Being only marginally better than last season? Worthy likely has a higher ceiling and more potential than Hardman but he is unlikely, at least for now, to be a 6-8 target a game guy as an option on the majority of passing plays. Rice is better than Rice last season so that's good. Kelce is probably worst though.
But mostly what I’m fearful about is that losing Brown is going to be a major impediment to the offense being noticeably better than last season. He was likely big in our schemes and philosophy. I know we typically struggle vs the Bengals but as of right now I'm not sure what would make me confident we dramatically improve over last season.
What does everyone think? How can we ensure the significant improvement over last season that it seems we might need? [Reply]
Originally Posted by mr. tegu:
Being only marginally better than last season? Worthy likely has a higher ceiling and more potential than Hardman but he is unlikely, at least for now, to be a 6-8 target a game guy as an option on the majority of passing plays. Rice is better than Rice last season so that's good. Kelce is probably worst though.
But mostly what I’m fearful about is that losing Brown is going to be a major impediment to the offense being noticeably better than last season. He was likely big in our schemes and philosophy. I know we typically struggle vs the Bengals but as of right now I'm not sure what would make me confident we dramatically improve over last season.
What does everyone think? How can we ensure the significant improvement over last season that it seems we might need?
I think we might need to tade for a key WR. I know that’s dooming to a lot of people but I’m all about the threepeat having the best chance. Loved Rice today
It's not going to be juggernaut I thought it might be with Holywood, and Kingsley and Morris are going to need more help. Hendricksen isn't the only good DE they'll face. Playcalling didn't always help imo, and Mahomes will have games where he's more patient [Reply]
If they don't look better on offense against the Falcons, then I might worry a little. Not many receivers/tight ends were doing anything and Mahomes made 2 bad decisions that led to interceptions. That won't happen every game. [Reply]
Originally Posted by WilliamTheIrish:
No. After last year, the way defenses played against this offense, I'm not surprised that it's a bit of a sputtering engine.
But we have the guy, who can make the plays when it counts.
So... No.
But it can’t be lost that we’re still missing a big piece. We need to get worthy to Mvs levels real quick. Until then we’re kind of the same as last year except rice is better and kelce is worse. And we have a better version of hardman but no Mvs. If we can get worthy to be Mvs and hardman to be hardman, that at least gets us to last year. But worthy also needs to be better than a guy who was cut because he wasn’t consistent enough [Reply]
Originally Posted by WilliamTheIrish:
No. After last year, the way defenses played against this offense, I'm not surprised that it's a bit of a sputtering engine.
But we have the guy, who can make the plays when it counts.
So... No.
Need to be concerned with LT. Its a glaring weakness. [Reply]
Last year what got us out of the funk was rice becoming a legit WR midway through the season. But we never truly got comfortable until kelce hit superhero status in the very very last stretch of the season. We could give those guys 20+ targets and throw to the other guys only when defenses fell asleep on them.
Kelce has only 7 targets all year. So who’s getting targets after him? Not only do we not have targets to spread around but it makes it that much easier to really lock down rashee.
Ed reed recently said mahomes can be stopped if you just lock down his primary target. I don’t think that’s fair when you consider that nobody right now on the chiefs outside of rice and kelce would sniff TE1 or WR3 anywhere else. I think maybe the option is to just increase focus on juju until worthy is ready and just accept that this needs to be a long plodding offense (which is good enough to win but ugly at times) until worthy is up to speed. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BWillie:
Not sure why you wouldn't be a bit concerned. They haven't been as advertised and alot of that is no Hollywood and Travis Kelce being 35 years old.
The biggest problem with the offense is LT. [Reply]
The Bengals run a scheme that seems to frustrate the Chiefs offense. It looked like the same type of defense that frustrated them in the 2021 AFC Championship game. Rushing four and dropping seven. The Chiefs being in the shotgun really limits the run game and the delay runs just seem to allow the Bengals linebackers to recognize and crash down.
The turnovers are concerning and the lack of the midrange routes is puzzling. While we aren't discussing the defense, opposing tight ends are destroying this team.
It's great to be 2-0, this team is an inch and a flag away from being 0-2. While I don't care that fans believe the Chiefs are the next Patriots as far as flags go, something needs to be done with the zebras because they are really bad.
Oh yeah, LT is a problem. Not giving him help is a worse problem. [Reply]
I trust Reid/Heck to help Kingsley develop over the course of the season. Right now, he's the biggest weakness.
But we need to say the quiet part out loud: this team is deathly vulnerable to teams with a great edgerusher and good tight ends.
I am not someone prone to hyperbole after a game, because I think almost all issues with Mahomes/Reid/Spags can be ironed out.
But I don't know how you iron out Kingsley and these linebackers. I really don't.
Kingsley is going to get better, but he's still going to struggle against good-to-great DEs this season, no matter what. Bolton will get in better shape, but he and Chenal and Williams/Nazeeh are going to get roasted by good-to-great TEs all season, no matter what.
If that's the case, then we can make two assumptions about the rest of this season:
First: no team has a greater likelihood to hand us L's the rest of the way than the Raiders, who boast the best DE in the NFL and two really, really good TEs.
Second: the Chiefs have trotted out two subpar games against their two of their three biggest threats in the AFC (I'm counting the Texans as their third biggest threat), and they're 2-0 thanks to full team efforts, not because of Mahomes roasting everyone.
But this game showed some chinks in the armor. I'll need to see the All 22 but it sure looks like Anarumo did what he always does against KC: gave us light boxes to run on, and flooded the intermediate passing zones. He dared us to run on them, which we gladly did, and dared us to pass deep, which we rarely tried.
Losing Hollywood is a big blow, and the Chiefs may need to look into giving Hardman more snaps. [Reply]