And that's what he was doing last year when he was playing poorly.

The great "THERE'S NOBODY OPEN" Wars of 2023 redux.

When we'd point out that on about 2/3 of the 'nobody open' plays, there were guys there with windows that Mahomes often fits the ball into but he just didn't want to risk the turnover.

That's a makeable window. For just about any QB, let alone Mahomes.

Maybe he's simply playing that risk-averse football he was playing for the middle 1/3 of last season. And shit, after that int in the red zone and some of the other 'oopsies' we've seen from him this year, maybe that's smart.

If you're not sharp, don't risk losing the game. Discretion is the better part of valor sometimes.

It turned out to be the case yesterday.
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Put it down and away from him - that's a spot Rice can get the ball and a trail DB can't without committing a penalty. Rice made that very catch to convert a 1st down earlier in the game.

We know Rashee can go down and get that ball.

I think he just wasn't feeling it. He wasn't confident in his ability to hit that window so he didn't make the throw.

Best guess I've got.
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Falcons lost because they went for it on 4th down instead of kicking FGs. The league is different now, being boring and risk averse is maybe the smart thing for now
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It's OK, folks.

Mahomes was on fire Week 1.

As Worthy gets his lather going and they figure out how to use Kelce, he'll have a handful of shit games, a handful of great games, and so it goes.

They've just been blindsided early by the LT issues and no Hollywood.

There is still going to be SPACE in the offense because of Worthy, and that alone means things aren't going to look as bad as they did last year every week.

This wasn't THAT bad of an offensive performance compared to some of the crap that happened last season.
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360 yards on what 70 attempts the last 2 weeks combined. This shit is wild. The league has basically turned Pat into a super clutch Alex :-)
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It is smart, but its pissing off this fanbase in particular because we have Patrick Mahomes but he's playing like Alex Smith. Plus a whole offseason worth of hype that the offense was gonna be cracked again.
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There are a ton of people saying the NFL isn't exciting anymore and college offers more...they are turning off a lot of people with the current play.
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If you really want to break teams out of this two high stuff, you just need teams like the Chiefs to roster a dynamic running back. Now I still don't think you need to spend a first round pick on one or break the bank in free agency, I just think we need to have running backs with more explosion. Teams will gladly let POP, Steel, Hunt, etc type of backs plod along and rush 14-15 times for 72 yards. It would be different if we had a back that could break a long one.
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Mahomes doesn’t **** himself on that INT and it’s 29 points and nobody is bitching
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It’s the redzone. We’ve moved the ball in all the games. If two of the three field goals that got inside the 10 become TDs we are up 30-17 at the end.

Same with the Bengals game. Same with rhe Ravens game.

In 2018-2020 a lot of the redzone inefficiencies didn’t manifest because we would score TDs from outside the redzone but now we’re more dink and dunk down the field and we invariably stall out. Andy has been kicking a lot of field goals because they’re the margin of victory in most of our games but if we ever improved in this regard we’d be smashing teams. Up to Andy to scheme it up better and for Patrick to execute it.
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Nah they'll let even those backs go crazy, it doesn't matter who's running it, they won't come out of the shell coverage.
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Yup.

Because again - bad passing teams throw for 5 YPA.

Great running teams struggle to run for 5 YPC.

The difference in efficiency couldn't be more stark. And sure, sometimes on offense when you can't get yourself into gear, you have to trade efficiency for simply moving the damn ball.

But on defense that's NEVER a trade you should be willing to make. You always focus on preventing offensive efficiency.

There's simply no reason to come out of that shell until teams can get the protections they need to really attack it. It's really about getting the time in the pocket you need as a passer to find the guys as they get into/across these soft spots in the zone.

It's beatable. But I think we're seeing the short practice stuff really come into play with teams that just don't have cohesive OLs and so they can't find the time to actually attack these shell defenses in the air.

And that's how you do it. You don't beat them at 4 yards/carry. You beat them at 9 yards/attempt by hitting them with short catch/run plays and intermediate shots in the zones.

The Chiefs, with Patrick Mahomes under center, will never ever EVER cajole teams into abandoning the 2-high concept with the running game. Because no matter how well they run the football (within reason) it's never going to be scarier or more efficient than Patrick Mahomes passing it.

And if it is, it's because you're passing like shit. Not because you're running extremely well. Last night our passing game was pretty awful and it went for 5.5 yards/attempt. Running game went for 3.9.

By any 'lay' opinion, our running game worked better than our passing game yesterday. And it was still nearly 50% less efficient than our passing game.

We're never going to run ourselves into single high looks, fellas.
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Took a look at the playcall and idk what you guys want here. Watson is open and Mahomes stared down Rice. Kid needs to read his progressions. DB in front of Watson has his back to him and closing on Rice. All-22 will be interesting.


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TEN teams that lost their games would have loved to have scored 22 points yesterday.

Count your blessings.
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I'm pretty sure you could put Saquon on the Chiefs and have him go 24-157 and they'd still refuse to come out of the shell.
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