How We Beat Ourselves Against the Rams
 

When you break it down there are some situations that don't seem to be getting discussed that I say ended up being the difference in the game. We know the officiating ****ed us. We know Denver is probably screaming "poetic justice" on the false start that didn't get called and resulted in a TD. But some of the other things that absolutely killed us are:

1. FALL ON THE ****ING BALL! On one of the strip sacks Erving tried to pick up the fumble instead of just falling on it. He falls on it we at worst end up punting and don't give the Rams a short field.

2. Stop fielding punts inside the 5! Reek hurt us, especially at the end of the game fielding punts inside the 5 and one he actually caught at the 1. At that point in the game those are precious yards and seconds wasted.

3. WTF was Hunt? I thought Hunt disappeared and it became the Reek\Kelce show. Maybe that was the Ram's defense but against a defense that struggles against the run I think we should have pounded it a little more.

4. Quit slowing up on routes! One pass that was on the money ended up getting defended because Reek slowed up during his route and allowed the defender to make a play. KEEP RUNNING!

5. DB's are WR's with bad hands and we proved that. Catch the game winning INT and we are celebrating and not analyzing.

6. Quit going soft on defense! When Sutton was dialing up pressure on Goff he was either taking sacks or making bad throws. The game winning drive it seemed like Sutton backed off the pressure.

People are talking about Mahomes throwing picks, one of which wasn't his fault as he got hit as he threw and about scoring too fast. The entire "we scored too fast" argument is bunk. It's easy to think a TD is automatic but if you do then you forget about the drive we had to settle for a FG on because we couldn't get in on 1st & Goal. When you start doing that all it takes is for 1 holding penalty to **** it all up. You score when you can score and you expect your defense to defend 75 yards for 2 minutes.


I won't even talk about the penalties as we know it was a pile of lopsided bullshit, especially early on. All in all we played more than good enough to win but the little things we didn't focus on are ultimately what cost us.

Agree with everything you said. Unfortunately, it wasn't just Erving. There were 2 linemen that tried to pick up the ball rather than fall on it. We had 2 chances to recover that ball that were blown because guys were trying to pick the ball up. Just fall on the damn ball.

i said the same thing about falling on the ball vs. trying to pick it up and run with it.

on a side note, did anyone else have trouble with chat last night? or was i on a miserable user list?
i love game day chat, it was just giving me lots of slow downs and unable to process messages.
anyone else?

But Cam Erving wanted to run for an 85 yard TD!


Seriously I could have slapped the shit out of him watching that play.

CP was unbearable last night. Chat basically didn't work at all, the entire game.

ok thanks. seriously, i love the chat. im normally not as obnoxious in RL. gives me a place to vent a little bit.
i love shooting the shit with my brothers and sisters here.

dammit kyle! (is that what im supposed to say?)

The server shit the bed all night. The game thread was horrific too. :rolleyes:

1. I agree, I was yelling the same thing, I would much rather see him fall on it and have it squirt away rather than scoop it up.

2. Yeah, I was pulling my hair out there as well. He's got to be smarter than that.

3. Maybe, but the Rams secondary was giving the Chiefs whatever they wanted. It wasn't like the Rams never stopped Hunt when he did run it. He still had over a 100 yards from scrimmage with over 70 rushing and a TD. I suppose one could make an argument it slows down the pass rush, but I'm not sure that was actually going to be the case. We're weak up the middle and the plan was to offset the pocket as much as possible.

I do think Mahomes needs to consider running more often up the middle. It seemed to me he had multiple opportunities to pick up significant yards by taking advantage of a linebacker/secondary completely consumed with covering the receivers.

4. It happens, its the first year this QB and these WRs are playing together, I don't really consider it a huge factor.

5. I don't kow if this falls into a "beat ourselves" category. Like you said, most DBs aren't receivers for a reason. Its not like it was an easy INT to pull off. If he would have pulled it off, we would be talking about in terms of "spectacular". It can't be spectacular if it was an easy grab, like Peters towards the end of the game.

6. Maybe, or maybe the defense is getting tired towards the end of a game like that?

Your last point, in my mind, is the true beating ourselves culprit: penalties. Yeah, there were some questionable ones, but we aren't the most penalized team because the NFL hates us. Hill makes some dumb decisions on punt returns, but it is born from trying to make a play. Penalties are discipline. That discipline is not going to come this season. We're going to have to try and make up for it in talent. Next year, we may see a reduction there, but it won't come this year and if we don't win in the post season, penalties will be the cause.

Some of the late game play calling was suspect and Mahomes needs to learn not to set up so deep. I get he's worried about the pass rush up the middle, but he's over exposing his tackles.

I still don't think we lose another game this season.

Beating ourselves? I'd rather beat Goff.

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