Into the Afternight, Your 3rd Shift Open Thread.
92 repliesPost-Sutton edition.
I will be frank, I’m still struggling with the new truth, that offensive points in the first half have no bearing on the outcome of games. Same goes for the popular belief that as long as the unit’s popular, the offense only has to show up in the last quarter.
Where did all these rabid Alex Smith fans come from? I mean, if Smith had a scoreless first half in a game, I’d blame the loss at least in part on him. But I’m not supposed to say that about Mahomes. Mahomes and the offense did nothing to lose the game, or so I’m told.
Unfortunately, I’m still stuck in the past, where when an offensive unit lets itself get blanked for a half has made a significant contribution to the loss, due to their crappy performance.
Anyway, I’m post-Sutton now, so I’ll leave his haters to bash and bash on him all night long, if they haven’t tired themselves out by beating a dead horse already. I suspect that most of you have something more intelligent to say than mindless Bob-bashing, but that, ultimately, is up to you.
With that, time’s yours.
I will say that I am pissed at Reid because after all this time his plan to beat come out and best cover zero/cover one was to stretch run into it.
I’ll give credit to Bill B too. He was able to effectively disguise cover 0/1 while always double teaming Tyreek immediately.
The first 3 possessions were bad playcalling, completely out schemed.
I really don’t want to watch the game again, but I’m wondering if they kept the blanket converage on hill all game. Never having his man blitz, and always having a second player follow him too
Gotta get the all 22 for it. Makes it more clinical. Rewatching the broadcast will just amplify the pain.
Rewatching any of it will hurt. Though honestly this game didn’t hurt near as bad as other years. I’m more dissapointed I don’t get to watch the Chiefs play again until August. Maybe it was because it was the Championship game, or maybe I’m just numb from going to the Chargers game, the Titans, and Pittsburgh.
Honestly this may be my last playoff game for awhile though. Not because I’m dissapointed with the team, but because I go to the games for the atmosphere, and this time… It just was not a good one
How so?
I went over it in other threads, but to summarize taking an hour and a half to get in while being squished in line, fans being disrespectful and not know how to act, ECT., Parking and ticket prices costing an arm and a leg
The price of those is why I gave up my season tix. Too much to afford anymore.
Unfortunately, I don’t see the cost of attending a game going anywhere other than up, parking included.
I think it was more a matter of ol’ Billy being able to either cover Mahomes’ hot reads or confuse him about them, and probably both.
More important to my mind was that he was able to repeatedly beat the O-line, especially in the first half. If Mahomes had some time, he’d have been able to find open receivers, but the line didn’t give him that time. ‘Way too many negative plays – including Hill’s boneheaded lose-more-yards punt return. And yeah, I put the sack that put them out of FG range on the OL, too. Mahomes had zero time on that play, and nowhere to go. Dunno if he blew the protection calls there or if the line didn’t follow his direction, but it was a horrible play by the offense.
I’ve got a lot of respect for the way Dee handled himself to the media after the game
https://www.kansascity.com/sports/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/article224874575.html
Unlike most people I actually like Dee Ford, he reminds me of a less talented DT. He’s worked hard to expand his pass rush moves. He made a bone head play, but no one would remember it if the pass haven’t been picked.
It was a bone head play turned into an infamous play by some classic Chiefs luck.
Classic Chiefs bad luck? Yeah, I can go with that. What other team had a playoff game that was dominated by injuries followed by a ridiculously fluky bounced fumble that the QB grabbed to score a critical TD and a game that was decided by a god-awful forward progress call and an equally-fluky batted pass that the opposing QB took in for a TD in the same decade?
I like Ford too, despite his mistake. If his bod can hold up, I have no problem with retaining him.
As for the rest of the team, I expect that natural attrition and the reorganization around the next DC will cast off most of the bad fits, if not all of them.
There will be turnover on both offense and defense, and not all the players to depart will be awful, and not all the players that arrive will be awesome. That’s how the NFL works.
Yup I know he gets shit but I still have hopes for Hitchens, I think he was still bothered by his injury and was being used wrong schematically
You may be right on both points. I tend towards Hitch needing to learn how to call the defenses from Berry on an OJT basis to be effective this season, which didn’t happen, but I’m not gonna say that the man can’t play football.
The thing is going in we expected more of our offense, especially more than we got in the first half. So in a way, the offense deserves more blame if only because of expectations. The identity of this team all season has been about offense after all.
The offense wasn’t helped much by a defense that gave up long plodding drives not allowing the offense to get warm, but despite being dominated they only gave up 14 first half points.
Ultimately, Belichick did to us what the chargers did by shortening the game/# of possessions in the first half.
Offense recovered in the second half and made it a horse race that came down to last team with the ball. But this team was predicated on getting a lead early and pinning the ears back. Hoodie schemed that away.
Pretty much this. The strength of the defense was with the pass rush, and the defense was the weaker unit. By keeping the offense scoreless in the first, he nullified the D’s greatest strength.
But I’m not gonna blame the lack of offensive production in the first half on the defense. They didn’t keep the offense from scoring.
I’m already sick of talking about Boob Sutton anyway. Everything of value that could be said about him has already been said all season. What is exciting now – and needs to start happening soon so we can stop talking about Sutton – is being able to pontificate of the potential replacements. There’s going to be heaps to talk about that is going to be vastly more interesting than beating the dead Sutton constantly.
Personally, I see no need to discuss Sutton at all, at this point. I didn’t do it initially, and unless I stumble across some sort of breaking news, I don’t expect to initiate talk about him any time soon.
That doesn’t mean that I will ignore the offense’s horrendous first-half performance, or let slide idiotic notions that playing from ahead or behind don’t matter, the game’s played the same way in both cases.
The offense got one chance to score in the first half, and blew it. That’s the “best offense in the NFL”?
The reason people are blaming the defense that they said all along wasn’t able to carry the team is because they didn’t carry the offense when th3e offense couldn’t cut it. That’s the entirety of it. TRhe offense ploayed like ass for three quarters, and it’s the defense’s fault for not turning into what no one believed they were in the first place.
But that’s ok, because they played asmazingly at the end? Bullshit. They played like crap for three quarters when they were supposedly the strength of the team. Playing spectacularly in the 4th doesn’t erase that failure, except in the minds of the stupid.
If that’s all you’ll go with, I’ll take it. Only managing seven in the third isn’t what I’d call playoff-caliber performance, though. Especially since they had a chance at three already, and blew it.
7 in the third….except that 81% of the yards of a second TD drive took place in the third quarter, only to have 2 additional plays run in the 4th quater to actually get the score. so the offense played very well in the 3rd quarter.
3 Drives
own 26 yard line to TD – 74 yards 2:04
own 4 yard line to own 8 yard line – 4 yards punt 2:41
own 25 yard line to NE 14 yard line – 61 yards 4:02 (TD was scored 2 plays later)
Don’t act like the 3rd quarter wasn’t good for the offense.
Good? Eh, it was ok – but njot enough to make up for their lousy first-half performance. Also, the defense didn’t allow them to score in the third quarter, so the defense had an outstanding, best-in-the-league 3rd quarter, right? WEait, I forgot that getting flashy in the fourth quarter erases all previous screw-ups for the offense. Like a glorified garbage-time performance won the game. Guess what? The offense didn’t win the game. The best they could do was to tie the game. I won’t say that a single offensive score in the first half would necessarily ensured a win for us, but the lack of scoring went a long way to ensuring the loss. Longer than a single quarter of great play can make up for, unless the offense takes the game off the backs of the defense that they rode for so long, and give them help. The offense did nothing to help out the defense in that game, in spite of being the better unit. So yeah, let’s blame the unit that wasn’t as good, but showed up in all four quarters, instead of the unit that only showed up for one. Team loss, as I have said all along. Calling the offense “good enough to win the game” is crap, because the offense played half the game like crap, at minimum. If the offense had played well, we probably would have won, but they didn’t play well for the whole game. They didn’t even play well for half the game. So, when you have two units, one that you already knew couldn’t play shutout football and one that’s “the best offense in the league”, and the latter doesn’t perform in half the game, don’t expect me to blame it all on the side that showed up and played for four quarters because you’re all in love with the unit who only showed up for two, at best. It’s a team sport, and both sides contribute to the outcome. Giving one side of the ball a pass for playing a horrible half may feel “right” to you –… Read more »
Technically they scored 7 in the 3rd but they score on the first play in the 4th after a 4 min drive in the first. They scored in 50% of their possessions in the third. If you look at the box score, it appears the offense sucked for three quarters, but ask Seth about box score analysis.
Yes. They had 3 drives that started in the 3rd quarter and 2 of the drives ended in TDs. The gained 147 yards in the 3rd quarter alone. Pretty simple
147 yards on offense in the 3rd quarter alone.
Like it or not, performing at the end of game when it matters most is vastly more important than how you start it.
Fuckstick Brady is the best because most of the time he dominates the end of games, and rarely even gives the other team’s offense a chance.
Fuckstick Brady started the game well. That mattered. The Mahomes-led offense played badly for half the game, and that mattered too.
When the stronger unit has to be bailed out by the weaker one, don’t expect it to end well.
That’s true, he did start the game well. Marching up and down the field at will the first 2 drives until he gifted the ball away.
It’s also true that our offense playecd badly, and couldn’t score at all.
Brady played well, and our offense was crap. That mattered.
That’s debatable that Brady even played well to start the game. You could argue that the defense made him look a lot better than he was.
The offense did play badly for the first half. They more than made up for it in second half.
The defense played badly in the first half, even worse in the second half, and atrociously in overtime.
If the offense had “more than made up for it”, we would be talking about our chances in the Super Bowl.
Are we talking about the Chiefs playing in SBLIII? No? So the offense wasn’t able to do enough to win the game, after screwing around for 2-3 quarters doing little.
For the offense to “more than make up for it”, t6hey would have had to win in regulation. Instead, the offense put the outcome on the flip of a coin and an exhausted defense.
For tghe offense to have “more than made up for it”, they would have had to score enough points to win. They did not do that. Three TDs at the end of the game was too little, too late.
I’m not a fan of finding scapegoats to punish, and I’m not a fan of singling people out as the sole reason things went sideways. I’m not blaming everything on the offense, unlike those who put it all on the defense.
But as long as people keep saying that the last loss was all on the defense, I’m not shutting up about the fact that the defense played a better overall game than the offense did. Yeah, after playing like crap for three (or two) quarters, they put on a show at the end that didn’t win the game. That is a bad offensive performance, if you can drag your attention away from the gaudy numbers they’d put up in the past.
Putting up 3 TDs in the first half would have been big. Putting them up after it’s too late to matter? Doesn’t matter.
When you score actually matters in a football game, in case you have forgotten.
The offense took the lead on 2 separate occasions in the 4th quarter, only to have the defense lose that lead for them again. They then tied it up (only failing to win it due to lack of time), and then never got another chance to win it due to the defense failing again.
I for one, am not absolving the offense of all blame. I am putting much more blame on the defense though. I absolutely reject your assertion that the offense was more to blame then the defense. You’re allowed to have that opinion though. I will never try to stop you or anyone from having an opinion.
Fair enough. The offense gets some blame. We disagree on how much, but at least we agree that the offense contributed to the loss, and we caqn leave dissection of just how much the last-quarter heroics made up for the lack of production that necessitated them for another day.
You’re allowed to have an opinion, too.
And while I had basically said the significant stuff to your next comment, I’m going to repeat this: You are talking about the fourth quarter as though it’s the only meaningful quarter that the offense played.
I’m still of the opinion that the other three quarters are just as important, so unfortunately, I have to decline your invitation to only look at the last quarter to determine how the offense played.
Because in the first half, at least, the offense did nothing. Doing nothing for half the game isn’t good enoug to win in the NFL.
The defense allowed 94 plays, for 348 passing yards, 176 rushing yards. That combines for 524yards 37points and 44mins of offense, but yes tell me how they out played the Chiefs offense
Seeing as how you refuse to admit that the first three quarters of play matter, and want to average a spectacular (but insufficient to win) offensive fourth quarter across the entire game to cover yup for the offense’s failures, I’m done talking to you about this, at least for tonight.
You appear to be hell-bent on “proving” that the offense played game-winning football throughout Sundays game. Since a scoreless first half is inexcusable in any game, there is nothing left to discuss until you stop trying to “prove” that the offense played well enough to win.
At the end of regulati8on, the offense did not score enough points to win. That isn’t on the defense. The offense did not score enough to make up for their first-half failures, because the offense didn’t score enough to win the game.
Apparently not only the commenters, but also players and coaches disagreed with your stance on Bob Sutton, Brag. Yes, the Chiefs would have won the game if they had scored points in the 1st half, but that’s like getting mad at a pitcher for allowing a HR in the first inning, pitching a shutout the rest of the game and losing 1-0. Yeah, you could blame the pitcher for that run, but really it’s the rest if the teams fault for not being able to score.
Over the course of the year the Top offense (KC) scored 3.12 points per drive. That last game they score 3.1 points per drive (not including the end if half kneel down) it doesn’t matter when the points were scored, only that they were scored. Punt, punt, punt, TD, TD, TD= punt, TD, punt, TD, punt TD.
The difference between the offense and the defense is that the offense adjusted to adversity the defense collapsed to it.
I didn’t say a word about Sutton. Sutton’s irrelevant now.
But you are flat-out wrong that it doesn’t matter /when/ the points are scored. Are you seriously saying that there’s no disadvantage to the defense when the other team is playing with a lead? That first-half play is irrelevant?
Yeah, the game is decided by who has the most points at the very end. When the points are scored helps determine that.
Guess in your world, the offense doesn’t have to play well until the 4th, and if they amaze you then, it’s all the defense’s fault.
In my world, where the sky is blue and the sun rises in the East, if a unit plays badly /for an entire half/, and the other unit doesn’t bail them out, it’s on them, not the other unit.
The Chiefs offense sucked on 3 possessions, they had very limited chances because the defense not only allowed the Pats to score, they allowed them to use up all the time in the first half doing it
True. But it would be wrong the expect your defense to suddenly become a team strength after winning in spite of it much of the season. The identity of the team is offensive. And it’s most successful iterations are jumping to an early lead and pinning the ears back. That was complicated by the temperatures and the sheer time standing around in said temperatures because of the long drives. And probably some jitters. Mahomes has started slower in his larger stage games, though yes, he always catches up.
In the end the offense scored almost the exact average points per drive that they did all season. The defense allowed more points per drive than they averaged this year. Statistically, the O played like the best offense did all season, while the Defense played worse than the worst defense all season.
And that’s to be expected. NE is better offensively than our average offensive opponent and probably slightly worse defensively than our average defensive opponent. I think if we score early this turns into a far different game.
Seems like Belichick schemed Reid’s first 15 plays perfectly. I would need to rewatch, something i’m not ready for yet, but on initial viewing it didn’t seem like failed execution as much as the early playcalling being stymied. If there was any offensive unit that looked to blame it would be the OL.
The defense still needs to make stops for the offense to gain the lead.
The offense still has to score points to actually taqke the lead.
They took the lead 2x and the defense promptly gave up 2 time consuming TDs
They did, and the offense did.
They stopped the second drive. Barely, and only after giving up the length of the field over what seemed like an hour, but they did. The D had only given up 14 points at the half in spite of being gashed and gassed from being on the field for that entire time.
I’m not saying the defense played better than the offense. But I expect a lot more from Reid and Mahomes than Sutton and Hitchens. Because that’s what this team was this year when it was most successful.
Defense got lucky with a terrible throw by Brady in the EZ, but again KC would have had to go 3/3 to take the lead at half time, then come out and scored so 4/4 to get that 2 possession lead that would apparently dramatically improve our defense
The OL is where I would place blame, if placing blame interested me. Mahomes had little time to do anything in the first half, and the OL kept getting badly beaten.
And, since all and sundry seem to want to put words in my mouth, that didn’t mean the D played an outstanding game. The D owns some of this loss, too.
Sheesh, how many ti9mes do I have to say that I consider this to be a team loss?
Quick question. Can I randomly call you names like Poopy doodie head, or smelly hair person? Not asking because of your opinion on the BS situation. I just want to be able to call random people a random child hood insult name. By the by. Feel free to call me fart face, or pee pants if the need ever arises.
The oline could not figure out who was it wasn’t coming with the cover 0&1. Didn’t help that they kept running with all the NE players at the line
Only if you ignore the fact that when your team scores matters. It does, you know.
Oh, and if the offense put up 7, or 14 or whatever in the first half, I’d still expect them to keep doing their job by scoring points. They’re supposed to be good at doing that, I hear.
But, according to you, scoring in the first half is no longer important. I know it’s weird of me, but I still think that the offense needs to score points in the first half to have a reasonable shot at winning the game.
“When the points get scored doesn’t matter”? Bullshit. That only counts when the offense scores enough to win the game. Our offense did not do that. All their belated effort did was send the game to overtime.
The offense did not play well enough to win that game. If they had, it wouldn’t have gone to OT. The offense didn’t even make up for it, let alone “more than make up for it” – unless all you care about is entertainment. Then you can ignore all the realities of the game and pretend that the entertaining side of the ball entertained you enough that you thought the team should win.
But people love the offense, so I guess they will keep on making up excuses so they can hold them blameless.
Damn I feel like I’m arguing with PhatAl here. You’re right, the offense didn’t score enough to win, with the defense that they have. Give them almost any other defense in the league and they probably did. This year you were given one of the greatest points per possession and scoring teams of all time. They lived up to that standard this game, but apparently you’ve been spoiled by them all season, so much so that if they aren’t even better than amazing they played awful.
This is the only team in the history of the NFL to score 50 and lose. I would call it a defensive problem, but maybe you would unrealisticly expect the offense to score 54 points every game to make sure we won.
You keep saying having a lead early makes a difference. Maybe against bad teams like the Raders and Colts, but not against the Pats. KC was tied or had a lead 4 times in the game. Each time what happened? Pats scored a long, time consuming drive for a TD. Plus to get an early lead the defense has to produce multiple stops in a row.
Don’t take it so personal. I’m not phatal and i’m not shitting on mahomes or pining for alex.
The defense has been shit all season. We all know we needed change. We all knew it last year and the year before that too. I’m not absolving them of that.
I’m saying this year, this team, it’s identity was offense and its best games were predicated on early scoring. You had to know that against a top 5 offense lead by the like it or not GOAT QB it was gonna get trampled. And that belichick would scheme slow clock running drives to limit our possessions. Our only chance was consistently scoring on more than half our possessions.
Yes, with a better defense it’s a different story. We didn’t have a better defense going into this. But we had a historically great offense, and it was more reasonable to expect a historically great offense to hang 40 on a midrange defense w a talented coach than holding a the fucking GOAT and his top 5 offense w an awful defense w a shitty DC.
Is that blaming the offense? Nah, it’s just saying we all knew that our only hopes this year resided entirely with it.
No worries. I’m not taking anything personal and I’m not calling you PhatAl. I felt like the offense was getting a much worse rep than they deserved. If I was giving combined grades and say 100 was passing the offense would get 80 and the defense would get 14. This felt like a very B game for our offense and we needed an A. I just think it should be easier to go from 14 to 20 than going from 80 to 86 just like on a test
I get that. What’s both promising and scary is that it for the most part wasn’t failed execution as much as failed coaching. The only unit that I thought executed below average was OL. ILBs were characteristically bad and the defensive scheme didn’t help, much like all season.
Honestly it was the first offensive possession that got to me. I don’t care if andy had his first 15 plays charted. After an 8 minute deliberate burn the clock strategy drive by the pats, you gotta sling it and open the game up. You mentioned stretch runs above and I think it was 2 straight stretch runs vs cover zero to start.
That was frustrating, cover 0 is definitely the Chiefs weakness, but the good news is most teams don’t have the personal to run it. I know this is a hot take, but I think Hitchens improved the last month or so in run defense. I’m wondering if he was still recovering from an injury. Needs to improve at covering RBs out of the backfield though
Hitchens came along vs the run, Ragland vs the pass. Missing DoD to cover backs hurt us.
I’ve asked you this before and you didn’t respond. If the offense scored 14 points in the first half and 17 points in the second half, would the final score have changed? Would you still be blaming the offense and letting the defense slide?
I’m not blaming everything on the defense. The defense made mistakes that contributed to the loss, too.
NHow, in light of this, please re-phrase your question. That or explain to me just when playing from ahead or behind ceased to matter on defense.
In order to be playing from ahead the defense needs to get stops, which the defense proved all game they couldn’t do unless it was do to fluky tipped passes. They forced one punt all game. They offense would have had to play perfect in the first half:3 possessions, 3 TDs to get ahead by one score, the way the the defense gave up points in the first half .
“In order to be playi9ng from ahead the defense needs to get stops”.
I’m cutting you off right there, because you went right off the rails afterwards. Let me explain something to you. In or5der to get the lead, the offense has to score points.
WEhat you are saying is that if any offense can’t score in the first half of a game, and the defense doesn’t blank the other side, it’s the defense’s fault that we are behind.
Odd, I thought that we had an offense that was pretty good at sdcoring points. Where were they in the first half?
Oh, wait, the offense didn’t even have to play in the first half, let alone actually score. That’s great football in your book?
Please quit dodging the facts: If an offense does not score in the first half, it puts the team in position to lose. They didn’t do their jobs, and their gaudy performance in the 4th was not enough to win the game. It may have looked great on TV or in the stands, but they phoned it in for 3 quarters before that.
But sure, call seven points in three quarters followed by not scoring enough points to win a good performance, a playoff game-winning performance. Damn, but I am in awe of our offense’s confidence in the defense, since it’s so high that they expected the D to play great for 4 quarters while the offense only played great for one.
Where the hell did your expectation for the defense to go from incompetent (according to most) to a league-leading powerhouse come from? And when the hell did only being able to score 7 points in the first three quarters of any football game become good football?
To win an AFC championship game I’m expecting the defense to not allow the opposing team score and take up 8 minutes on offense on almost every drive in the first half. Make a 3 &out once the entire game and the Chiefs win. Not only do you stop them from scoring but you allow more time in the game and another Chiefs possession. The Chiefs didn’t score on 4 possession the entire game, that’s pretty typical if not better than average for them this season, but those 4 failures hurt more this game because of the defense’s inability to get off the field and create more possessions.
The big difference between AS11 and Mahomes is that when AS11 got blanked in the first half he lost confidence. Mahomes on the other hand figures it out and hits back hard as soon as he has it figured out. In regards to the defense this year I think it was more a personnel and position coach issue. We hired a new guy to be the ILB coach and that group at best couldn’t manage to stop anything coming their way. We also trotted out three slot corners and asked them to be the outside guys. They actually performed at a mid pack level due to the DB coach, but that same coach couldn’t coach up the tree stump and the comically lost safeties we had to trot out for over half the season. Sutton should have been all over his position coaches in the areas they failed, but he also should have been able to adapt his schemes. The whole thing is just bad from start to finish. Reid after the first few games should have been pushing Sutton to push his position coaches to coach the players up.
Also, like it or not, people judge you based on how you perform at the end of games, and in the last 3 drives Mahomes took a turnover and turned it into a TD (something Smith failed to do against the Titans) to take the lead, led a long touchdown drive to take the lead again, then lead another long drive with very little time left at the end of the game for a game tying field goal.
Smith routinely failed at the end of games. Even against the Colts (where overall he had a very good game) he failed at the end.
You’re right, people do value last-minute heroics (even failed ones, as on Sunday) at the end of a game more highly.
I am only partly one of those people. Love me some comeback victories, but I keep in mind that all four quarters count, and when one side of the ball craps the bed, I know that the other side has to work harder, just to hold their ground.
The offense crapped the bed for two quarters, arguably three. But because they were amazeballs in the 4th, they did nothing wrong.
Bullshit. Not buying it.
I mostly agree with you. The offense, and Mahomes, deserve some blame. But when you score 31 points, no matter when they come, you should be able to win the game, so it’s mostly on the defense. For example the Rams and Saints scored 23 in regulation in their game, and in the divisional round only the Patriots scored more than 31 points.
You also have to take into consideration that big and small things at the end of a game have more importance due to the fact that there is less time to over come those mistakes or penalties. That Dee Ford off sides penalty in the first half would not effect the game as much as it did at the very end of regulation.
That was one of the reasons I liked Haley. For all of his faults he put a premium on conditioning. He was the coach the team needed when he was hired. After two years though he lost the team for the very same reasons he was needed here. His personality and demeanor is what makes him a good coach and a bad coach. If he rode his guys into the ground and got them playing well he needs to take the fire he had and turn it into passion for the team that was now performing. Haley didn’t have that switch in his head to know when he had to back off. A good coach knows when to ride a player hard, and which players he can ride hard and the ones that need a softer touch. The best combinations would consist of a players type of head coach that all players respect, and the coordinators that have the fire to jump the players in their squad, but respect the HC enough to back off when the HC tells them to.
I actually liked Haley a lot. I’d rather have Reid, but if I was a team in need of a HC I’d give him a call. He won 10 games with Matt Cassel!
The schedule was so easy that year and he couldn’t win the division when then best team was the 8-8 broncos. Dude went rouge in KC, PIT, And CLE. Got caught trying to undermine the browns so he could move up the ladder. Hard pass on Haley
You say the offense crapped the bed for 2 quarters, but they only got 3 real possessions, why? Because Bob Sutton’s defense allowed NE to slowly March down the field and take up all the clock. 3 possession of suck sounds a lot better than 2 quarters.
Offense crapped the bed for arguably 3 quarters???
The Chiefs had 3 drives that started in the 3rd quarter, and 2 of them were 75 yard TD drives.
Either you’re misremembering some aspects of the game, or being a little disingenuous.
The second TD was in the 4th actually. the score at the end of the 3rd was 17 – 7 Patriots. In the 4th quarter is where the game became a shoot out. We tore the Patriots apart in the 4th quarter and Andy should have let Mahomes decide the game with 11 seconds left. The way Mahomes was playing there very well may have been a TD instead of a field goal. But the killer play was the Dee Ford off sides. In that situation since Ford didn’t adjust his position it should have been off setting due to illegal formation and a replay of downs. Brady gets rattled when he has a multiple pick game, but our defense tends to also give up on third downs as well. So without the Ford off sides call we really don’t know the out come.
The second TD was in the 4th, but that drive started in the 3rd, the bulk of the drive took place in the 3rd, and the TD was just punched in in the 4th.
Perhaps he did, and perhaps Sutton tried but failed. Sutton had two bad seasons in a row, so he got fired. No big deal.
Saying that we lost on Sunday solely because of the defense is a different thing, and one that ignores a lot of reality.
Snarky, I like it. Here’s an alternate argument.
Under Andy Reid we have had 7 playoff games. The most points scored was 44 in that first one, but the second and third highest scoring were the two this year, scoring 31 points both times. If we scored 31 points in every playoff game we’d be 5-2.
On another note, it’s frustrating that we always lose the close playoff games. Those 2 wins were by a combined 48 points, while our 5 losses were by a combined 17 points.
Reid has a history of that with both the Eagles and Chiefs. Reid has only ever lost in regulation by more than 3 points once I believe. On the other hand, Reid has only won by less than one score once or twice. He’s like +44 in point deferential in the playoffs or something crazy like that.
Just glancing at his playoff record with the Eagles it doesn’t seem to be the case. He had several 10+ point losses, and a couple close wins. Here he has a +31 point differential despite a 2-5 record. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
Maybe I’m thinking of his first round matchups due to my earlier article.
Due to the nature of the play offs a winning record is almost impossible to achieve as a head coach. Say as a head coach you have a team that manages to make the play offs every year out of ten, but lose your first game five of those years, win your first game in the wild card round two years, but lose the next game in that season. Get a bye week in three years as either the one or two seed but lose one divisional game and win two, and then win the divisional championships one year to make it to the super bowl. Your play off record stands at 6-8. Even if you win the Super Bowl you have a losing record in the play offs at 7-8.
That is one of the reasons I would like to see the play offs become a 2 loss system. You get a wild card opponent that falls. They play the next week to the other fallen team. They lose and the are out. With that system we would end up with a true 1 – 4 in the rankings, and it would add a little excitement to the play offs knowing that a loss doesn’t drop your team out of at least the number three team. If that type of system was in place we would get at least another chance to prove we belonged where our record said we belonged.
That’s an interesting idea, and now that I look at it it only adds a game or two.
The Australian Football League has an 8 team finals series. 1v4 & 2v3, 5v8 & 6v7.
The winners of the 1v4 & 2v3 games then get a week off, and the losers of the 1v4 & 2v3 games go on to play the winners of the 5v8 & 6v7 games.
The winners of those games then play the 2 teams that had a week off.
Then the following week it’s the “Grand Final”
Be difficult to adapt to the conference system
Americans also love their one and done playoffs. (The NFL even had commercials about it this year) plus players would hate playing more games
I’ve seen, heard and read so much as it relates to Sutton. Some of it I take with a grain of salt, others bother me. At the end of the day, if you’re not doing your job effectively (at least to you superiors’ assessment) it is within the discretion of your employer to dismiss you. I’ve been on both ends. I’ve been fired for (in my employers opinion) poor performance. I’ve also dismissed an employee for poor performance. Neither is fun. I hope this decision is a step forward for the Chiefs. Thats all I got.
Times yours.
Before this year my opinion on him was that he was the Alex Smith of DC’s. He simply reflects the talent he has. But this year the defense way under performed the talent level. So at this point I’m on board with letting him go. It’s a shame Bowles is already taken.
If I thought it was realistic, I’d suggest they go after the DC from Clemson. We’ll likely just get a stop gap DC that improves the defense for a year then moves on.
I would love to get a stop-gap DC that performs well enough to move on to a HC gig.
I’m ok with Sutton getting canned as I don’t consider him to be top-tier DC talent. Nor bottom-tier, mind you, but I have no personal investment in him.
So Sutton’s gone, let’s hope the next guy’s better.