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 DJ's left nut

Was going on in real-time as well.

"The Chiefs look like shit!"

Nah, they really didn't. They had some areas where they needed to improve on execution, but really the Patriots just played a really nice game. Let's not act like BB isn't probably the best defensive coach in HISTORY fellas. The guy's a brilliant defensive mind.

And he had his guys playing with a smart plan and executing at a high level.

I don't understand why we can't acknowledge that fact and instead have to insist that they were flat or shitty or whatever. That's simply not the case.

The Patriots have played SB level defense virtually every year for the last 20 years because their HC is a brilliant defensive mind. They had their defense largely intact yesterday so they played good defense.

Not sure why everyone's all in a twist about that.

They're all in a twist because they truly believe that if it had been Cam Newton at QB, the Chiefs would have gotten beat.

Seems like every week, it's a new gripe.

No team is perfect but this team is about as close as it gets.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Mecca

I think moving the game had an affect on the players, they weren't crisp or sharp.

Exactly. It was a sloppy game by both teams.

[Mecca]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

They're all in a twist because they truly believe that if it had been Cam Newton at QB, the Chiefs would have gotten beat.

Seems like every week, it's a new gripe.

No team is perfect but this team is about as close as it gets.

I did have a friend of mine that likes the 49ers tell me that the Chiefs are easily the best team and you have to play a perfect game to beat them and even then you may still lose. Then he discussed basically praying that a key player misses the game etc..

Lots of people have serious fear of the Chiefs.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

They weren't executing last night, it was fairly easy to see. And not just the line. CEH missed a few holes because of bad reads, Mahomes overthrew some passes. The whole offense just executed poorly for most of the game.

Eh.

That 'congestion concept' BB wanted to use tonight showed up in a BIG way inside the red zone and it took some time for Reid to adjust to it. Especially when the running game couldn't punish the Pats in goal to go situations.

I mean the Chiefs had like 150 yards of offense in the 1st quarter. They weren't exactly tripping over themselves, they just couldn't finish drives because BB had a great plan in close early on. Score even 1 TD, let alone 2, and that whole narrative is a lot different.

I just think the idea that there was this overarching failure by the offense is overstating things. It was fine. They moved the ball well. BB just coached his ass off and REALLY did an excellent job in spots where we've seen the most development from the Chiefs over the last 18 months - situational defense.

3rd down and red zone stops. We've said for years that those are the two most critical areas in modern defensive football and it should come as a surprise to no one that the best defensive mind football has probably ever seen had his team playing extremely well in those 2 situations.

It happens.

[SithCeNtZ]

Originally Posted by Mecca

We just aren't built to be a smash mouth run the ball offense so defenses are going to dare us to do that and until we prove we can expect more teams to try this.

What's baffling about this is we are generally a pretty creative offense. But we just kept running the same running plays over and over and over. It's not just that we weren't executing, but it's pretty easy to stop when you do the same thing every time. It made no sense why it took us 3 quarters to do something different and take the RB we drafted who is supposed to be good in space and, wait for it this is a crazy idea I can't believe it worked, put him in space instead of just pounding him up the middle. Not surprisingly the 2 best runs for CEH of the night were toss plays to the outside. Do that with mixing in some jet sweeps to keep defenses honest and that might help. Not "run up the middle every second down".

[Mecca]

Originally Posted by SithCeNtZ

What's baffling about this is we are generally a pretty creative offense. But we just kept running the same running plays over and over and over. It's not just that we weren't executing, but it's pretty easy to stop when you do the same thing every time. It made no sense why it took us 3 quarters to do something different and take the RB we drafted who is supposed to be good in space and, wait for it this is a crazy idea I can't believe it worked, put him in space instead of just pounding him up the middle. Not surprisingly the 2 best runs for CEH of the night were toss plays to the outside. Do that with mixing in some jet sweeps to keep defenses honest and that might help. Not "run up the middle every second down".

I also think it's obvious that unless they have to change it up the Chiefs are trying to win games showing the least amount of stuff on tape possible. This is about as vanilla as I can remember the Chiefs being on playcalling.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

I'll push back here. Mahomes leaves clean pockets sometimes. I get why, you laid it out here. But I think he needs to hang in there and let WR's do what they do.

When he did that last night, they had success.

But you can almost always tell when he's moving with purpose vs. when he's just not getting comfortable.

He usually 'jutters' with his feet a little on the latter.

I saw very very little of that last night. And I saw none of those 'backward drifts' that you see when he's not feeling the pocket well.

I think just about every decision he made w/r/t pocket awareness was done with purpose. You're making a chicken/egg argument here. Yes, he succeeded when he was tall in the pocket. But then again, he had throwing lanes. Why are you presuming he had those when he was moving? Isn't it equally likely that he simply didn't have those lanes, tried to move to create them and then found himself stymied by the BB bracket concept?

I think you're identifying the symptom just fine - I think you're simply mis-diagnosing the disease.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Eh.

That 'congestion concept' BB wanted to use tonight showed up in a BIG way inside the red zone and it took some time for Reid to adjust to it. Especially when the running game couldn't punish the Pats in goal to go situations.

I mean the Chiefs had like 150 yards of offense in the 1st quarter. They weren't exactly tripping over themselves, they just couldn't finish drives because BB had a great plan in close early on. Score even 1 TD, let alone 2, and that whole narrative is a lot different.

They couldn't finish drives because they were making stupid penalties and getting the ball punched out and stuff. The first drive in particular had nothing to do with the Patriot defense and everything to do with Pat missing a couple of short throws.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I just think the idea that there was this overarching failure by the offense is overstating things. It was fine. They moved the ball well. BB just coached his ass off and REALLY did an excellent job in spots where we've seen the most development from the Chiefs over the last 18 months - situational defense.

3rd down and red zone stops. We've said for years that those are the two most critical areas in modern defensive football and it should come as a surprise to no one that the best defensive mind football has probably ever seen had his team playing extremely well in those 2 situations.

It happens.

Yeah, I'm not suggesting the offense "failed". They did leave some points on the field, regardless of the strength of the opposing defense.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Mecca

I also think it's obvious that unless they have to change it up the Chiefs are trying to win games showing the least amount of stuff on tape possible. This is about as vanilla as I can remember the Chiefs being on playcalling.

This is a team that should be able to run some pretty clever inside trap plays, but unless I missed it, I saw few/none of them last night. I wonder if Osemele's lack of lateral agility and/or Wylie maybe not being at 100% prevented it.

With DE's bracketing and a light box....man, an inside trap should be REALLY easy to break. Especially w/ the threat of the pass making the DL need to hesitate just a tick more which would allow the G/T combo to get to the 2nd level a little easier.

Just not real sure why we didn't see more of those. Maybe we did and I missed 'em.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

This is a team that should be able to run some pretty clever inside trap plays, but unless I missed it, I saw few/none of them last night. I wonder if Osemele's lack of lateral agility and/or Wylie maybe not being at 100% prevented it.

With DE's bracketing and a light box....man, an inside trap should be REALLY easy to break. Especially w/ the threat of the pass making the DL need to hesitate just a tick more which would allow the G/T combo to get to the 2nd level a little easier.

Just not real sure why we didn't see more of those. Maybe we did and I missed 'em.

We saw an inside run to the left on the 1st series, CEH's first carry was for 5 or 6 yards. I don't remember seeing many more after that though.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

They couldn't finish drives because they were making stupid penalties and getting the ball punched out and stuff. The first drive in particular had nothing to do with the Patriot defense and everything to do with Pat missing a couple of short throws.



Yeah, I'm not suggesting the offense "failed". They did leave some points on the field, regardless of the strength of the opposing defense.

Admittedly, I was feeding children and getting them hustled about to get to bed early so my focus was divided. I had my ear-bud in and was listening to the broadcast but wasn't always able to see the play.

But I think ultimately we're all extremely spoiled at this point. An 'average' offense is gonna leave 10 points on the field every damn week....if they're lucky.

I think there's a margin of acceptable error that, if we were outside of, it wasn't by as much as is being lamented.

[Shoes]

Hats off to Bill Belichick for a good game plan, he seems to be the only coach in the league that can slow down Mahomes and company.

I wonder if Andy Reid held back a bit in regards to playcalling & adjustments knowing that he was facing Hoyer/Stidham, although the score was close for the majority of last night's game, it never really seemed like the outcome was in danger. Perhaps Andy didn't want to show his hand on how the Chiefs will counter the 3-man rush, with two edge defenders "boxing" him in look.

Food for thought.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Admittedly, I was feeding children and getting them hustled about to get to bed early so my focus was divided. I had my ear-bud in and was listening to the broadcast but wasn't always able to see the play.

But I think ultimately we're all extremely spoiled at this point. An 'average' offense is gonna leave 10 points on the field every damn week....if they're lucky.

I think there's a margin of acceptable error that, if we were outside of, it wasn't by as much as is being lamented.

Oh for sure.

I'm not bitching. In fact, I was one of the people telling everybody last night to calm the F down.

It was a fairly convincing win and if the offense plays up to its usual standard, the game is a blowout.

I'm sure a combination of factors - the 1 day delay, the absence of Cam, and more - led to both teams not playing their A game and it made it ugly.

But a win is a win.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

We saw an inside run to the left on the 1st series, CEH's first carry was for 5 or 6 yards. I don't remember seeing many more after that though.

Yeah I think those traps will almost have to be to the left because I don't think Osemele can pull over to the right side. So they'll need him to do that power block at the 2nd level while Wylie gets that pull in and takes out the 5-tech.

Pretty sure you can't flip those roles and do it to the right very often. I wonder if the shotgun impacts the timing there. But you would think if you had CEH lining up to Mahomes right, he could still be right on time to hit that hole as Wylie opens it.

Eh, Reid's a lot smarter than me so I suspect there's some reason for it that I wasn't seeing. It just seems like it can/should be a more common tool in our arsenal, especially on inside hand-offs.

[Red Dawg]

Our OL isn't tough. They have faced very good defensive lines so far but our ground game is average at best. They just can't get a good push on the interior. CEH is getting stuffed over an over again.