Arrowhead Pride
For the first time since 2014, the Kansas City Chiefs didn’t make the playoffs and watched Wild Card weekend from home just like the rest of us. Hopefully, there are lessons to learn from this year’s postseason that the Chiefs can apply to their in-house philosophies.
Here are two takeaways I had from the second round of the NFL postseason.
Defenses have changed over the past few years. As the NFL has become more pass-happy, teams have countered by employing nickel or dime personnel against anything the offense offers. The best defenses in the NFL, like the Seattle Seahawks or Houston Texans, never play base defense, choosing to solve problems with lighter personnel. Both of those defenses succeed because they can excel from light boxes.
From a coverage standpoint, teams have used more defensive backs to gain an advantage. Those defenses prefer “umbrella” zone coverages in order to play top-down to everything, focused on limiting explosive plays.
There are a few schools of thought on how to counter this through the passing game:
There’s the idea of throwing underneath into that open space and being surgical. Some quarterbacks and schemes can maximize that.
However, football is a sport of variance. If you try to draw out 10-play drives consistently, you’re eventually going to have a negative play happen against you. It can be a penalty, sack, or a tackle for loss that gets you behind the chains. It’s a hard way to live and limits your scoring opportunities.
The other way to attack these defenses is by throwing one-on-one downfield. If you can bleed the coverage and open shots downfield, you can create space and limit variance. A 30 or 40-yard completion is like eliminating three or four first downs. If you’re throwing underneath, you need to be precise on six to eight plays to get to 40 yards. It’s extremely valuable to get all of that in one play.
As these defenses do a better job at stopping quick game from these coverages, the counter will be teams getting more focused on pushing the ball downfield. We saw that this weekend.
The New England Patriots‘ offense was bad on Sunday. The Patriots had 13 first downs and averaged under 4.0 yards per play. They went 3/14 on 3rd down. The unit had few counters to one of the best defenses in years.
However, when the offense scored, it was through downfield shots to receivers like Kayshon Boutte. Quarterback Drake Maye lived and died by explosive throws, but eventually, the ones that hit got them enough points to win.
To converse this, the Buffalo Bills are a good example. Buffalo’s offense ran the ball very well and moved the ball efficiently, but the unit was subjected to turnover variance via fumbles. It wasn’t able to make up for the turnovers because the Bills couldn’t create explosive throws downfield, which is a byproduct of having poor receivers.
The Chicago Bears are another...
