After ‘kick in the pants,’ Chiefs’ O-line pledges to keep Mahomes cleaner on Friday

[pugsnotdrugs19]

Article from the KC Star this Sunday with some needed encouragement: https://www.kansascity.com/sports/nf...216549170.html

Full article in the spoiler tags below:

Spoiler!

By Brooke Pryor/KC Star

ST. JOSEPH —

The way center Mitch Morse sees it, Thursday night was the kind of reality check the Chiefs’ offensive line needed.

The first string of linemen played only nine snaps in the 17-10 preseason loss to the Texans, but those nine snaps revealed plenty about the group tasked with protecting the Chiefs’ young quarterback this season.

Patrick Mahomes was hit on four of those snaps, including on the very first one.

“It’s definitely frustrating,” Morse said. “You are not going to come off of that and be OK with how it went. Sometimes you need a kick in the pants to rev it up, get out there and see what you need to work on. If anything, we are glad it happened now. We wish it hadn’t happened, but if it’s going to happen, now is the time so we can get out there and be all-cylinders firing by the end of training camp.

“It’s not going to be perfect next game. We are just going to get better little by little every day. That’s all we can ask for.”

After being drilled from behind on the first play of the day — Houston’s Brennan Scarlett and Christian Covington beat left tackle Eric Fisher and left guard Cam Erving — Mahomes got through the final three snaps of the first series without taking another hit.

But the line broke down even more on the second series.

Mahomes delivered a clean screen pass to Tyreek Hill to open the series, and followed up with another clean completion to Travis Kelce, getting the ball off just and the Texans’ pressure ramped up.

Mahomes ended his outing by taking three consecutive hits, beginning with a sack as Angelo Blackson slipped under Mitchell Schwartz to make the initial tackle. Soon after, Duke Ejiofor and Scarlett converged on Mahomes as they beat tight end Demetrius Harris and Fisher, respectively.

On the next snap, Mahomes targeted Kelce but badly overthrew him in the corner, absorbing a hard hit from Ejiofor as the outside linebacker spun around Schwartz to hit Mahomes with ball leaving his hand.

The series ended on the next play when Mahomes was taken down by Ejiofor, Covington and Carlos Watkins, grounding the ball right before he was tackled.

“Protecting the quarterback is something we work very hard at,” offensive line coach Andy Heck said Sunday. “We’ve got to continue to work hard at it. You see on the first play of the game, our quarterback got hit. As an O-line, that’s not acceptable. We know the importance of protecting the quarterback, particularly early in the game. So we’re busting our butts out here, working on throwing our hands, making sure we’re accurate with those punches in our technique.”

Even after the breakdowns in Thursday’s game, the top offensive line unit remained the same in Saturday and Sunday’s practices until right guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif left early to be evaluated for a head injury. With Duvernay-Tardif out, second-teamer Andrew Wylie took over at right guard.

Each first-string player on the Chiefs’ line — LT Fisher, LG Cam Erving, C Morse, RG Duvernay-Tardif, RT Schwartz — has at least four years of experience in the NFL. Fisher has six years’ experience with the Chiefs, and Schwartz has been in the league seven years.

Even so, the group still struggled to jump into the rhythm of a game on Thursday night.

“What I saw out of that group was great effort and intensity and probably a little bit of jitters and over doing some things,” Heck said. “We’ve got a high standard. We’ve been a young O-line in the past, but right now, we’re one of the older, more experienced groups on this team. We expect a lot out of those guys and a lot out of ourselves in that area.

“So we know that we’ve got to amp up the intensity, put the pressure on ourselves, raise that bar a little bit and keep working hard.”

The Chiefs’ line will have a chance to give Mahomes a smoother start against the Falcons on Friday night before heading to Chicago the next week.

“I think you want to give the first few plays, your quarterback an opportunity to get a rhythm going,” Morse said. “As an offensive line, we need to do a better job to give him that opportunity. So we go out there and we do what we’re told. That’s part of the gig.

“Coach puts together a great first few plays, first few drives, and that’s our chance to get out there and really protect.”

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/sports/nf...#storylink=cpy

[RunKC]

It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they were lethargic bc it was a damn preseason game. I still think this OL will be solid except Erving (barring injury).

[ptlyon]

Originally Posted by crayzkirk

Isn't it about time for the "I've got to do a better job" video?

We get those for 16 weeks starting in September

[Chargem]

PFF ranks the Chiefs line as 18th best in the league, pretty much saying it's league average. They gave Morse pretty terrible grades last season, but I guess he didn't play that much.

I more find it annoying that it was Duke Ejiofor who was a 6th round pick getting all that pressure, and will probably end up being more productive than our 2nd round pick

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by Buckweath

Those guys are all pretty much in their prime and have been playing together for a few years.

I would be quite surprised if they are anything worse than slightly below-average but I guess anything is possible.

It just doesn't make much sense to me that they would be much worse than last year. And they were plenty good enough last year despite not being anything special.

The QB can help the line out with pre-snap reads, audibles, quick throws, and scrambling. Mahomes can obviously scramble and throw on the run, but he probably isn't going to be an expert yet at reading D's. With this line, it is going to be hard to take advantage of the deep threat and I think he is going to take an awful lot of big hits. Even before the first preseason game, I thought Mahomes would have benefited more from spending the money on the OL instead of Watkins.

And no, I don't follow free agency enough to suggest who they should have brought in.

[Easy 6]

Dont wanna hear their lip service, just grow some balls and tighten that shit up

[TEX]

Originally Posted by Easy 6

Dont wanna hear their lip service, just grow some balls and tighten that shit up

Exactly. Every year its the same shit. This year something very important depends on it. Just and fix it already.

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by TEX

Exactly. Every year its the same shit. This year something very important depends on it. Just and fix it already.

Cant wait until next offseason, we need to see major changes take place... to include the position coach

For now, we can only hope to achieve some modicum of cohesiveness that gets us to league average and doesnt get the golden goose killed... I'm sooo done with 5 twinkletoes 'athletic guys that move well in space'

GOTTA balance that shit out with some big hairy animals that go 320-330 or so

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by TEX

Exactly. Every year its the same shit. This year something very important depends on it. Just and fix it already.

Insert Andy Reid platitudes about "we'll get it fixed", followed by nothing changing

[CrowbarMan]

Originally Posted by Chief Pagan

The QB can help the line out with pre-snap reads, audibles, quick throws, and scrambling. Mahomes can obviously scramble and throw on the run, but he probably isn't going to be an expert yet at reading D's. With this line, it is going to be hard to take advantage of the deep threat and I think he is going to take an awful lot of big hits. Even before the first preseason game, I thought Mahomes would have benefited more from spending the money on the OL instead of Watkins.

And no, I don't follow free agency enough to suggest who they should have brought in.

Last year the mantra was 'A good QB makes their line better.'. Still holds true this year, to some extent. Alex hit all of his big throws when he had time to throw, and he had time when the run game was working. There's no evidence we can run the ball at will, again, with this group. More one yard bubble screen td passes in our future.