Tag Archives: Kareem Hunt

AAF: Chiefs’ Offence vs Jaguar’s Defence

14 Sunday Oct 2018

Posted by in Amateur Adventures in Film

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This week’s amateur adventures in film has me looking at another offence (I know, what has happen to me?) as I was just too tempted by the matchup of the Kansas City Chiefs high flying offence going against the Jaguars vaunted defence.

Having looked at Matt Nagy’s offence last week, you can see the relation to what Andy Reid is doing as they share the extensive use of Jet Sweep motion, i.e a receiver coming in motions and either being given the ball or a handoff is faked. This is particularly effective for the Chiefs given Tyreek Hill’s speed as he is often the motion man but Sammy Watkins also runs several plays. The Chiefs use a lot of motion anyway, mainly utilising a mixture of 11 and 12 personnel, although Travis Kelce may be listed as a tight-end but he plays more like a difficult to match up to receiver.

The Chiefs like a lot of the best offences run groupings routes designed to challenge the defence at multiple levels rather than relying on a receiver winning their matchup, but they faced an interesting problem against the Jaguars formidable defence. It was a strange game in that the Chiefs won convincingly and with a score line of 30-14 it looks fairly straight forward and yet the offence didn’t have things their own way. The running game was contained for most of the time and may have finished with one-hundred and twenty-six yards off thirty carries, giving an average of 4.2 yards per carry, but if you remove Kareem Hunt’s long run of 24 yards that average drops to 3.5. However, this commitment and number of carries established balance and that is one of the things that I think is key in running a successful offence. I think the days of establishing the run our long gone, but I think it is important to challenge the defence by having a credible threat of using both run and pass plays and play-action is very definitely a quarterback’s friend.

Speaking of which, this wasn’t exactly a bad game for Patrick Mahomes but it was one where he threw two interceptions and didn’t have a touchdown pass even if he did gain over three hundred yards. There were one or two balls where the receivers were covered yet he threw it anyway. I also don’t remember seeing the Jaguars’ defence run as much zone coverage as they did in this game before, with them sometimes playing cover three. One of the nice pickups that the Chiefs had was on one of the rare occasions where the Jaguars sent an extra linebacker to rush the passer and Mahomes was able to find Travis Kelce in a soft part of the zone before the safety could get up to him and Kelce was able to wrong foot the would be tackler and get a nice pickup before he was finally stopped.

This was the big thing in this game, the cat and mouse between offence and defence and it produced a really interesting competition between these two units. It was inevitable that Mahomes would not be able to maintain his stellar opening to the season in all games but he still made good plays and there were almost casual throws that were right on the money. However, there were also interceptions where he trusted his arm to make the play and was wrong, although the Jaguars defence will do that to many a quarterback. Still, the Chiefs won comfortably despite his turnovers thanks to those of Blake Bortles and the Chiefs’ offence moved the ball effectively even if they had more trouble than usual in this particular game. I shall resist making any big proclamations, but it was definitely fun tape to go through. It may be time to get back to a defensive player or unit though, given my focus on offence and quarterbacks so far this year. I don’t know what has come over me…

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Reacting to the Reaction

19 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Gee's Thoughts

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Obviously the most important thing in the NFL last week wasn’t my terrible week of picks, but I fell into a common enough trap for fans (and boy am I kicking myself as I even referred to it when making picks) so as the dust settles on the week let’s take a look at what we can tell.

The mistake I made was reading too much into the week one scores and I said it was more likely that a team be 1-1 than 2-0 or 0-2 but as I said last week, as far as I’m concerned fans of the Bills, Giants, Lions, Texans, Raiders, Cardinals and Seahawks may now officially panic.

The Seahawks have the excuse of being on the road for both games so far but their offence is really struggling, the defence is changing, and so far the bright spot may be the Australian punter who tried drop-kick kickoff (it was a bad week for kickers as Vikings and Browns fans will attest). Some team’s troubles you could see coming like the Bills and the Cardinals, and there was plenty of talk about the Texans offensive line before they underwhelmed against a Tennessee Titans team quarterbacked by Blaine Gabbert.

Another team who are in an unexpected position is the winless Pittsburgh Steelers who still have Le’Veon Bell holding out and had Antonio Brown tweet out trade me to find out regarding a post about how Ben Roethlisberger had made him and also wasn’t there on Monday. Teams can get off to a bad start but this is not the kind of things you usually see in Pittsburgh and it seems like cracks are beginning to show in that team.

The strains in New England offence are obviously being felt as the Patriots have traded for Josh Gordon after the Cleveland Browns finally lost patience with the troubled receiver, apparently after he hurt his hamstring in a photoshoot. I have no idea if the change of scene and the famously strict Patriot approach will help the player but addiction issues are not simple and on a human level I just hope he finds a way to make use of his talents and be in a good place.

Meanwhile the strain was too much for Vontae Davis who retired at half of the Bills heavy loss to the LA Chargers. It’s not something I’ve seen before and there has been those supporting his decision and very vocal players upset by an action they take as quitting. I actually have sympathy with both points of view as in a sport as dangerous as the NFL that requires a physical commitment if you don’t have it, you don’t belong out there but if you’ve dressed for the game don’t you owe it to your team to get to the end as there are only so many corners.

Looking for more positive stories, the Kansas City Chiefs continue to have the most dynamic offence in the league, unsurprisingly toping the offensive DVOA stat thanks to the explosive skills players they have assembled and Patrick Mahomes’s stellar talent, which has allowed Andy Reid to pretty much do what he wants with the office. Even less expected is that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ offence is ranked second by DVOA as Ryan Fitzpatrick continues to do his best to keep the quarterback job whilst Jameis Winston is suspended. In Mike Evans and DeSean Jackson the Buccaneers have one of the league’s better receiving duos if their quarterback can get them the ball and if you haven’t seen it, watch the clip of tight end OJ Howard running in a seventy-five yard touchdown. Tight end is one of those positions that due to the complexity it often takes time for young players to adjust, but he has amazing speed for the position and could be the next tight end threat to terrify defences.

The Jacksonville Jaguars hosted the Patriots without their Pro Bowl running back Leonard Fournette but it was the much maligned Blake Bortles who took advantage of an aggressive game plan to throw for over three hundred and fifty yards with four touchdowns to one interception. If they can maintain a balance of improved offence to go alongside their frightening defence then they could very well go one better than last season and make it to the Super Bowl.

In my drive to document all safeties we had our first of the season when the Kansas City Chiefs visited the Pittsburgh Steelers and it demonstrates why special teams and the phases working together wins football games. The Steelers Jordan Berry sent a fifty-nine yard punt to the Chiefs’ one yard line, pinning them by the goal line that after an aggressive pass play on first down, led to Kareem Hunt being tackled in the end zone. Maybe a small part of me would have liked to see a quarterback get sacked but this is the essence of football, a game of territory where even if you don’t directly score, you created an opportunity that results in two points and you getting the ball back in good field position.

Speaking of sack, and the final thing I will round up this week. I think there’s been a lot of entertaining football so far this season, even if not all of the prime time games have been the ones to demonstrate this, but whilst we have fun offences and potentially good young quarterbacks to enthuse about, there’s also the familiar issues surrounding the rule tweaks. Despite the worry ahead of the season being around the lowering the head hitting rules, these haven’t been called that much or caused that many issues and the two bad quarterback hits I have seen have been in open play when the quarterback slides and the hit to Cam Newton just looks bad. The actual problem call has been the new landing on the quarterback rules. This essentially cost the Packers a game when Clay Matthews was called for roughing the passer despite making a pretty much textbook form tackle of Kirk Cousins. Now I get why after Aaron Rodgers’ injury last season, and given how much the league is hurt whenever one of their marquee quarterbacks get injured, that the league doesn’t want their quarterbacks being driven into the ground by three hundred pound defensive linemen but there’s only so much a defender can do and if we’re going to start penalising tackling as opposed to dangerous play then we are going to see ridiculous scorelines. They won’t change the rule now and I wonder if even the instructions to the refs will change given that I suspect what the league is worried about is keeping the quarterbacks on the field. I hope I’m wrong.

So on to the next week where we’ll get to see if the Browns can finally get that win having been competitive twice, if the remaining undefeated teams can remain so, and I can keep testing my search of pro-football-reference.com that should make sure I don’t miss any safeties this season.

The Playoff Fallen

20 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by in Playoffs

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So I need to catch up with the teams who have departed the playoffs so having started this post last week, here’s my now finished run through the playoff fallen starting with the losing wild card teams.

The first team to fall were the Kansas City Chiefs who managed to lose a game to the Tennessee Titans that they were leading 21-3 at half time. The Chiefs have been up and down this season with a significant mid-season lull that gave way to a four game win streak coming into their playoff game against the Titans. However, a number of factors combined for the Chiefs to lose this Wildcard game and demonstrated one of the warts that has affected them all year. The defence of the Chiefs has had problems ever since safety Eric Berry ruptured his Achilies, but their overall ranking of thirtieth by DVOA and dead last against the run showed up in this game when the Chiefs failed to stop the Titans’ second half come back and Derrick Henry finishing the game with one hundred and fifty-six rushing yards. The Chief offence also came to a sputtering stop once Travis Kelce left the game with a concussion meaning the Titans could focus on stopping the speedy Chiefs receivers with two deep safeties. The Chiefs further played into this by only giving Kareem Hunt elven carries in the entire game and running Alex Smith at inopportune moments. The Cheifs’ recent playoff record is also clearly on their usually very loud crowd’s mind as it got quieter the better the Titans did, although I defy any fan to be confident when the opposing quarterback throws a touchdown pass to himself.

This could well be Alex Smith’s final game for the Chiefs given his 1-4 playoff record in the five season that he and head coach Andy Reid have been with the franchise and with Patrick Mahomes waiting in the wings. I don’t believe this loss can really be blamed on Smith and they could stick with him as they develop a still raw Mahomes but patience does seem to be wearing thin for a section of their fans and the narrative seems to be that Smith will leave in the offseason. Their current offensive co-ordinator Matt Nagy has already left to be the new head coach of the Chicago Bears and with Smith’s current playoff record perhaps it is time to change with a new coordinator coming in. The defence will also need an overhaul given the age of a number of players and their reliance on a twenty-nine year old safety who will be recovering from an Achilles injury next season. In recent years the Chiefs have been competitive but their approach last offseason seemed to be split between short term and long term agendas and I am curious to see how they approach this one.

The second team to lose on wild car weekend were the LA Rams whose remarkable turnaround season couldn’t overcome the playoff experience of the Atlanta Falcons whose defence was able to stifle the Rams offence. This was mainly due to excellent tackling against the short routes so although Todd Gurley did get over one hundred yards on the ground, he was not able to dominated in the way he has for much of the season. As frustrating as this loss was, part of the problem were repeated special teams miscues by Pharoh Cooper early in the game, which was not a reflection of his Pro Bowl special teams play through the year. Still, this was a season of marked improvement for the Rams with plenty of young players to grow with their coach and you would expect them to be competitive next season but it has to be hard for Andrew Whitworth to lose another wild card playoff game.

The Buffalo Bills scraped into the playoffs on the back of a final drive fourth down touchdown pass from the Bengals’ Andy Dalton but they couldn’t overcome the Jaguars in their first playoff game in eighteen years. The Bills defence managed to contain the Jaguars offence by committing to stopping the run and daring Blake Bortles to beat them in his first playoff game. This plan could have worked if Tyrod Taylor didn’t have nearly as bad a game as Bortles and LeSean McCoy was fully healthy, but the offence couldn’t do enough and the game was lost 10-3. This was still a turnaround for the Bills and first year head coach Sean McDermott has things to work on but offensive co-ordinator Rick Dennison paid the price and the Bills will be one of several teams looking for a quarterback this offseason. The Bills could continue their improvement, but they will be limited until they get a quarterback and offence in place that everyone in the franchise believes in.

The final wild card game saw the Carolina Panthers lose to the New Orleans Saints for the third time this year. The Panthers have been very solid on defence all year, but their offence has been very up and down. A slow start was not that surprising given that Cam Newton was coming off shoulder surgery in the offseason and the Panthers were trying a new approach, but this never really took and the offence didn’t really start to work until Newton began to run more. This made the play of Newton very important for how the offence went, which is not that unusual for a quarterback but Newton’s size ability to run, whilst being a dangerous weapon, has to make up for his volatility in the passing game. When Newton is on he is as dangerous a quarterback as there is in the league, but with injuries at receiver (the Panthers also traded away Kelvin Benjamin during the season) and Newton’s favourite target tight end Greg Olsen battling with a foot injury that was clearly still affecting him, he was not able to beat the Saints despite playing well. Going into the offseason the Panthers have replaced offensive co-ordinator Mike Shula with Norv Turner so a new offence will be installed in the summer and it will be fascinating to see how these changes work and how Newton takes to although at least he will be able to practise this offseason.

Moving on to last week’s games and the first team to fall were the Atlanta Falcons who couldn’t match their performance against the Rams when they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles in a tight competitive game. The Falcons were only able to score ten points on the league’s fifth ranked defence by DVOA but whilst the offensive rankings of the Falcons don’t look bad (tenth in passing and sixteenth rushing by DVOA) it does feel like this unit underachieved given the calibre of players available. Yes some regression from last year’s stellar performance was to be expected but it has been a difficult year for Steve Sarkisian in taking over from Kyle Shanahan and whilst he is coming back next season, there will be pressure to improve or the discontent could cause real problems. This could be true for the whole staff given the painful playoff exit and the Super Bowl last year given that both games were winnable. Still, if the offence can be brought round and the defence continues its rise the Falcons could be very formidable next season.

The Tennessee Titans had done well to win their first game against the Chiefs, but there are limits and it was always going to be a tough job to go into Gillette stadium and beat the New England Patriots. To their credit, the Titans kept it competitive for a quarter and took a 7-0 lead before the Patriots shook off the rust from their bye week and ran out easy 35-14 winners. The Titans were pretty average in all three phases of the game this season and actually ranked three places lower by overall DVOA at eighteenth compared to last season. Despite getting a playoff win head coach Mike Mularkey was unable to come to an agreement with the Titans’ front office and so they will be looking for someone new to develop Marcus Mariota. The team definitely improved under Mularkey with a pair of winning seasons but the play of their young quarterback does not look to have progressed as you would hope and I have to think they are looking for a new offensive philosophy and someone who can make one of the most dynamic quarterback in recent college history look like that in the pro game. Given the success that the Chiefs and others have had in incorporating elements from the college game into their offence this does seem achievable, but it all depends on who takes over. Still, at least the Titans have progressed and they are no longer a team devoid of talent and identity, but there are some very big decisions to be made this offseason.

The NFL had great pair of games on Sunday and the opener saw the Pittsburgh Steelers lose to the Jacksonville Jaguars 45-42 and crash out the playoffs at home. The Steelers had got a first round bye with a 13-3 record and finished the regular season ranked inside the top ten in all three phases of the game by DVOA. However, there were two problems that sank them in this game. I am reluctant to talk about motivation and whether the players were looking past the Jaguars to a conference championship game at the Patriots, a matchup that many had expected for a lot of the season, but what I can say is that the Steelers started slow. The Jaguars got out to a 21-0 lead early in the second quarter, and whilst the Steelers were able to get back into the game, they were never able to get closer than seven points until the very last second of the game with a meaningless touchdown that came too late. The Steelers offence did manage to put up forty-two points against one of the best defences in the league but it was not easy and there had to be a lot of impressive catches and fourth down conversions to get them. On the other side of the ball, the Steelers’ defence never looked the same one Ryan Shazier was lost to the spinal contusion he picked up in the Steelers’ brutal game against the Bengals in week thirteen. The talk has mostly been about fourth down conversions and the slow start, but the Steelers defence let a league average offence with Blake Bortles as their quarterback put up forty-five points on them and that has to hurt.

Some changes are already taking place. There appears to have been discord between offensive co-ordinator Todd Haley and Ben Roethlisberger but Haley’s contract has expired and he is not being renewed. It looks like quarterbacks coach Randy Fichtner will replace him and Roethlisberger looks to be a lot more committed to coming back next season than he was last offseason with all his talk of retirement. Still, given that Shazier had to have spine stabilisation surgery and as far as we know hasn’t walked yet, let alone be anywhere near playing football again (if that is even a possibility), the Steelers will need to address the defence again this offseason but it feels like they should be able to take another deep run next season.

If the first game on Sunday saw an upset against a veteran quarterback, the second saw a miraculous play knock out the New Orleans Saints and their future hall of fame quarterback. The Saints finally managed to assemble a defence that could do enough to get Drew Brees into the playoffs again, ably helped by the league’s best rushing attack by DVOA. Two all NFL rookies helped with this turn around and having seen off the Panthers last week, it looked like the Saints were going to beat the second seeded Minnesota Vikings when they found themselves on fourth down with seconds to go, no timeouts, and were one point behind the Saints. However, another one of the Saints’ rookies, safety Marcus Williams who already had an interception in this game made a horrible play as Stefon Diggs caught a ball in front of him. All Williams had to do was stop Diggs from getting out of bounds and hold him up so Diggs could be tackled in bounds, but he came flying past Diggs without touching him allowing Diggs to turn and suddenly there was no one between him and the end zone. The Vikings fans fortunes finally changed as the miraculous play went their way and the Saints promising season came to a shuddering halt.

That play will haunt Williams all offseason, whilst the franchise will be worrying about re-signing Drew Brees who is an unrestricted free agent. However, given the way this year’s team played, and the potential for their rookie players to develop further next year then it is hard not to see Brees back playing for the Saints and them being very competitive next season. After a number of years where they were asking Brees to do too much, they now look setup to compete as long as Brees is willing and able to play like he did this year. We should make the most of being able to watch him whilst we still can.

AAF: Patrick Mahomes

07 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by in Amateur Adventures in Film

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The last week of the regular season was my final chance to take a look at a player or thing from twenty different teams, but it was the Chiefs decision to start rookie Patrick Mahomes in their final game ahead of the playoffs that caught my imagination.

I was intrigued to see the player that the Chiefs traded up in the first round to get last April even though they had a team capable of competing for and in the end winning their division. Having watched the game I think intrigued is definitely the word I would continue to use.

Patrick Mahomes spent most of his time taking shotgun snaps and the majority of his passes were quick throws and play action. The offence didn’t flow particularly, but there were a number of other offensive starters rested and once Kareem Hunt had run for thirty-five yard and a touchdown on his single carry he too was sat for the day now that he had the most yards on the ground for the season.

You can see why the Chiefs took Mahomes though. I tend to think that we are too focussed on arm strength when assessing a quarterback and as long as they have enough to deliver the ball accurately then you can build an offence for them to function. However, Mahomes clearly has an arm and whilst I’m don’t think I’m qualified to assess his mechanics particularly, he also has the ability to make time in the pocket and throw the ball on the move. As is frequently the case with this type of ability, this can result in wow plays that get you excited and balls that will make a QB coach scream in frustration. There were not too many, but there were definitely throws and decision that Mahomes will be discussing with his coach at some point.

The quick plays work as Mahomes can deliver the ball quickly and on target, with receiver Albert Wilson making a lot of yards after the catch to help Mahomes figures. There were plenty of times when Mahomes would escape pressure and find a receiver, dump the ball off or throw the ball away, and he was only sacked twice. He even shook of one attempted sack and completed a pass up the middle for the touchdown. However, he also threw a horrible interception where he simply overthrew the pass straight to Broncos safety Darian Stewart.

It is always hard to make grand pronouncements from one game, but it feels like a lot of people are already moving Alex Smith out of Kansas and I do wonder if the Chiefs might want to develop Mahomes for another season before they start him full time. Yes after conservative play calling and sitting Mahomes for a drive, he did lead the game winning drive that enabled the Chiefs to kick a field goal but he did get some help with a badly timed offside penalty from the Broncos. He clearly has talent, and I remain intrigued, which is as much as you should probably expect from first start in the NFL, but the Chiefs already have a quarterback who got them into the playoffs so whilst you will want him to start to develop. The timing of when this transition happens is going to be something that will be the focus for this team as soon as the season ends.