever play?

You are hoping for Andy Reid to in essence, become the Carlos Mencia of NFL offense?

Interesting take.

It's pretty well-known that everyone steals from everybody in the NFL, didn't you know that? We see other teams using Andy's plays every single week. And Andy has admitted to stealing plays from other teams. Other eras, even, or don't you remember the "Rose Bowl" play?

:rolleyes:

So is Andy a genius, or simply a play thief?

Taking someone else's work and being credited with the results doesn't really fly most places.

Anyway, my main question to you is why would a genius not be able to figure out the red zone plays on his own?

Steal from Liam Cohen is what you're hoping for Andy to do, in your own words, because Cohen in fact has done far better in the Redzone with less.

Is Liam Cohen also a genius?

Lol, why are you being so purposefully obtuse? They don’t call it a ‘copycat league’ for nothing. Everyone steals from everyone, and you must know that. Stop with the nonsense already.

And stop conflating what I said. If one coach seems to have been more successful in one aspect of offense, why shouldn’t Andy take notes? Being a genius doesn’t mean he knows absolutely everything. And the smartest coaches are always trying to learn new things and learn from others if they can. It’s how they get better.

Maybe you should learn that lesson as well. Because you sure aren’t the smartest guy in the room.

Personal attacks look so good on you when your argument has fallen apart.

Imagine touting Andy as the greatest, and then openly admitting you hope that he steals Liam Cohens redzone plays because as we've seen numerous times over his career, Andy is once again a frothy jar of ass when it comes to redzone td percentage.

Lmao.

Jesus could we limit the ****ing Andy Reid rants to just 1 or 2 threads?

It's his whole thing. He's like this in pretty much everyone of his posts and then you get a ****ing Wall of text (which honestly should be his username on here). I don't even read most of his shit anymore.

I think he gets in these moods where he gets tired of beating on his family and pets so he comes on here to take it out on us every once in awhile. I'm just happy we can save his family for at least a while.

Also I think he's on meth, because God damn he will just write and write and write. He will be responding to 6 different people in one thread talking about different topics.

LMAO Andy Reid 'stole' the concept that was used to win two Super Bowls back to back. There's, uh, quite a bit more to it than just copying what others do.

Now I remember why I put that moron on ignore. Back you go into your box, dipstick. Yeesh, what an idiot.

Deep thoughts by dilphag9: "I think people that post on a message board, responding to points posted by other posters, must be on meth, because I can't understand how anyone can post more than 3 sentences without illegal substance abuse. I sure can't.

You're a joke dilphag. I've found it humorous how often you drop into discussions I'm having to take your remedial level potshots hoping against hope to get a thumbs up so that you can fap to the slightest bit of validation from your fellow knuckle draggers, while adding literally nothing to the discussion. And how could you? You're lost after 3 sentences. Usually, I'm happy to ignore you like most of the board does. I find myself a bit bored this evening, so I'll drop you some attention you desperately crave.

Youre like the little runt of the pack that wants so desperately to get in on the action, but you have to wait for a couple of your buddies to get involved before you can really get up the nerve to do anything. Haha.

Why don't you go start another thread about Justin Watson's snap counts, or what a travesty of justice it is that Wanya "Willie Roaf" Morris got benched because he's totally blameless in his failures.

God damn you're reeruned ROFL.

What?

This thread is developing AIDS

AIDS ran rampant in the dilphag community in the 80s. It should be a surprise to literally no one that dilphag's appearance here has brought with it the black plague of the 80s.

Just heard that the Chiefs have settled for the most field goals in the red zone for any team through 12 weeks since 2018. They also have settled for the most field goals of any Patrick Mahomes team already.


They have to drastically improve that. Hopefully with DJ we can start running better plays down there. And Andy needs to stop settling. I would love to see us to for it more on 4th downs down there

I’d like to see some stats on our red zone success YOY if anyone has a source?

Like others here, I get sick of Andy’s trickery in the red zone and would prefer to just run it up the middle. But I feel like we were worse in the red zone last season, I had hoped that Steele and/or Perine would allow us to punch it over the line with more efficiency but Kareem’s getting that done for us now so all is well.

Meh. I mean, part of it is that Andy tends to try out different plays or player packages during the regular season. Not having Pacheco for months probably also played a part. The OTs playing like ass likely contributed to the lack of success. Just saying, it's probably not just one or two things. Like most things, it was/is probably more of a domino effect of several/many issues that resulted in the current poor performance in the RZ.

Once Humphries get settled in, and Pacheco really gets back in the flow, DHop gets fully involved in the RZ packages, etc. I'm sure we'll see the RZ efficiency start to go back up.

Of course, the keystone of all of that is DJ has to be a significant upgrade in performance over Morris/Kingsley, but I feel like that won't be an issue. It might take a couple three weeks, but DJ will make a big difference, imo.

In the meantime, I wouldn't mind seeing Andy steal some running plays from either DET or TB vs. the gadget stuff he tends to run.

I like to believe we get too cute in the reg. season to see what works, then turn it on in the playoffs.

However the eye test is just shitty calls in the red zone. That shovel pass hasn't worked in like 2 seasons. Kareem is like a 97% chance of positive yards, so I dunno.

Last season makes me think we're ****ing around, but we **** around with a worse o-line and I dunno if that unit can "flip a switch"

Weird season to judge.

Sorry buddy.

WC=AIDS.