The Chiefs are good enough to give Andy Reid the Super Bowl he deserves

[Direckshun]

My body is willing.

https://www.sbnation.com/2017/9/18/1...bowl-contender

The Chiefs are good enough to give Andy Reid the Super Bowl he deserves
Andy Reid and the Chiefs look like the best team in the NFL right now, and I’m so here for it.
by Louis Bien @louisbien
Sep 18, 2017, 11:01am EDT

There are seven NFL teams sitting at 2-0, and none of them has looked as good as the Kansas City Chiefs. This is weird.

Not that the Chiefs being good is weird. The Chiefs have had a winning record each season and missed the playoffs just once in four years under Andy Reid.

But for the Chiefs to look utterly dominant is something else. Under Reid, the Chiefs have become the sort of high-floor, low-ceiling team that you wouldn’t really expect to see in the Super Bowl. They’ve gone down swinging (read: painfully, excruciatingly) in all three of their playoff losses under Reid and have yet to get past the Divisional round. They could be counted on to be pretty good in all phases — to rush better than most teams, to be frustrating to score on, and to not cough up the ball — but fall short when games are tight and matter most.

In two games against two good opponents this season — the Eagles finished last season fifth in DVOA, the Patriots were first and, like, won a Super Bowl — the Chiefs have scored 69 points and given up 47, rushed for 331 yards, passed for 519, and generally look like an enhanced version of the team we’ve come to know. A rising tide lifts all boats — or in this case, a rejuvenated Alex Smith makes the Chiefs a helluva lot harder to deal with. He has been spectacular through two games, throwing for 619 yards at 9.8 yards per attempt and a 134 passer rating.

With not even two weeks completed in the season, we have only enough data to overreact to what we see. That said, the Chiefs seem worth overreacting to. They have always been good. The idea that they may be great isn’t at all farfetched. They have been building toward this for years. On its current trajectory, this would be one of Reid’s finest teams ever — and oh, it’s bucking NFL conventions along the way, which is always good and never bad.

This is basically a college team

The axiom goes that champions are built through the NFL Draft. By my count, the Chiefs are starting 16 players who they drafted, with just one of those players — veteran linebacker Derrick Johnson — having been on the roster longer than Reid.

This team has been built in Reid’s image, particularly on offense where the Chiefs have finally stockpiled a critical mass of squat, fast-twitch, space-destroyers to hornswoggle the league.

The most shocking thing about the Chiefs’ season-opening win over the Patriots was that they did it while running what looked like a college offense. Early in the game Smith, Tyreek Hill, and Travis Kelce formed a backfield, and Kelce stepped up to take the snap and ran the option:



And it worked! So the Chiefs kept running it all night, sometimes throwing three backs and two tight ends on the field to complete their Navy impression.

A rookie — running back Kareem Hunt — was maybe the most important player on the field. He finished with 148 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries, and he looked explosive, and tough, and remarkably balanced in the process. The circumstances of general manager John Dorsey’s firing this offseason are somewhat cloudy, but he gave the cash-strapped Chiefs an incredible parting gift in the third-rounder.

Hunt and the running game opened up the downfield passing game, and Smith cleaned up, throwing for 178 yards on just three deep balls. He had two more deep passes for 79 yards against the Eagles, which is good for anyone and outstanding for a notorious dink-and-dunker. Smith looks like a brand new quarterback this season.

Alex Smith is playing with cuss

After rookie backup Pat Mahomes unleashed a series of spectacular passes in the Chiefs’ final preseason game, Smith was spotted on the sideline looking ... not enthused. The moment recalled his body language in the midst of losing his starting job to Colin Kaepernick with the 49ers.

Smith never got his starting job back in San Francisco. So far after stepping back into the Chiefs’ lineup, he has not only played well, but so unlike himself.

Smith is averaging 6.8 yards per attempt over his career, which is paltry given he’s completing 62 percent of his passes. Last season, just 8.16 percent of his passes traveled more than 20 yards through the air, according to Cian Fahey’s Pre-Snap Reads Quarterback Catalogue, fewer than every qualified quarterback except Sam Bradford and Jared Goff.

This season, Smith has attempted seven passes longer than 20 yards, roughly 11 percent of his attempts, and complete five of them. One of his best was a dime he dropped to a covered Chris Conley on the Chiefs’ final touchdown drive against the Eagles for a 35-yard gain.

Maybe it took a much younger, rocket-armed existential threat to draw out this new, aggressive Alex Smith, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s finally playing in an offense that he’s truly comfortable in ...

“One of the things we did when Alex came here was we went back and kind of looked at some of the stuff he had done in college and was familiar with,” Reid said, referring to what would become part of the base offense.

Whatever the case, the Chiefs’ offense is well-positioned to go much further than it has in years.

And yet there are two things that could bring the Chiefs to a screeching halt

he first: The Chiefs lost Eric Berry for the season to a non-contact Achilles injury in the season opener. Perhaps no defensive position is as heaped with responsibility as safety in today’s NFL, and Berry plays it as instinctually and beautifully as anyone in the league.

He was a big reason why Rob Gronkowski couldn’t get open against the Chiefs’ secondary. Should they face the Patriots again this season, Berry’s absence could be costly.

The second: This is still an Andy Reid team, and for all the good that means — his teams are as consistent and well-balanced as they come — the Chiefs will be hamstrung in late-game situations.

This is the Reid Paradox: He is somehow both the best and worst thing to happen to NFL teams. There is nothing more to do than to point at the team’s last two playoff losses. Reid is hardwired to make egregious game-management mistakes. And yet, it’s not like we ever see him panic. You get the sense that Reid is a laborious thinker who is uncomfortable being sped up. At some point this season, the Chiefs will enter the final minutes of the fourth quarter with either too many timeouts or not enough, and when they lose by one score, Reid will be the only person who isn’t miffed.

I can’t help but make this personal: I love Andy Reid

I love that his players love him, I love that he loves Hawaiian shirts, and I love how he tweaks the game. He and Bill Belichick are perhaps the only two NFL head coaches who you can count on to truly innovate a game plan rather than simply iterate on a few guiding principles. Every week, they’ll do something that no other NFL team is doing, and it’ll work. And unlike Belichick, Reid is a person. Bill Belichick has never looked this happy.

I’m a Lions fan, so every year I pick another team I want to win a Super Bowl since mine won’t. I am so here for a Chiefs title run. Innovation deserves to be rewarded. Time — not just Reid’s near-20 seasons, but Smith’s quest to be deemed worthy and Berry’s constant battle against his body — deserves to be rewarded. Fun deserves to be rewarded, and it’s been so long since that has felt like the case in the Super Bowl.

This is a team in Reid’s image. It is quirky, and disciplined and unassuming for how good it has been. This is what his tenure in Kansas City has been building up to. The roster is of the team’s own design, and now it’s up to Reid to guide it. He is the biggest reason why this might the Chiefs’ year, but he’ll be the biggest reason if it’s not.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by O.city

I'm interested to see what others think about this defensive strategy they're going with. They're rushing 4 alot early, dropping guys into coverage. Then get more aggressive later.

Before I give my thesis on it, whats everyone else think.

I'd prefer to turn up the heat and play more aggressively in the 1st half like the Broncos do but I won't argue with results.

What we've been doing has been working and working well.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

I'd prefer to turn up the heat and play more aggressively in the 1st half like the Broncos do but I won't argue with results.

What we've been doing has been working and working well.

Yeah, the Bronco d is just swarming and aggressive. It's fun to watch, but it's still the Broncos (****).

The Chiefs don't seem to play that way. It could be the other way though, that they dont' really trust the defensive backs and feel they need all the help they can get.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

I'm interested to see what others think about this defensive strategy they're going with. They're rushing 4 alot early, dropping guys into coverage. Then get more aggressive later.

Before I give my thesis on it, whats everyone else think.

It's a rope-a-dope.

I mentioned it with regards to Houston last week, but it gives an effect of creating an extra rusher even when Houston doesn't go.

If Houston rushes every time, they put the double on him and you have 5-6 guys in coverage instead of 7. Whereas if they rush him then put him in coverage, then stunt with him then give him an edge to set, etc.... the O-Line doesn't really have a great plan for what to do with him. At the same time, they know they can't just put the RT on an island and pray that Houston doesn't come.

So they end up in a cat/mouse game where they often provide help to the right side and then Houston just doesn't go and they've wasted their protection adjustments (so, for instance, Jones or Ford can get theirs). In the process, Houston's out in coverage and passing lanes are tight.

Sutton's playing a chess match out there and just trying to stay ahead of coordinators and looking for advantages. Using those rushes more sparingly and then varying where they come from early in games gives OC's little to prepare/adjust to when the 4th comes and he mixes it up even more.

I kinda like it even if its unorthodox.

[Hydrae]

Originally Posted by O.city

I'm interested to see what others think about this defensive strategy they're going with. They're rushing 4 alot early, dropping guys into coverage. Then get more aggressive later.

Before I give my thesis on it, whats everyone else think.

You know it almost seems like the answer to this is also the answer to chiefzilla. We spend most of the first 3 quarters setting up the 4th quarter. Then we have a good idea how the opposition is going to react to what we have been doing all game to that point. Whether it be stunts on a pass rush or a double move to get deep as a WR. This is the way to win a chess match, sucker the other guy into making the wrong move that they do not even realize is wrong until after the game.

[stevieray]

So now we've gone to can't win with Alex, to should be putting teams away by the fourth?



Don't we play one of the toughest schedules?

How about we keep beating good teams. Like good teams do.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

It's a rope-a-dope.

I mentioned it with regards to Houston last week, but it gives an effect of creating an extra rusher even when Houston doesn't go.

If Houston rushes every time, they put the double on him and you have 5-6 guys in coverage instead of 7. Whereas if they rush him then put him in coverage, then stunt with him then give him an edge to set, etc.... the O-Line doesn't really have a great plan for what to do with him. At the same time, they know they can't just put the RT on an island and pray that Houston doesn't come.

So they end up in a cat/mouse game where they often provide help to the right side and then Houston just doesn't go and they've wasted their protection adjustments (so, for instance, Jones or Ford can get theirs). In the process, Houston's out in coverage and passing lanes are tight.

Sutton's playing a chess match out there and just trying to stay ahead of coordinators and looking for advantages. Using those rushes more sparingly and then varying where they come from early in games gives OC's little to prepare/adjust to when the 4th comes and he mixes it up even more.

I kinda like it even if its unorthodox.

Maybe, but thats kind of against what he did early here as a DC. Maybe he's evolved into it. I'm not sure.

[penbrook]

Originally Posted by stevieray

So now we've gone to can't win with Alex, to should be putting teams away by the fourth?



Don't we play one of the toughest schedules?

How about we keep beating good teams. Like good teams do.

2nd toughest schedule in fact and 538.com is predicting us to win every single one of them. Nate Burleson said we should be looking at Hunts extension after this season.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

See, I think they're really comfortable with their defensive back 7. Enough so taht they're content with rushing 4, dropping them and playing. Then once they get in certain scenarios they're able to do more exotic type things.

I dunno. It's working though.

I think its more complicated than that because they continued to do with with Nelson and Berry injured. If you're 'comfortable' with a back 7 of Mitchell, Gaines, Sorenson, Parker, Murray, Peters and and DJ...well that's a little foolhardy. There are gaps to be found there with Sorenson's limitations, Murray's inexperience, Gaines general suck, Mitchell's aggression and DJ's age.

I think it's all about hiding your hand and/or keeping opposing coordinators guessing to create a competitive advantage.

[penbrook]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I think its more complicated than that because they continued to do with with Nelson and Berry injured. If you're 'comfortable' with a back 7 of Mitchell, Gaines, Sorenson, Parker, Murray, Peters and and DJ...well that's a little foolhardy. There are gaps to be found there with Sorenson's limitations, Murray's inexperience, Gaines general suck, Mitchell's aggression and DJ's age.

I think it's all about hiding your hand and/or keeping opposing coordinators guessing to create a competitive advantage.

Sorenson believeit or not played 100%of the defensive snaps vs the Eagles

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

Maybe, but thats kind of against what he did early here as a DC. Maybe he's evolved into it. I'm not sure.

Everyone evolves. OC's started to find some holes in his exotic blitz schemes and he had to adjust back.

When teams didn't really know how to deal with those blitzes, he could keep calling them. But when there was enough tape to see how those could be exploited, he needed to do more to change things up.

Now he's doing what he can to avoid getting predictable and giving his opponent a chance to really get a feel for what he's trying to do. If teams start to exploit that (they will), he'll need to adjust again.

[JakeF]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Seriously - 1 pt lead in the 4th quarter and he throws this ball into a tiny window that's closing fast:



Your argument is that he threw it because he had to and that's just not right. The checkdown to the RB gets them near a huge FG and may be the 'smart' game manager decision.

That throw to Conley took serious stones and was an outstanding strike.

That isn't a guy playing with his hair on fire, it's a guy that trusts his ability to fit that ball in there.

That was a badass throw.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I think its more complicated than that because they continued to do with with Nelson and Berry injured. If you're 'comfortable' with a back 7 of Mitchell, Gaines, Sorenson, Parker, Murray, Peters and and DJ...well that's a little foolhardy. There are gaps to be found there with Sorenson's limitations, Murray's inexperience, Gaines general suck, Mitchell's aggression and DJ's age.

I think it's all about hiding your hand and/or keeping opposing coordinators guessing to create a competitive advantage.

Quite possible. Probable even.

While I'm inclined to wait, I'm not really seeing the issues with Sorenson and Murray, particularly the former. He's all over the field and seems to always been in the right place.

Gaines is maddening in that he has the physical ability to be where he's supposed to be, just can't get turned or whatnot to make a play. Plus he got pushed off of twice.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Everyone evolves. OC's started to find some holes in his exotic blitz schemes and he had to adjust back.

When teams didn't really know how to deal with those blitzes, he could keep calling them. But when there was enough tape to see how those could be exploited, he needed to do more to change things up.

Now he's doing what he can to avoid getting predictable and giving his opponent a chance to really get a feel for what he's trying to do. If teams start to exploit that (they will), he'll need to adjust again.

For sure.

But i think now, he just has better defensive players than you ahve offensive guys.

Berry not withstanding, they've got what, 4 guys who are legitimately all pro type guys on the field at different levels? Then guys like Parker, Bailey, Logan, Mitchell who are great fillers.

I dunno, I hate to lose Berry, it sucks. But if Nelson can come back and play well, guys keep improving and getting back, they look real nice.

I also want to mention how nice it is to see #50 out there healthy again.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by penbrook

Sorenson believeit or not played 100%of the defensive snaps vs the Eagles

I believe it. He's a jack of all trades, master of none type of safety.

It's interesting to compare him to Parker, for example. Parker does one thing and does it well - he's an excellent coverage safety. I think he's a better pure coverage safety than even Berry is. But man, he pretty much sucks in run support.

Sorenson, OTOH, isn't excellent at anything. You can make an argument that he isn't particularly good at anything. But he's not really bad at anything either. He's adequate as a rusher and as a coverage player. He's a bit of a problem in the run game, IMO, but that's also because he played a lot of nickel LB and was given tougher matchups that way; I see nothing in his mentality or physical attributes that says he can't be an average run support safety.

Sorenson is a poor man's Berry. He plays a very similar style of game, he just doesn't play it nearly as well. Parker's nothing like that; he plays a completely different style.

So when Berry goes down, it's not surprising that a mad tinkerer like Sutton would want a swiss-army knife of a player like Sorenson on the field quite a bit. He can do a lot with him (isn't Sorenson also the guy that put the shot into Wentz on the blitz right up the gut, in addition to the flying flip?).

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I believe it. He's a jack of all trades, master of none type of safety.

It's interesting to compare him to Parker, for example. Parker does one thing and does it well - he's an excellent coverage safety. I think he's a better pure coverage safety than even Berry is. But man, he pretty much sucks in run support.

Sorenson, OTOH, isn't excellent at anything. You can make an argument that he isn't particularly good at anything. But he's not really bad at anything either. He's adequate as a rusher and as a coverage player. He's a bit of a problem in the run game, IMO, but that's also because he played a lot of nickel LB and was given tougher matchups that way; I see nothing in his mentality or physical attributes that says he can't be an average run support safety.

Sorenson is a poor man's Berry. He plays a very similar style of game, he just doesn't play it nearly as well. Parker's nothing like that; he plays a completely different style.

So when Berry goes down, it's not surprising that a mad tinkerer like Sutton would want a swiss-army knife of a player like Sorenson on the field quite a bit. He can do a lot with him (isn't Sorenson also the guy that put the shot into Wentz on the blitz right up the gut, in addition to the flying flip?).

Yeah.

And I think you underrate Dan quite a bit.