Things I think it's time for:

[Chris Meck]

1. You can't trot Ammendola out again. You just can't. It'd be mutiny. I don't care what you do, you have to cut him and sign someone else. I'd go for two every time and have Reid kick off before I did that again.

2. Justin Watson needs way more snaps. Yes, he could've caught that one ball today, but he's big, he's fast, hes a physical match-up problem, and he usually catches the ball. He was inches away from another big TD today. Play him.

3. It's time to get Pacheco more touches. The midget squad isn't getting it done. It's not all their fault, but at least Pacheco is big and strong enough to maybe break some tackles.

4. It's time to bench Wylie. Wanegho can't be worse, and might have upside. Just do it, for accountability's sake if nothing else.

5. I think it's time to force feed more snaps to Moore. I don't want him returning punts anymore. Put Hardman there, you know what Hardman is, and he's not a route running WR. At least he might break a PR.

[Chris Meck]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

But Hill can still beat drop coverages even underneath.

I'm not saying long-term we won't be better off for the approach we're attempting (though I'm not certain we will either; as I've said from the start, this is an experiment and a fascinating one at that).

But we WOULD be 3-0 right now if we had Tyreek Hill on the roster.

I don't know about that at all.

See, keeping Hill changes everything; about the draft, and about free agency, and on both sides of the ball.

Would we have done what we did with the defense if we kept Hill? Maybe, maybe not.

Chargers gave us all we could handle.

[-King-]

Originally Posted by Chris Meck

If we still had Hill, it would be the 2021 version of Hill, which was a 11 ypc WR, because defenses were going to drop 7 on every play and absolutely not allow the explosive play.

Which makes Hill not worth that kind of money. Which is why we traded him.

Now, defenses are still doing that, and we need to make them pay, and a LOT of the blame goes to the OT position-BOTH of them, in my opinion-but some of that goes to Patrick too, as he really wants to get the yards in big chunks. He's going to have to learn to be more patient, and take the short stuff to open up the long stuff. The short stuff is often open, he just looks to the deep routes first and foremost.

And we need to be able to run the ball. There are some schematic issues as well as some individual and group execution issues that are making that not work.

It's still football, and the way it works in real life is still the same; just because you have Patrick Mahomes doesn't mean it's suddenly Madden.

That being said, he was a couple of inches off on the deep throw to Watson, which would've been 7. And Kelce dropped a TD. And the throw to MVS was just an offline throw, but MVS was in fact open, so if those three make-able plays happen, we're having entirely different conversations today.

If we had Juju with Hill teams wouldn't defend us the way they did last year.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by RunKC

I don’t think so. Again they dropped all 3 backers into the middle of the field, had cover 2/3 in the back and doubled them.

Doesn’t change the OL getting wrecked with 4 DL or is being horrific running the ball.

They would have doubled Kelce and Tyreek and still had 3 defenders covering the remaining 2 receivers.

So...exactly what they did last year when we were the most efficient offense in football in the 2nd half?

We figured out how to make it work with Hill. We haven't figured out how to make it work yet without him.

But the annoying part is this just isn't new. Cover 2 shells have been around for years and they went out of favor because they were beatable. Yet....we can't seem to beat them?

I don't get it. There's something amiss here.

[Chris Meck]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

So...exactly what they did last year when we were the most efficient offense in football in the 2nd half?

We figured out how to make it work with Hill. We haven't figured out how to make it work yet without him.

But the annoying part is this just isn't new. Cover 2 shells have been around for years and they went out of favor because they were beatable. Yet....we can't seem to beat them?

I don't get it. There's something amiss here.

Well, I mean, we did until we didn't.

Look, I hate to say anything critical of Patrick, but the reality is that much like last year when we struggled, guys are open short, and he's not taking those throws.

[crispystl]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I wonder if they didn't see Gus Bradley, expect a lot more single high and envision this as a get right game for the passing game figuring it could be a spring board for the new WR corps.

So again - Hubris. They just appear to have looked past Indy.

I certainly don’t think they were expecting the defensive looks they got. I thought the first drive of the second half attacked it much more logically and efficiently, but they seemed to regress right back to the first half play calling after that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RunKC]

Also..from Nate Taylor on Times Ours Pod:

“They are not gonna play rookies unless they have to. They’re playing Pacheco bc he moved the pile.” As in CEH and McKinnon can’t do that.

FWIW Mecole was clearly playing hurt. He shouldn’t have played that game. Skyy should have got his snaps

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Chris Meck

Well, I mean, we did until we didn't.

Look, I hate to say anything critical of Patrick, but the reality is that much like last year when we struggled, guys are open short, and he's not taking those throws.

Yeah, that was certainly the case yesterday.

Left a lot of yards on the table underneath. And given that the consensus right now is that he 'doesn't trust his OL' that seems especially odd.

But I'll say what I've said for a couple years here - I kinda disagree with the consensus. I don't want this kid turning into Tom Brady - that's not where he'll excel.

Shooters shoot - let him shoot. It's innate for him and its dangerous as hell. Before we traded Hill and I wrote a novel on beating the Cover 2, I banged on the "no, we do not need to just dink and dunk to get them out of Cover 2" drum over and over again.

I still stand by that. You can beat Cover 2. You can even beat it deep. But you have to have more than one weapon out there. You needed to add MVS and Hardman TO Tyreek Hill. You need to challenge the corners more and put guys at decision points. Nobody WANTS to give up big plays and 'bend but don't break' isn't a new phenomenon. Teams have always attempted to make teams go about it the hard way. There's nothing novel to this idea.

And we responded to it by making it even easier for them.

The answer was not to get bigger and slower, IMO. It was to add MORE speed.

It seems the front office disagrees. I guess we'll see.

[DJ's left nut]

Here's my ungodly wasted of bandwidth on the matter.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Spoiler!

Speed gives you more than just running verts.

It lets you challenge everywhere on the field. ESPECIALLY when you have a QB with Pats arm talent. And most assuredly when you're running a WCO offense that thrives on using as much of the field as possible.

Think of a base Cover 2 - now tell me what the hell that coverage is supposed to do against a deep out?

Not a lot of teams can use that deep out route because few quarterbacks have the arm strength to challenge the far sideline from the near hash. And if they do have a QB that can do that, few teams have a guy like Hill that will force teams into that shell or a guy like Kelce that can keep them in the middle of the field.

Well the Chiefs have all that. So tell me how a 2-deep shell deals with that guy? Or a good post-corner route? Or as many would recognize it - WASP. You don't run it that deep, but you can take a 10 yard post and cut it out at 15 yards and catch that post-corner about 22 yards downfield. When that safety is starting 18 yards back and hitting his heels as soon as you snap the ball, he's ****ed.

Lord, even a 14 yard dig route - you'll split the safeties if you can make a speed cut and a fast receiver like MVS can.

Speed isn't just about verts. It's why I just don't give one single shit about a guy like Landry and really don't care much about JuJu. If you want to beat the cover 2, the answer is more speed to challenge more of the field. That 1/2 second you gain on the route by having someone who runs 2 strides quicker makes all the difference in the world.

Hardman can't make a speed cut, so he can't run those routes worth a damn. Pringle was demonstrating that he could, that's why he was getting those routes and why the Bears just gave him $6 million.

What we need is a guy that can. THAT'S how you beat the Cover 2. And a RB with the speed to challenge the corners or put the safeties in an impossible situation on a simple arrow route. Moreover, that's how you keep teams out of those Cover 3 looks that can create some headaches for those routes I discussed above (and Hardman on the drags and quick screens will do the same).

The answer isn't possession WRs. It's what we have, but more of it.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Spoiling this due to freakish length after seeing Pest quote it:

Spoiler!

So in trying to come up with a 'rape the Cover 2' play here, the simplest example I can come up with is a mirrored post corner/vert package out of 11 personnel. You line up X, Y, TE, Z w/ Hardman in the weak slot, Kelce split off the line into the slot on the strong side, Hill at the Z and let's say MVS at the X.

MVS and Hill run mirrored post-corner routes w/ Hardman and Kelce running mirrored 9 routes. Your fast RB is running a basic arrow route.

So you're going to see a Nickel coverage in all probability (you can't send a dime out there when you see the 11 personnel in the huddle; makes the running game just too easy).

Patrick drops back and as he's dropping the first guy he picks up is the MLB. If he continues to drop, you go over the middle to the RB for an easy 8 yards. Moreover, that RB is man up on the MLB in space and can take it for more. Most likely that MLB doesn't keep dropping and stays at about 8 yard depth to protect the arrow.

So next you move to the FS on Hardman/MVS's side of the field. And this is where they start to have real problems. The FS is watching Hardman's vert and is thinking he may need to shade middle to protect the NCB. He's also seeing Kelce and realizes Kelce's manned up on the SLB so he needs to start moving that direction. While he's heading that way he also sees Hill coming at him on that post route (that isn't a post route). Meanwhile both outside CBs see post routes and pass their guy off because they don't know at the snap that Kelce or Hardman won't be on quick outs so they have to protect their underneath zones.

Now Mahomes watches that FS. If the FS shades middle to protect against Hardman/Kelce, he has MVS getting ready to break that post-corner back to the sideline and he lets it fly to MVS. And MVS got on that FS so fast that he didn't give the FS a chance to recognize what was happening so now he's in a trail position trying to run down a faster MVS who's out there to meet the ball. If the throw is executed, it's an easy 25 yards.

Now as Mahomes is watching that FS, let's say the FS doesn't shade middle. He thinks the NCB has Hardman in check and doesn't stray from MVS - okay, not Mahomes moves over to the SS. The SS is in trouble. He has Kelce vs. a LB so he has a choice to make - continue to play deep and give Kelce a 1v1 matchup about 15-18 yards downfield or come up on that route to take away the throw over the top. Well now he has Hill breathing down his neck and just as he stops going backwards to try to help the LB, Hill makes that speed cut back to the corner on that post-corner. Moreover, both Hill and Mahomes SAW the SS start to set his feet so Hill knows to flatten the route a little and Mahomes knows to put some air under it to let him run under it. Now the SS has the same problem the FS would've had on the other side - He's stuck in a trail position against the fastest man on the field. He's toast and he knows it.

Now put someone at the X that can't run that post-corner route (thy name is Landry or JuJu; let's just say LJ). The FS is never put at a real decision point because LJ is a stride slower and has given him just a little more time/space to wait the play out. And he knows that even if he's in a trail position on those guys, he can still get back in time to break up the pass. So the FS shades middle. When he starts to shade middle, he's now in a position to challenge a throw to Kelce. The SS sees this and knows he can stay over the top off Hill and the FS recognizes that at full speed he can probably undercut the route on Hill anyway.

What unlocks that entire concept is the speed that MVS brings to the table at the X. It freezes the FS and puts him in an impossible position. Whatever he does is going to either leave MVS open or rat-**** the SS. And because you have Hardman in that slot on the vert, the weakside boundary corner has to stay honest on thye underneath zone because he knows that if that becomes an out route and Hardman gets in space, he can simply split the gap between him and the FS and house it. The only thing that could absolutely wreck that whole thing is the boundary corners getting up in press before they drop into zone, whacking the shit out of the X and Z and throwing the timing out of whack. But they can't do that when they know how explosive MVS and Hill can be if they get off that release.

The answer is more speed. More speed at X, more speed at RB. Speed makes it all go.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Spoiler!

And for my entire football watching life I would have agreed with you.

Then I saw how teams defended the 2021 Chiefs - they did. not. care.

It's what made CEH largely ineffective even when we gave him the ball. Give him the ball 20 damn times - they didn't care. They weren't going to come up. Let him have 5 - Hill and Kelce are so stinking good that they're STILL not coming downhill. They'll give up that 5 and wait for you to make a mistake before they come downhill and let Hill/Kelce gouge them for 30.

Throw underneath all day - you will not pull those safeties up. Because for about 8 weeks we DID over the latter part of the season and no, they weren't drawing safeties up on us. They were staying in the deep shells. They don't give a rip. They simply won't.

Moreover, I conceded that I'd rather have a do-everything X who can get deep AND run pristine routes over the middle. Of course that's preferable. But you CANNOT spend $16 million on Robinson, $15 million on Kelce, $20+ million on Hill, $20+ million on OBJr and $15 million on Thuney. You've dropped $85+ million on 5 players and haven't paid for your QB yet. That's simply not tenable.

So you have $5 million to spend on your WR2 - tell me what Landry or JuJu are going to do to convince these guys to pull their safeties down. We saw last year - they simply don't care. There isn't a universe where getting beat at 6 yards/pop by a plodding possession WR is going to be less of a worry for teams than getting torched over the top.

Conventionally I absolutely agree with you. But never in a million years did I expect what I saw from teams against this Chiefs team in 2021. I don't think Veach or Reid expected it either or they'd have never drafted CEH. Teams willingness to completely sell out against us because they simply didn't care if we took that short stuff is completely unprecedented. I've never seen anything like it and I said so at the time.

You can't attack what teams are doing against this squad like you would what they're doing against teams that don't have Hill and Kelce. Those 2 are just too damn good to scare teams with guys like Landry as a 'counter'. He'll never begin to tilt the scale in his direction.

I just wish we'd have taken this a different direction. I'd have doubled down on what we did well rather than trying to pivot into improving at things we don't.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by Chris Meck

If we still had Hill, it would be the 2021 version of Hill, which was a 11 ypc WR, because defenses were going to drop 7 on every play and absolutely not allow the explosive play.

Which makes Hill not worth that kind of money. Which is why we traded him.

Now, defenses are still doing that, and we need to make them pay, and a LOT of the blame goes to the OT position-BOTH of them, in my opinion-but some of that goes to Patrick too, as he really wants to get the yards in big chunks. He's going to have to learn to be more patient, and take the short stuff to open up the long stuff. The short stuff is often open, he just looks to the deep routes first and foremost.

And we need to be able to run the ball. There are some schematic issues as well as some individual and group execution issues that are making that not work.

It's still football, and the way it works in real life is still the same; just because you have Patrick Mahomes doesn't mean it's suddenly Madden.

That being said, he was a couple of inches off on the deep throw to Watson, which would've been 7. And Kelce dropped a TD. And the throw to MVS was just an offline throw, but MVS was in fact open, so if those three make-able plays happen, we're having entirely different conversations today.

And in fairness we haven’t had time to replace him. Of course hill vs no replacement is going to feel like a step down. We will put that $22m we would have spent on him to very good use someday.

But on top of that we got mcduffie, skyy and kinnard. Mcduffie looks the part. Plenty of reason to be optimistic about skyy. It’s hard to say we did badly on this one.

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

So...exactly what they did last year when we were the most efficient offense in football in the 2nd half?

We figured out how to make it work with Hill. We haven't figured out how to make it work yet without him.

But the annoying part is this just isn't new. Cover 2 shells have been around for years and they went out of favor because they were beatable. Yet....we can't seem to beat them?

I don't get it. There's something amiss here.

They weren’t as effective as you make it out to be.

First, take out the Raiders. Their dumbasses played single high in both games last year and got torched for it. They were the only defense that was stupid enough to do that.

After the Titans massacre we had:

Giants-20
Packers-13
Cowboys-19
Broncos-14…Sorenson pick 6
Chargers-34…in OT, 28 in regulation
Broncos-21..Bolton TD return

They got a terrible Steelers team and a Bills team with a decent (but not great) pass rush). I wouldn’t brag about the Bengals either seeing as how the Bengals completely shut them down in the 2nd half of both games.

There were signs of it all year. And man I can tell you right now no team put that much pressure Sunday on Patrick Mahomes in his career except the Bucs in the SB.

It was that bad

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by FringeNC

RONALD JONES

"In a so-far forgettable career, Jones had his most forgettable season — hitting career lows in all categories below. Additionally, he didn't improve his standing as a potential every-down option. Out of 97 running backs, he ranked 96th in pass block grade (12.4)."

https://www.pff.com/news/fantasy-foo...ee-agents-2022

My bad, I thought you were talking about Clyde.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Chris Meck

Well, I mean, we did until we didn't.

Look, I hate to say anything critical of Patrick, but the reality is that much like last year when we struggled, guys are open short, and he's not taking those throws.

He's not just not taking them, he's not MAKING them either.

His ball placement yesterday was off, sometimes by a lot.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Yeah, that was certainly the case yesterday.

Left a lot of yards on the table underneath. And given that the consensus right now is that he 'doesn't trust his OL' that seems especially odd.

But I'll say what I've said for a couple years here - I kinda disagree with the consensus. I don't want this kid turning into Tom Brady - that's not where he'll excel.

Shooters shoot - let him shoot. It's innate for him and its dangerous as hell. Before we traded Hill and I wrote a novel on beating the Cover 2, I banged on the "no, we do not need to just dink and dunk to get them out of Cover 2" drum over and over again.

I still stand by that. You can beat Cover 2. You can even beat it deep. But you have to have more than one weapon out there. You needed to add MVS and Hardman TO Tyreek Hill. You need to challenge the corners more and put guys at decision points. Nobody WANTS to give up big plays and 'bend but don't break' isn't a new phenomenon. Teams have always attempted to make teams go about it the hard way. There's nothing novel to this idea.

And we responded to it by making it even easier for them.

The answer was not to get bigger and slower, IMO. It was to add MORE speed.

It seems the front office disagrees. I guess we'll see.

They added a shit ton more speed to the defense. The offensive moves don't seem to make any sense in that context.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by RunKC

They weren’t as effective as you make it out to be.

First, take out the Raiders. Their dumbasses played single high in both games last year and got torched for it. They were the only defense that was stupid enough to do that.

After the Titans massacre we had:

Giants-20
Packers-13
Cowboys-19
Broncos-14…Sorenson pick 6
Chargers-34…in OT, 28 in regulation
Broncos-21..Bolton TD return

They got a terrible Steelers team and a Bills team with a decent (but not great) pass rush). I wouldn’t brag about the Bengals either seeing as how the Bengals completely shut them down in the 2nd half of both games.

There were signs of it all year. And man I can tell you right now no team put that much pressure Sunday on Patrick Mahomes in his career except the Bucs in the SB.

It was that bad

Dude I said it a few hours ago - that game on Sunday looked just like the team from last year. They've looked like this shit offense even WITH Tyreek Hill. I'm not here to argue about Hill - he's a generational player. Enough said.

But even with him, we had several games last year where teams locked him down and completely rat****ed our offense.

It's a little early in the season for this but I'm high as a kite and I've watched the All 22 like 6 times - the problem is Orlando Brown. It was Orlando Brown last year. Mahomes just isn't comfortable in the pocket, even when it's there.

Orlando Brown simply has to go after this season is over. Wish we could have gotten rid of him in the offseason now.

[Chris Meck]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Yeah, that was certainly the case yesterday.

Left a lot of yards on the table underneath. And given that the consensus right now is that he 'doesn't trust his OL' that seems especially odd.

But I'll say what I've said for a couple years here - I kinda disagree with the consensus. I don't want this kid turning into Tom Brady - that's not where he'll excel.

Shooters shoot - let him shoot. It's innate for him and its dangerous as hell. Before we traded Hill and I wrote a novel on beating the Cover 2, I banged on the "no, we do not need to just dink and dunk to get them out of Cover 2" drum over and over again.

I still stand by that. You can beat Cover 2. You can even beat it deep. But you have to have more than one weapon out there. You needed to add MVS and Hardman TO Tyreek Hill. You need to challenge the corners more and put guys at decision points. Nobody WANTS to give up big plays and 'bend but don't break' isn't a new phenomenon. Teams have always attempted to make teams go about it the hard way. There's nothing novel to this idea.

And we responded to it by making it even easier for them.

The answer was not to get bigger and slower, IMO. It was to add MORE speed.

It seems the front office disagrees. I guess we'll see.

Well, I think he's going to have to prove he CAN be Tom Brady, when it's required, and until the defenses stop sitting back and denying his Mahomes'ness.

As far as 'more speed', I mean, MVS and Hardman are both damned near as fast as Hill is. As good? no, of course not. But as fast? Yeah.

I don't think we got slower at all at WR overall. Hardman and MVS are fractions of a tenth of a second slower than Hill, Watson is a 4.4 guy, and Moore is a 4.4-4.5 guy. All are faster than Pringle and Robinson. Hell, they're probably all faster than Sammy Watkins.

He's going to have to prove he can patiently Brady teams to death before they stop dropping 7. Then he'll get his deep shots. So far, he's not consistently shown he'll do that.

I love Mahomes, and I wouldn't trade him for anyone in football, but there's still some maturing to do there. He gets greedy and impatient.