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.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by htismaqe

When they're in that 7 or 8 DB set, it's really hard to stretch the field horizontally.

They're basically leaving the middle of the field wide open and shutting everything else down.

Ravens playoff loss to the Chargers perfectly illustrated that. It's probably why they went out and got Ingram.

The Chargers stretched 'em horizontally with 7/8 DBs and without a power back (Dixon wasn't that guy and Edwards was just really green and isn't really quite that guy), they couldn't force the Chargers back to the middle by attacking the interior.

It was incredibly counter-intuitive. You figure pack the box, slow the run, force Lamar to throw outside the hashes. The Chargers did the exact opposite of that and Baltimore had no answer. It's one of the best defensive gameplans I have ever seen given the challenges the Chargers faced (and why Lynn will get more rope from me than most - that took MASSIVE stones).

Ingram was a great get for that very reason. And w/ CEH the Chiefs have a back that can work inside in a different way - but it just didn't come together last night.

Study it, learn from it, get better at it.

[tk13]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

We've also seen him shut down for entire halves vs. BB defenses and make catastrophically bad mistakes that have taken points off the board and created huge turnovers.

What you saw is Mahomes maturation process. When he was bad, he was LESS bad. That's hugely important against teams that typically don't beat themselves. You have to hang around long enough for them to slip up without cutting your own throat in the process.

Earlier in Pats career, maybe he forces a throw or two that creates a big momentum swing and a hill we have to climb in the 2nd half. It's happened on a couple of occasions in the PM vs. BB matchup.

Today Mahomes simply didn't make the key mistake, prodded for soft spots and eventually found enough to win a game fairly easily.

We're spending an awful lot of time focusing on the negatives here when there's a clear positive to take away from how Mahomes approached this game vs. how he's approached Patriot games in the past. This was another step forward in his march to unassailable GOAT status.

Honestly he probably made a couple of those mistakes in the first half, but McCourty dropped an INT and they blew the fumble/INT/sack dead.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by tk13

Honestly he probably made a couple of those mistakes in the first half, but McCourty dropped an INT and they blew the fumble/INT/sack dead.

Eh, I don't blame him for the fumble/int/sack. That was just typical weird shit that happens in a scrum.

I'm not sure what the McCourty drop was. He almost seemed to get stuck in the middle and not know exactly where he was throwing the football.

It wasn't that 'hero ball' mistake he made as a pup or just whiffing on the dropping LBer. It just looked to me like an execution error rather than a processing problem or being too gung ho/sped up.

Dunno - that one was odd.

[Dante84]

It was the classic BB approach of "take away your opponent's best weapon."

In this game, that was our passing game.

They wanted us to run, because it slows the game down, eats clock, and removed "splash plays" by taking away Patrick's ability to create new windows to throw through.

On Offense, they wanted to run and eat clock as well, to keep him on the sideline.

It almost worked, and we still won by 16, because we are a complete team. Huge punts from Townsend, big plays when we needed them on offense, and ball-hawk secondary combined with timely sacks on throwing downs from the defense.

It can't all be on the offense every game.

We'll take these learnings and apply them to future games.

[VAGOMO 4 LIFE!]

Mahomes needs to work on his deep ball. Russ is by far the best deep ball thrower in the league

[RaidersOftheCellar]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

We've also seen him shut down for entire halves vs. BB defenses and make catastrophically bad mistakes that have taken points off the board and created huge turnovers.

What you saw is Mahomes maturation process. When he was bad, he was LESS bad. That's hugely important against teams that typically don't beat themselves. You have to hang around long enough for them to slip up without cutting your own throat in the process.

Earlier in Pats career, maybe he forces a throw or two that creates a big momentum swing and a hill we have to climb in the 2nd half. It's happened on a couple of occasions in the PM vs. BB matchup.

Today Mahomes simply didn't make the key mistake, prodded for soft spots and eventually found enough to win a game fairly easily.

We're spending an awful lot of time focusing on the negatives here when there's a clear positive to take away from how Mahomes approached this game vs. how he's approached Patriot games in the past. This was another step forward in his march to unassailable GOAT status.

He did make some critical mistakes though. Two throws that could’ve/should’ve been picked, and a lucky break on the fumble/INT/whatever it was.

I’m not worried about it. I just think if he were on, he’d have put up at least 10-14 more points. I think they expected to coast to an easy W and got careless.

[Dante84]

Originally Posted by MAHOMO 4 LIFE!

Mahomes needs to work on his deep ball. Russ is by far the best deep ball thrower in the league

dude.

[Chief Roundup]

Originally Posted by 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.

It is what the Chargers did to us. It was not new at all. This was talked about during the game.

Sent from my SM-G973U1 using Tapatalk

[tk13]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Eh, I don't blame him for the fumble/int/sack. That was just typical weird shit that happens in a scrum.

I'm not sure what the McCourty drop was. He almost seemed to get stuck in the middle and not know exactly where he was throwing the football.

It wasn't that 'hero ball' mistake he made as a pup or just whiffing on the dropping LBer. It just looked to me like an execution error rather than a processing problem or being too gung ho/sped up.

Dunno - that one was odd.

That's fair, they definitely weren't hero ball mistakes. It felt like maybe we ran too many long developing plays. It's hard to be patient and just take what's there. Manning definitely got better at that as he got older. You're already seeing Mahomes make smarter decisions and he's still young.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Dante84

dude.

Eh, he does.

He has the arm strength to do the 'drop it in the bucket' thing and he oftentimes doesn't do that.

Nothing wrong with that - it's really a learned skill. That touch/trajectory on a deep ball is something that absolutely can be taught. The rest of the remarkable stuff he does can't be.

He has the talent to have the best deep ball in the game. He doesn't at the moment - I think Wilson and maybe even Goff have better ones. Rodgers is probably still a tick ahead as well. There's no cause for that other than Mahomes just hasn't quite gotten that feel yet.

He's like 13 years old so this too shall pass...

[MahiMike]

Originally Posted by Detoxing

Yeah the false narratives this morning have been weird.

Maybe so but it just seemed like they were very meh last night. No emotions, no energy.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by RaidersOftheCellar

But we’ve seen Mahomes tear apart better Belichick defenses than this. And he consistently makes better decisions and throws with more accuracy than he did last night.

Belichick deserves credit, but they should have hung more points on the board.

Yep.

[Oh Snap]

Honestly, if Watkins doesnt fumble the ball inside the redzone on that nice drive we had (our first possession in the second half), we likely score there. We were moving the ball nicely on them. Also, when its 3rd and 5, and Mahomes goes for it all 50 yards downfield, that ends a drive. There were a few drives where the drive ended because instead of going for the first down, they tried to get a touchdown, or a huge chunk play. I suspect this was to catch belicheks defense napping. Didnt happen. And the drive ended there. Clean that up, convert those easy 3rd and 5s, and we should be alright.

[Pitt Gorilla]

Originally Posted by Dante84

It was the classic BB approach of "take away your opponent's best weapon."

In this game, that was our passing game.

They wanted us to run, because it slows the game down, eats clock, and removed "splash plays" by taking away Patrick's ability to create new windows to throw through.

On Offense, they wanted to run and eat clock as well, to keep him on the sideline.

It almost worked, and we still won by 16, because we are a complete team. Huge punts from Townsend, big plays when we needed them on offense, and ball-hawk secondary combined with timely sacks on throwing downs from the defense.

It can't all be on the offense every game.

We'll take these learnings and apply them to future games.

And they still stopped the run with their stunts and speed up front. It was really impressive. Sure, the line could block better, but those stunts were lethal and their players didn't miss.

You want to know why the Chiefs are the first team in NFL history to start FOUR consecutive seasons with a 4-0 start? It's really ****ing hard to win in the NFL. Period. I'll take a 16-point win over the Patriots any day, even if it wasn't pretty enough for Chief Fan.

[Pitt Gorilla]

Originally Posted by Hammock Parties

Have to get Mahomes under center and beat them with the running game when they do that.

It's true. The run is open right up the middle. I know people were whining about it, but if CEH makes about 3 better reads last night, he's over 100 rushing. The line has to block the stunts better (and deal with speed better), but we're fine here.