Chiefs Seeking Offensive Consistency in Denver
The Kansas City Chiefs picked a fine time to try and fix their offense when they head to Denver to play the defending world champion Broncos who achieved that title on the back of an excellent defense. However, that’s exactly what the Chiefs will be doing in front of a national TV audience this Sunday evening. The question is, what will that entail?
Simplify
First and foremost the Chiefs must simplify their play choices and reign in the tricky… or what some are calling “cute”… plays. Does this mean getting predictable? No, not really. It means there are plays that we have already worked, especially near the goal line, so those are the plays to implement. So, it means not calling a “Jet” Sweep for your Tight End. By the way, there is nothing “Jet” about any Tight End… and there never has been. That’s right, not even Tony Gonzales (and that’s why you never saw him run a Jet Sweep).
Simplifying the offense can also mean, defining your identity. You focus on the plays that have worked for you, or the sets that have worked, and only run plays off of those sets. You don’t run the plays repeatedly with the idea that you run them until they stop them… you run a variety of plays off several sets with the idea that you run them so they can’t ever stop them. Reid likes to do too much “reading into” how the other team is responding then projecting that they’ll respond that way in the future. This is how he thinks he can “out-trick” the competition. In that sense, he’s trying to beat them with his mind when he should be trying to beat them with his talent. And… there is plenty of offensive talent on this team.
Run the Ball to Run the Ball
One way Andy Reid can take advantage of the Broncos defense is to run to ball. Denver has the 29th ranked run defense in the National Football League. Some teams like to pass to set up the run while others run to set up the passing game but here, the Chiefs can run the ball to run the ball some more. Andy Reid has so many different ways to run the ball, he needs to utilize them all in this game. The Chiefs must force their will on the Broncos defense by making them pay against the run. If the Chiefs can be successful with the run game… and they should be able to do that… they can win the game on the ground and secure the game through th air (it’s usually done the other way around).
The Chiefs don’t need to run the ball to set up the pass. The Chiefs need to run the ball… to be successful, period. The Broncos have the #2 pass defense in the league and so the Chiefs will need to pick and choose carefully how when they will pass the ball. Am I saying that the Chiefs should not run a balanced attack? Kind of. At least in the first half. Coach Kubiak will go in at halftime… make his adjustments to stop the bleeding against the Chiefs rushing attack… and then the Chiefs come out in the second half with more play-action… sending Tyreek Hill deep a couple of times to back them off… then run the ball down their throats some more and control the clock and the game the rest of the way… mixing in a lot play-action and going to a quick route passing game.
Slants, Dance and Ants in His Pants
I swear Andy Reid has gotten ants in his pants this year and gone away from a basic West Coast Offense premise: to throw short timing routes giving WRs a chance to run with the ball. Am I saying he should abandon the longer passing game? Not nearly. The short passing game, especially the slant-timing-routes seem to have gone away so if Reid can re-insittute those and keep running the ball, then the other longer passes should open up as the game goes along because the defense is going to collapse on those shorter routes (and the run game) eventually.
Sticking with the run plus the shorter timing routes can help Alex Smith regain his confidence too because when the Chiefs ask Alex to stand back there in the pocket for longer periods of time, the pressure… especially pressure up the middle… not only disrupts the timing of those throws, and routes, but gives Alex the heebie-jeebies.
Recently we’ve seen less of Alex running the option and rightfully so. Since his double head trauma two things have become clear: 1) Alex is going to be limited running the ball and 2) Alex must stay on the field if the Chiefs are to succeed this year. Obviously, Alex will need to allow other playmakers in his offense to do the heavy nae-nae-twerk-and-Dougie-chacha lifting.
Getting Handsy
At the beginning of the game, at least in the first half, Andy Reid needs to only throw the ball to his most sure-handed receivers: Chris Conley, Jeremy Maclin (he’s ruled OUT for Sunday), Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce and Spencer Ware. Nothing has destroyed team confidence more than failed drives… and nothing has destroyed drives more than dropped passes… especially on key third down conversions (calling Harris & Wilson — actually sounds like a failed Law Firm).
Trickiness vs Trackableness
John Clayton of ESPN says the West Coast Offense and it’s derivations have gone through a number of transformations with different coaches making their own changes to it:
“Too many hybrids have developed. Bucs coach Jon Gruden produced a complex running attack out of the I-formation. Eagles coach Andy Reid anchored a power running attack around a physical offensive line. There are shotgun formations that didn’t exist in the early days. The mobile quarterback has created a different set of problems. Formations from the four-receiver run-and-shoot have been incorporated. The West Coast offense has gone global, and defenses have been forced to expand their playbooks to stop it.”
What this means for Andy Reid and his newest version is that teams are more easily able to track the kinds of plays the Chiefs will run from the set they settle on at the line of scrimmage. So, while a WCO coach like Andy Reid is thinking he’s going to be tricky by instituting more sets, the reality is the play he’s going to run from… that set becomes more traceable.
In the early days of the West Coast offense many teams didn’t know how to play against it but now it’s been around so long and so many teams are using a version of it that teams are used to seeing it. Former head Jim Haslett, coach who is now the linebackers coach for the Cincinnati Bengals, says the solution is, “Pressure. You have to get pressure. At first, teams didn’t do that all the time.” If a team can get pressure, specifically up the middle, they can disrupt the timing of the West Coast Offense and succeed in defeating it.
For the Chiefs on Sunday, they should be able to get the time and timing down on their short routes as long as QB Alex Smith can avoid having the ball batted down.
Get on the Same Page & Go Back to Basics
Alex Smith must get on the same page with his receivers. The WCO… any version of it… is meant to be a high-percentage offense and Reid rendition appears to be anything but that in 2016. Get back to the basics of the offense. While many people consider the WCO a passing offense the reality is those teams who have won Super Bowl with it have had balanced attacks. I did suggest earlier — and I’m sticking to it — that the Chiefs should run the ball a lot early in the game, but in the long run that should even out. Maybe not against the Broncos — because their weakness must be exploited — but over the course of the regular season the Chiefs should have thrown the ball as much as they have passed it.
As long as Andy Reid doesn’t try to use any trick plays or unusual plays that force Alex Smith to run or stand in the pocket too long, and if he’s willing to minimize the number of sets and plays from those sets…the offense should be able to be consistent and get into the end zone on a regular basis against a Broncos defense that is weak against the run. Run it and let the fun begin. What do you think Chiefs fans?
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