Quote:
Originally Posted by Detoxing
What does that have to do with their failure to produce a run game all season?
Chiefs have been shit in short yardage situations all year, not just yesterday. It's causing our inability to pick up key 3rd downs. It's shortening our drives.
It's what causes Reid to get all cutesy on 3rd and short with screens and horizontal passes, which ends with fans bitching about not running it.
Yesterday Reid decided that he wanted to give the OL a chance to assert itself and they failed.
Two straight run plays inside the 1? The OL has to win that.
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Yup; unrelated issues.
The OL can pass block. Again, you can win pass-blocking with technique and timing. But run-blocking requires strength and attitude and our OL simply lacks that. It has all season.
I hadn't thought about how it leads to all those damn bubble screens but there's some truth to that. Reid runs a lot of those misdirections, etc... because that's what his OL does well. He can run those screens to get his smart, athletic lineman into space where they can use leverage and positioning to beat guys.
But when they have to win in a phonebooth, they just aren't. It's not blaming the OL, it's acknowledging what they don't do well.
If anyone wants to actually try to argue that this OL simply isn't a very physical OL, I don't know what season they've been watching. These guys are completely unable to line up and physically win matchups against a good DL. And it's frustrating because I feel like the opposition has been able to do that to us all season. The contrast there is pretty stark.
NOBODY played well yesterday, but some of the guys that struggled yesterday have played well in the last 4 weeks and have been a big part of some key victories. The run-blocking, OTOH, has been shit for a very very long time now. It's not 'ballwashing' Smith to point out a pretty obvious truth there.