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.

[Shaid]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Its all about the team staying healthy from here on out IMO.

yep, I said the same a week back. At the end of the season all these teams that look good right now will only be as good as they are healthy. Thankfully we have depth but it would be tough if we lost some more of the game changers we have, like Berry for example.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

{shrug}

Stand by whatever you'd like but he took 4 deep shots in a game the Chiefs trailed for maybe 3 minutes last week, including one when they were up by a score to effectively ice the game.

Last week They were down a field goal two possessions into the 3rd quarter when he uncorked it to Hill last week. They were sitting on 1st down with a whole quarter of football ahead of him on the throw to Hunt. He hit Conley on that beauty along the sideline when they were up a score to set up Hunt's last rushing TD; effectively a nail in the coffin.

Virtually all his deep work has been done with the game within a single score one direction or another. Now you can try to argue that you haven't seen enough to change your mind but you absolutely do not have any grounds to argue that anything you have seen this year supports your position.

Based on what we've actually seen - you're simply wrong. What you're demonstrating here is little more than confirmation bias. There are arguments to make against Smith's 'renaissance' but you're not presently making one that stands up to even the smallest amount of scrutiny.

Tell me if you've seen this movie before. Plays a solid first drive where we move all over the defense. Maybe a second drive. 2nd and third quarter we look like shit. 4th quarter or late when it feels like a must score possession, we suddenly unstick ourselves.

It's not conformation bias. It's consistency. Watch how Alex attacks the 4q. On every single play of the last 3 drives that ball is out of his hand immediately. Maybe this year he's sprinkling a deep throw here and there. But in that middle part of the game you see lots of pump fakes and third down coverage sacks. Two games in a row we hit a huge middle of the game rut. In both games our offense responded only after we hit a point where we were nervous the defense might let it slip away.

I have complimented Alex when he plays aggressive all game long. Yesterday was game managed. So was new england.

[chiefzilla1501]

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's my point. It's one thing if you have a qb who manages games all 4th quarters. But we've seen Alex is capable of this kind of quality qb play. Alex Smith can be this qb all 4 quarters but he chooses not to be. He plays really well when his hair is in fire. But why does his hair need to be lit on fire in the first place? Why not put your team in a position where we can put teams away earlier?

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

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.

Yet , he has a WR WIDE ****ING OPEN at the 10 yard line on the other side of the field for any easy TD.

[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.

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Its all about the team staying healthy from here on out IMO.

Well so far we're not doing a good job of that.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Tell me if you've seen this movie before. Plays a solid first drive where we move all over the defense. Maybe a second drive. 2nd and third quarter we look like shit. 4th quarter or late when it feels like a must score possession, we suddenly unstick ourselves.

It's not conformation bias. It's consistency. Watch how Alex attacks the 4q. On every single play of the last 3 drives that ball is out of his hand immediately. Maybe this year he's sprinkling a deep throw here and there. But in that middle part of the game you see lots of pump fakes and third down coverage sacks. Two games in a row we hit a huge middle of the game rut. In both games our offense responded only after we hit a point where we were nervous the defense might let it slip away.

I have complimented Alex when he plays aggressive all game long. Yesterday was game managed. So was new england.

Well, they aren't likely to just mow down drive after drive against a good defense.

[JakeF]

Story acts like the Chiefs and Andy Reid are separate things. If Andy Reid deserves a Superbowl then he will get himself a Superbowl. John Dorsey was great at adding talent too, Reid has no excuses.

[chiefzilla1501]

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 love it. And I think we are frustrating the hell out of opposing qbs. Other defenses are getting shredded by short crossers and qbs who are getting better and better at hot reads. We've also taken away the check downs. And hard to believe, because it's usually the other way around, but I think we're gassing the opposing offense. The strategy will be even better once Nelson gets back and Murray gets experience.

The strategy will need to change based on the qb. But I love the approach against Brady and Wentz. I think people complaining about not blitzing don't fully appreciate what we're trying to do. I'd like to see us dial the blitzes up just a slight notch. But this strategy makes us a very hard defense to scheme for.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Tell me if you've seen this movie before. Plays a solid first drive where we move all over the defense. Maybe a second drive. 2nd and third quarter we look like shit. 4th quarter or late when it feels like a must score possession, we suddenly unstick ourselves.

It's not conformation bias. It's consistency. Watch how Alex attacks the 4q. On every single play of the last 3 drives that ball is out of his hand immediately. Maybe this year he's sprinkling a deep throw here and there. But in that middle part of the game you see lots of pump fakes and third down coverage sacks. Two games in a row we hit a huge middle of the game rut. In both games our offense responded only after we hit a point where we were nervous the defense might let it slip away.

I have complimented Alex when he plays aggressive all game long. Yesterday was game managed. So was new england.

We didn't hit a huge middle of the game rut in NE. We fumbled a ball and lost a possession but Smith continued to run the offense well in the 1st half. And the third had plenty of times where they attacked. They scored a TD in every quarter in that game.

In the Eagles game he did appear to get rattled about midway through the 2nd quarter. I think it was Barnett that came flying through on a stunt when he dove through the RB and then I believe it was Cox that brought pressure from the left side and blew the play all to hell. The rest of that series and then the subsequent series was pretty ugly. But you're also looking at some odd playcalling there with those odd sprint-boots that Reid called at least 3 times. Those aren't 'read' plays - Smith has one guy in the pattern and everyone else is blocking. That play failed all 3 times and you can't put it on Smith when that happens.

But yeah, he needed the half to re-regroup after that play. The OL did as well. They weren't in sync at all. But starting in the 3rd, they found it again.

He has maybe 3-4 possessions of combined risk averse football to this point and 2 of those came immediately after that play referenced above; it clearly rattled him. Apart from that, he's running the offense decisively and aggressively.

[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.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Hog Farmer

Yet , he has a WR WIDE ****ING OPEN at the 10 yard line on the other side of the field for any easy TD.

You know how playing zone defense and/or safety works, right?

Of course the guy opened up - Smith committed to throwing it to Conley and the single-high safety flowed with the play. No, that receiver was not 'wide ****ing open'. Christ.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Its all about the team staying healthy from here on out IMO.

100%.

Can this be the year in which we go into the postseason with our key pieces healthy (sans Berry, of course)?

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by O.city

Well, they aren't likely to just mow down drive after drive against a good defense.

Nobody expects drive after drive. But we can't completely disappear in the 2q and 3q as consistently as we do. It's not like we're a little ineffective during that span. We look really bad on offense during these stretches. Props to Alex that he's pretty outstanding at knowing when to dial it up, then dialing it up. Even in games where we get blown out early, Alex always seems to find a way to claw back in the game. But I don't know why we have to dial back at all. If Alex Smith makes the confident throws middle of the game that he makes late in the game, we would put away a lot of teams without the 4q drama.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

That's my point. It's one thing if you have a qb who manages games all 4th quarters. But we've seen Alex is capable of this kind of quality qb play. Alex Smith can be this qb all 4 quarters but he chooses not to be. He plays really well when his hair is in fire. But why does his hair need to be lit on fire in the first place? Why not put your team in a position where we can put teams away earlier?

His hair WASN'T ON FIRE! That's my point - he was up by 1 in the 4th. He was just playing football.

Show me the points he left on the board in that NE game - he had precisely one bad play in that game and it was the self-sack. Otherwise you're maybe talking about the sequence at the beginning of the second where he threw one incompletion in 2 possessions and otherwise handed the ball off.