Offense Against the Chiefs

[AlexGreen#20]

Alright, I haven't been doing any breakdowns this year because NFL Gamepass is a busted piece of **** that makes gif capture impossible, but I'm going to try with Jordan Love based on still shots.

Here's all his throws from the first half:

First throw. This is a staple of high school and mid tier college football coaching. You get a new QB in the game and you want to get him into the rhythm, so you call a play action rollout dump off to the Tight End. It works phenomenal at the lower tiers of football because defense's don't have that much adjustment and freedom in how they operate. In the NFL, they do have that much freedom. The linebacker steps up into the box, reads the play action rollout and is pursuing Love even as he's turning around off of the ball fake. Could Love have completed this throw? Yes, but it would have been a very nice play to get the ball around a blitzer closing in on him. I just hate this call. It was predictable even at the time.

This play depressed me. You had Cover-4 the whole way, and you had Randall Cobb splitting the first level defenders without either Safety breaking on the ball. Love knew what the right read here was, and it was open, but he got scared off by the hanging linebackers. Instead he double clutches at the top of his drop, Billy Turner gives up a pressure here, and Love ends up checking it down to Aaron Jones inaccurately. 

This was bad by Love. He needs to hit the back foot and let it rip.

This wasn't bad by Love. Went empty set against the blitz, saw Honey Badger come down from his Free Safety spot to cover up Davante. Love recognized it and hit Davante on an out route from the slot. Davante did a nice job to turn 4 yards into 9 by dragging Matthieu. 

Nice gain on the screen pass even if the delivery itself was a hideous chest pass thing that was super low.

Bubble screen to the left. Unfortunately the RDE got a phenomenal jump and got his hands up to intercept the throw. I don't know what else you can do here if you're Love, you only have one read. 

Another case of Love getting frazzled. The snap was bad and he tapped it up in the air to corral it. Any time that happens, young guys lose their internal clock. He panicked and fired the checkdown to Dillon rather than waiting for Davante to come open at the second level.

This was my favorite throw of the first half from Love. The Chiefs came with 7, and the OL released off into a screen pass. Jones realized he wasn't going to have time to throw the ball if he doesn't block a free rusher, so he throws his body in there. Under pressure, Love backs away and lofts a really pretty ball to Davante on the crosser. Almost gets the 1st down here, but as well executed from a QB as anytone.

More uninspired coaching from LaFleur. Paranoid about the ability to handle the blitz, LaFleur calls a max protect. With only two receivers going deep, things are covered up pretty easily. Dillon releases here and makes something out of nothing off of a checkdown. 2 WRs going vertically against Cover-4 just isn't how this should ever be controlled.

Another Davante iso route. Send all 4 other targets to the left and then isolate Davante to the right. I will say, I was very impressed with how well Charvarius Ward played for the Chiefs. He covered Davante without help as well as anybody I've seen.

More Davante iso routes. When in doubt, chuck it to Davante. On this one, Love threw it expecting the back shoulder and Adams ran it as a pure vertical. Newman and Patrick continue to suck at picking up blitzes.

This was the deep ball to Cobb off the scramble. The goal was to force the middle safety to choose between Cobb and Davante, but Love got pressured and ended up having to roll to the right and ignore Davante. This was a very nice throw by Love while under pressure.

Another predetermined read, this one to Cobb. Curl-flats to the left side was read perfectly by the defense and the boundary corner crashed down on it almost immediately. Also a ****ty ball. A veteral CB reads this blitz and gets it do Dillon who remains uncovered.

Another roll out, this one uncalled. Newman gets roasted on a spin move which flushes Love out of the pocket again. This is a very tough throw on the run to Davante, but it's one that he needs to make if he's going to be a top half of the league starter.

Another Davante boundary route. The Chiefs come with 7 and Love just lobs it up for Davante. Between the pass protection and the play calling here, we did a really ****ty job putting Love in a position to succeed. Just throw it to Davante is an completely inadequate strategy when it comes to deal with 7 man blitz schemes. 

 

[Sasquatch]

Awesome breakdown Alex.  Now gIve us your overall executive summary, lol.

But seriously, one has to think that both Love and MLF will have similar takeaways from this game and make the adjustments, que no?

[AlexGreen#20]

10 minutes ago, Sasquatch said:

Awesome breakdown Alex.  Now gIve us your overall executive summary, lol.

But seriously, one has to think that both Love and MLF will have similar takeaways from this game and make the adjustments, que no?

In a nut shell, everything was ****, and I wonder how much injury/Covid impacted preparation.

Just looking at the weapons: 

• MVS was activated Saturday.
• Lazard was activated Monday.
• Davante was activated Friday.
• Deguara is still on the injury report with his finger
• Marcedes got his veteran rest day on Thursday. 

I thought LaFleur had one of his worst games as a coach. He came into this trying to baby Love. But the Chiefs knew that and sat on it. Look no further than the first play. It's supposed to be a misdirection/confidence builder play, but the Chiefs knew it was coming and quashed it. That was kind of the story of the game, LaFleur pared down the playbook, and the Chiefs seemed to know exactly what concepts we were going to limit ourselves to, and had a great plan for all of it. 

The blitz pickup plan was piss poor. Just throw it to Davante anytime you feel pressure is a decent enough plan, assuming you get some reps with him and are able to build some chemistry. Love got to throw to Davante for the first time the day before the game. I will say that Aaron Jones was a god damn hero in blitz pickup this week. 

The offensive line went from being very good at blocking and pretty poor at recognition to middling at blocking and horrific at recognition. Patrick and Newman especially were awful. I could live with Newman when he was just getting beat because of rookie mental errors, but he was getting beat physically as well. Can't have it. I can't wait to get Bakhtiari back. 

Love was fine, not great, not terrible. I think Rodgers makes at least one of the two rollout misses, and probably hits one of the deep shots. Alternatively, I thought Love did a very good job in the pocket considering the kind of pressure he was under. It would have been very easy for him to start eyeing the rush, and he didn't do that.

This looked like a team dealing with distractions and with guys who don't have a ton of chemistry together. Get them some reps. Open the playbook up a bit more. Fix the protection issues. Love will be fine. 

 

 

 

[Sasquatch]

Agree with your overall summary, @AlexGreen#20 and the last paragraph is spot on and hopeful.

[squire12]

water under the bridge at this point on how things should have been handled.   Seems like a escape route by jones into the flat vs the 7 man blitz might have been a better option.   Give Love a quick option to dump off and force the safety or LB to chase Jones down in the open field.  

[incognito_man]

Saw the same thing from Jones live and in JT O'Sullivan's cut-up.

He friggin balled.

[CWood21]

3 hours ago, AlexGreen#20 said:

Alright, I haven't been doing any breakdowns this year because NFL Gamepass is a busted piece of **** that makes gif capture impossible, but I'm going to try with Jordan Love based on still shots.

Glad to know it's not just me.

[Brit Pack]

I'm not smart enough to break this stuff down. The two things that concerned me most about Love was how the ball was coming out, often wobbly and underthrown and it seemed like he was taking lots of steps in his drops, more than necessary. I remember that was an issue in preseason as well. 

Obviously it will take time, certainly not writing him off from one performance. I always think in games like these it is better to mix in more WRs that he has had reps with and some chemistry than just the regular starters. 

[cannondale]

He has airmailed guys in the flat in every game so far, Threw it on the ground and was caught for a 1 yard gain and burned clock in 2 minute IIRC. I wondered if that's something that will have to be lived with unless he can further tighten down his motion. The ball flight and pace in the first half was terrible IMO. He hit a sideline throw in the second half that was much much better and he seemed much better after that.

[incognito_man]

15 hours ago, Brit Pack said:

I'm not smart enough to break this stuff down. The two things that concerned me most about Love was how the ball was coming out, often wobbly and underthrown and it seemed like he was taking lots of steps in his drops, more than necessary. I remember that was an issue in preseason as well. 

Obviously it will take time, certainly not writing him off from one performance. I always think in games like these it is better to mix in more WRs that he has had reps with and some chemistry than just the regular starters. 

I don't recall a single wobbly/underthrown ball. The misses seemed to be late/behind and overthrows.

[HokieHigh]

https://ras.football/2019/12/27/davante-adams-ras/

 

you gotta imagine that as CBs figure out what he is doing, this will start to show up a bit more... must not overpay.

 

rodgers is essential to success for adams style

Edited November 10, 2021 by HokieHigh

[Toddfather]

I am not a X's and O's guy so I love when you do these break downs. Thanks for providing some more information to the overall narrative that the game was just a **** show.