Stampede Blue
I’m not willing to accuse the Colts of laying an egg this week. We just experienced what the rest of the league has felt for the last six or seven years, in that it is an extremely low odds proposition to go into Arrowhead and beat that team in a win or go home game. If you missed it during the broadcast, their win yesterday moves them to 15 – 1 over those last 16 home games. I realize saying that will lead many to determine that I am giving the team the dreaded “Moral victory” and maybe I am in some aspects of the game, particularly on defense.
The defensive effort was playoff win worthy. They forced two turnovers, one of which provided the lead that was kept until the game tying FG as regulation time expired. Mahomes was sacked 4 times, albeit for only 7 yards and we helped him miss on 17 of his 46 passes. I guess you could say we stopped him on 21 of his 50 drop backs. We held them to 3.6 per carry on the ground. We did allow them to possess the ball for 42:35 of the 68 minutes played.
I’ll also give the special teams a win on the day. We were better at returning kicks and better at changing the field with our punts. The only blemish would be losing the FG kicking contest by a 5 – 2 score.
We lost yesterday because one of the guys on the sidelines has been in charge for 73 playoff games. He boiled the plan down to doing your best not to let the opponent’s best player beat you. He accomplished this both on defense by by stacking boxes and sending run blitzes, and on offense by possessing the ball. He stuck with it, even when it wasn’t perfectly clear that it was working.
Unfortunately, that guy wasn’t on our sideline. Steichen may at some point become a top 5 coach in this league, but on the needle that has seen him everywhere from “hotseat” to “Coach of the Year candidate”, he moved closer to the former option on Sunday. You simply have to have a better plan of how to beat the same strategy that you have been shown for three straight games now. For lack of a better comparison, our guy is like a young baseball player who starts out with some success, until pitchers get a book on him. The good hitters adjust when pitchers have adjusted to him. Shane didn’t use his week in AAA to figure out how to attack the new approach that pitchers are taking.
Jones wasn’t great, but we could win a lot of games with a 19 – 31, two TDs, and no turnovers. Hell, it almost won this one. But those stats have to accompany a running game that does a hell of a lot better than 74 yards on 19 carries, with only 16 going to your league leading rusher...
