Patriots' defense last night

[Dante84]

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.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by BWillie

Patrick Mahomes is a slightly below avg QB in terms of the Wonderlic score. Hes smarter than the avg NFL player but I think photographic memory is pushing it.

The Wonderlic doesn't assess memory. It doesn't assess football IQ either.

It's a rather generic timed problem-solving test.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by BWillie

The only time you have to be a threat to run is 2nd and 2, 3rd and 2 and shit like that. Otherwise you are giving up expected yards and points. Some coach will come around soon and literally never run on 1st and 10 or 2nd and 10. There just is no reason to do it unless your QB is Sam Darnold.

Would not running EVER on 1st and 10 or 2nd and 10 lower your passing efficiency on those downs? Yes, slightly. But not enough to justify ever running instead of passing on those downs. Compare it to 3rd and 10 where every idiot in the building knows you are passing it EVERYTIME and teams are still more effective passing it on those downs than they are running it on 1st and 10. And the run on 1st and 10 even has the advantage of catching the defense off guard because they dont know if its a run or pass.

You can't look at those probabilities in a vacuum. The Patriots were rushing 3 and dropping 8. You can't just pass on every down against a defense like that. It's not efficient at all.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

You can't look at those probabilities in a vacuum. The Patriots were rushing 3 and dropping 8. You can't just pass on every down against a defense like that. It's not efficient at all.

He's not interested in reality. He only cares about the theoretical.

[Aspengc8]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

You can't look at those probabilities in a vacuum. The Patriots were rushing 3 and dropping 8. You can't just pass on every down against a defense like that. It's not efficient at all.

They only ran that in certain situations. They dared KC to run it on 3rd and 3-4 and Reid will never run on that down & distance with Mahomes unless its some sort of RPO.

[scho63]

As much as we hate the guy, Bill Belichick is a coaching genius and knows how to plan something different for each of the 31 other teams to find their weakness.

He is the 12th man on the field....