Rush 4 and have your outside LB/DE play contain, like a zone blitz almost.

They mixed it up pretty well, actually. Cover 0 (obviously) and mega-blitzes in the red-zone, to be sure. They also ran Cover 0 in predictable passing downs (2nd and long, 3rd and long, etc.).

But it looks like either Cover 2 or Quarters and Single Safety most of the time. The tried to disguise their coverage too. A Cover 0 pre-snap look with the safety dropping fast and hard at the snap. Also showed man on motion but played zone in the middle.

The way I see it, if this hadn't been Mahomes' 7th game of his career, that first half would have been very different for our offense. Kelce could have had a much better game if Mahomes had been a little more cool and calm. He seemed uncomfortable in the first half and didn't see Open Kelce and Wide Damn Open Watkins a few times. Broke the pocket way too early when he didn't have to.

Wally needs to have an answer for Bill's red-zone defense, though. Those bastards get nasty down there.

FAX

They also played cover 0 against Rivers too. I don't think they do it as much Sunday, BB isn't that kind of coach. He's going to change it all up.

yeah, I expect some effort to make Mahomes roll left so he needs to constantly make the contorted throws. He's great at them but the more you have to do it, the more likely you are to make a mistake.

Yeah, that's just bad analysis. Mahomes is not a guy that tries to pick up big yards by scrambling. He tries to get out of trouble when the pocket breaks down, to keep the play alive.

With that said, Belichick is not an idiot, so he won't do that.

IIRC, they ran Cover 0 on that Kelce overthrow that would have a been a TD. Instead we settle for 3. I think there was another overthrow of Hill (??) on a different drive where we settled for 3.

Honestly, if they run that again, I expect Mahomes to not make the same mistake(s). Though, I don't think they'll risk it again...especially in the red zone. Maybe in the middle of the field but I think they'll zone it up inside the 10(ish).

Actually, that's exactly what he's going to do. In fact, that's what he DID in the first game many times.

It's not about Mahomes picking up yards with his feet, it's about him extending plays. The Pats are going to play a lot of man defense. Man defense breaks down when the play does, Pat rolls out and receivers break off their routes and start doing crazy stuff. That's how the Chiefs get chunk plays.

BB is going to contain on the right and try to force Mahomes to his left, where he has to throw across his body.

I just watched the All-22 of the first half again and saw (maybe) 2 Cover 0 schemes. There was one other Cover 0 "look" but the safety dropped out at the snap. Maybe people are seeing things differently, but when I see a deep safety, I don't think "Cover 0".

I've mentioned it before, but what killed us in that first half was the inability of the o-line to deal with their rush plan. They line up as though they're rushing 6 or 7, 3 drop out, and wind up rushing 3 (or sometimes 4). The problem was that almost all those rushers (the 3 or 4 guys) got into the backfield because the o-line was confused as hell and wound up blocking people who weren't coming (blocking air or each other, basically). That was a problem. There were other problems of course, but that was a key issue for us in that first half.

I'll bet they didn't blitz us more than 10 times all game.

FAX

Great for us then

The plan is, don't punt. Then that won't happen.

Well if the Cheatriots get away with tackling Kelce in the endzone I suspect it will be hard to score there.

It worked for a half. How else would you defend Mahomes?

Study the Ostrich?

ROFL

Not an easy assignment. I think your only hope to defend this offense is to get pressure with 4 and drop 7 (probably 6 DB's) and hope you can somehow contain our run game from that.

If you tie up 1-2 of your outside rushers by playing contain on Mahomes, then you either have to bring pressure with the blitz or go with a soft rush (3 or 4) and hope he doesn't have all day.

I like where our OL is at currently, if they don't try to bring pressure.

Mahomes showed plenty of patience last week. Eventually someone gets open if you don't pressure Mahomes.

Of course your best defense against our Offense is to limit possessions by long dink and dunk drives when the Pats have the ball.

This won't be a 44-40 type game, IMO.