Keys to Chiefs vs Texans - Divisional Round

[Mloe68 1,521]

31 minutes ago, Adamixoye said:

I agree except I think calling Allen's play "solid" is generous.  He had one of the worst back-to-back sequences I've ever seen, a jump ball into double coverage, an inexplicable lateral, and more.

I hadn't watched much of the Bills until that game and came away very unimpressed with Allen. There's no way they would have beaten the Chiefs 180 yards rushing or not. LOL

[Mloe68 1,521]

12 minutes ago, Adamixoye said:

We were 3-3 in games where Mahomes was out or got injured/aggravated his injury during the game and 9-1 otherwise; you've even made the argument he wasn't 100% in the Tennessee game, which would make it 3-4 and 9-0.  So I can cherry-pick games too.  Multiple things contribute to a loss.  I'm not disputing that bad run defense wasn't part of the problem in these games.  I'm saying it took bad run defense PLUS something else, and the something else in those games are either things we could more easily improve upon (not fumbling) or unlucky stuff out of our control (injuries to Mahomes, bad calls).  And we were always in a position to win anyway.  Our wins AND our losses show that we CAN survive bad run defense.  Again, I'm arguing it's the most survivable of all the categories I listed earlier.

But for the record I don't think our run defense is going to be bad enough for this to be the issue anyway.

How is it cherry picking games to take our worst 5 rushing defensive games and point out we were 2-3 in those games? 11-1 in the other 12. You may not buy it, but those numbers speak volumes. And again its not about a team saying we have to get 180 yards rushing. Its about incompetent run defense that puts our opponents in great situations to make plays and maintain drives on offense. Notice however that only 1 such game came in the second half of the season. Our rush D isn't great by any means. Very mediocre. But I agree with you that's okay, we just cannot get gauged there with regularity and take our pass rushers out of the game and wear down the D. 

On point though I'm with you that I'm not focused on their run game but rather simply making sure players are where they need to be and then make tackles. Do that and Hyde isn't a concern to me. Letting Watson run around though is. And again Duke Johnson was a receiver out of the backfield is very concerning to me. Is OBrien smart enough to go that direction though? If I'm the Texans he's getting 5 plus balls thrown his way.  

[kkuenn 3,597]

My question is how are we 2-3 in one and 11-1 in others? That is 17 games?

[Mloe68 1,521]

1 minute ago, kkuenn said:

My question is how are we 2-3 in one and 11-1 in others? That is 17 games?

My bad.. 2-3 in our worst 5 rushing defense games. Obviously that makes us 10-1 in the others. 

[kkuenn 3,597]

6 minutes ago, Mloe68 said:

My bad.. 2-3 in our worst 5 rushing defense games. Obviously that makes us 10-1 in the others. 

Not a big deal just did not know where the extra game was for the debate. 10-1 or 2-2 etc.

[artsy 1,137]

1 hour ago, Iluvhouse24 said:

It will come down to Reid vs Reid. Hes had teams talented enough to win multiple SB. Can he stay out of his own way?

Can he call a consistent game. Not uber aggressive the first half, and uber conservative with a second half lead.

3rd and 4th and short situations, and goalline situations. Can he not try and out think everyone and call nonsensical plays.

Clock management. If its close will we have all our timeouts at the end.

Will he run the ball, or will he throw 75% of the game and allow the other team to dominate TOP.

These are all things he has struggled with his whole career. And they could he the keys to him holding his first Lombardi soon.

This^^^.

IMO, this post says it all.

Excellent post, House24.

[qnet 1,150]

I just painfully rewatched the first game against the Texans. 

I still believe stopping the run will be very important in this game,  but can see Adamixoye's point in that other things happened in that game. Mloe68 pointed out being concerned about Duke Johnson, and I see why. Johnson hurt the Chiefs in the first game on crucial drives that kept the Texans on the field. 

There were a lot of penalties against the Chiefs in that game, so that hurt a lot. Ward played pretty well against Hopkins, but a few times he could have been burned badly if Hopkins catches the ball. 

It seemed like Erving was getting beat on every drop back, and Mahomes was running to the right immediately. You could tell Mahomes wasn't right with that ankle.

The defense looked different than it does now. There was a lot of effort, but it just looked different. Spags has done something, and having Chris Jones back has helped. The Chiefs looked emotionally drained as the game went on. 

This team is really difficult to figure out vs. past teams.  Hopefully that's a good thing.

I can type a lot but won't get too deep into it. I'll leave that to the rest of you.

[Adamixoye 604]

34 minutes ago, Mloe68 said:

I hadn't watched much of the Bills until that game and came away very unimpressed with Allen. There's no way they would have beaten the Chiefs 180 yards rushing or not. LOL

His baby-faced deer-in-the-headlights look wasn't particularly inspiring, either.

[artsy 1,137]

2 minutes ago, qnet said:

I just painfully rewatched the first game against the Texans. 

I still believe stopping the run will be very important in this game,  but can see Adamixoye's point in that other things happened in that game. Mloe68 pointed out being concerned about Duke Johnson, and I see why. Johnson hurt the Chiefs in the first game on crucial drives that kept the Texans on the field. 

There were a lot of penalties against the Chiefs in that game, so that hurt a lot. Ward played pretty well against Hopkins, but a few times he could have been burned badly if Hopkins catches the ball. 

It seemed like Erving was getting beat on every drop back, and Mahomes was running to the right immediately. You could tell Mahomes wasn't right with that ankle.

The defense looked different than it does now. There was a lot of effort, but it just looked different. Spags has done something, and having Chris Jones back has helped. The Chiefs looked emotionally drained as the game went on. 

This team is really difficult to figure out vs. past teams.  Hopefully that's a good thing.

I can type a lot but won't get too deep into it. I'll leave that to the rest of you.

Obriens gameplan back then was to pound the rock on us. And of course, if you look closely you can see we played a shit-ton of nickel defense the first time. Up until about 5-6 weeks ago, teams were gashing our Nickel defense. Since then, we still line up with Nickel personnel, but either Sorrenson or Mathieu is down in the box, which has really helped against the run.
Plus, we had some very unlikely turnovers in that game and like you said Erving was wrecking the offense all by himself.

IMO, If we can limit them to 125 yds rushing or less we WILL win. I haven't identified a lot of weaknesses with Watson. He can make every throw. The only thing I've noticed is that he has a tendency to hold the ball longer than he should, which should give us a chance for several sacks. But we gotta execute when we get to him or he will make us pay.

[reesebobby 5,662]

When the Chiefs are healthy we are like 12-0.  When we are beat to shit we are like 5-5.  Some of those rushing stats may mirror when we were hurt, but we are a tough tough out when we are healthy.

[artsy 1,137]

1 minute ago, reesebobby said:

When the Chiefs are healthy we are like 12-0.  When we are beat to shit we are like 5-5.  Some of those rushing stats may mirror when we were hurt, but we are a tough tough out when we are healthy.

I agree.

But I will never, ever, EVER feel confident in our run defense as long as ONE, Anthony Hitchens is our MLB.

[Adamixoye 604]

26 minutes ago, Mloe68 said:

How is it cherry picking games to take our worst 5 rushing defensive games and point out we were 2-3 in those games? 11-1 in the other 12. You may not buy it, but those numbers speak volumes. And again its not about a team saying we have to get 180 yards rushing. Its about incompetent run defense that puts our opponents in great situations to make plays and maintain drives on offense. Notice however that only 1 such game came in the second half of the season. Our rush D isn't great by any means. Very mediocre. But I agree with you that's okay, we just cannot get gauged there with regularity and take our pass rushers out of the game and wear down the D. 

On point though I'm with you that I'm not focused on their run game but rather simply making sure players are where they need to be and then make tackles. Do that and Hyde isn't a concern to me. Letting Watson run around though is. And again Duke Johnson was a receiver out of the backfield is very concerning to me. Is OBrien smart enough to go that direction though? If I'm the Texans he's getting 5 plus balls thrown his way.  

"Cherry-picking" is maybe not the most accurate term, what I'm getting at is that it's a very simplistic correlation that has a lot of issues.  For one, why use the total rather than some sort of efficiency stat?  Even using a very simple stat of YPC, we're 6-1 when giving up more than 4.8 YPC (Tennessee was the highest and the only loss) but 6-3 when giving up less than that.

Second, it's obviously a small sample size.  The point of what I said about Mahomes' injuries is that I can come up with an equally strong correlation in that case.  I'm sure you would agree that you'd rather have a healthy Mahomes than that we stop the run.

I don't have a great reference for this, but I've read from multiple sources that across a larger league-wide historical sample that pass defense is more strongly correlated with winning than run defense.  Even looking at our season, again using a crazy oversimplified stat, we're 3-3 in the 6 games where we gave up the highest YPA.  Compare that to the YPC for the rush game from above.

And I can't stress this enough, any weakness is a weakness that gives us less margin for error in other areas.  In no way am I saying run defense doesn't matter.  My whole point from the start was that a weak run defense is the most survivable flaw that we can have.  I still stand by that.

[Adamixoye 604]

22 minutes ago, Adamixoye said:

I don't have a great reference for this, but I've read from multiple sources that across a larger league-wide historical sample that pass defense is more strongly correlated with winning than run defense.

Just to pick two first page results from Googling "is run defense or pass defense more important"

https://thepowerrank.com/2018/09/24/the-surprising-truth-about-passing-and-rushing-in-the-nfl/

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears/bears-have-elite-run-defense-how-much-does-actually-matter-todays-nfl

[Calichief 3,016]

My key-

chiefs have to be effective in the run game and short passing game. Not just this game but if they are going to win it all. They have to keep it away from these dangerous offenses. Damien williams has to continue to run with authority.

[qnet 1,150]

2 minutes ago, Calichief said:

My key-

chiefs have to be effective in the run game and short passing game. Not just this game but if they are going to win it all. They have to keep it away from these dangerous offenses. Damien williams has to continue to run with authority.

Basically using elements of the old Bill Walsh/WCO. I like it.

[West 6,713]

KC wins the turnover battle....

Normal Offense

Defense from the last 5 games....

Chiefs Win

[Adamixoye 604]

3 minutes ago, West said:

KC wins the turnover battle....

Normal Offense

Defense from the last 5 games....

Chiefs Win

If we do the second and third we could easily win being neutral on the turnover battle.

[Mloe68 1,521]

1 hour ago, reesebobby said:

When the Chiefs are healthy we are like 12-0.  When we are beat to shit we are like 5-5.  Some of those rushing stats may mirror when we were hurt, but we are a tough tough out when we are healthy.

Injuries always matter but most of the games we are talking about came in the first six weeks when we clearly were still adjusting to Spags system. Really seems like we were much better in our Gap responsibility and overall tackling the second half of the season.  We got flat beat up by Derrick Henry but he does that to a lot of people. 

[xen 1,010,220]

50 minutes ago, Adamixoye said:

Just to pick two first page results from Googling "is run defense or pass defense more important"

https://thepowerrank.com/2018/09/24/the-surprising-truth-about-passing-and-rushing-in-the-nfl/

https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears/bears-have-elite-run-defense-how-much-does-actually-matter-todays-nfl

Just more evidence that rushing the ball, even in the playoffs, is very much overrated by fans.

[Adamixoye 604]

4 minutes ago, xen said:

Just more evidence that rushing the ball, even in the playoffs, is very much overrated by fans.

In fairness, of the other links on the first page of Google results there were a bunch of pages that weren't really relevant to the question and then one analytics-based article that tried to make the argument that maybe rushing is more important than we realize.  But it was coming from the perspective of a guy trying to balance the overwhelming analytical consensus that passing is more important.  I would have to read that and consider it in a little more detail.  But yes, in general I would agree it's overrated by fans.

[oldtimer 8,686]

thats all well and fine until  fans start bitching about not be able to eat up the clock with the run game..or stopping the likes of Henry from doing the same to us ..we have all been there..having respectable run defense and running game is essential to the game  and winning championships or if it weren't then why even have an RB or big fat defensive bodies plugging holes in the middle.

[Adamixoye 604]

9 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

if it weren't then why even have an RB or big fat defensive bodies plugging holes in the middle.

Because that's an exaggeration and mischaracterization of the position that we're discussing.

[Mloe68 1,521]

41 minutes ago, xen said:

Just more evidence that rushing the ball, even in the playoffs, is very much overrated by fans.

Stopping the run is much more important than being able to run it yourself. Through the first 6 weeks of the season we were giving up 5.3 YPC and had lost twice and were lucky to beat a bad Detroit team that ran all over us. Not coincidentally in our current six game winning streak we are giving up only 4.4 YPC.  Not great, but we don’t have to be great.  We just can’t be bad. I’d use the word functional to describe what’s necessary.  

[Mloe68 1,521]

Very telling comments from Spags after losing to the Texans in another game where his defense couldn't get off the field largely because they were so bad vs the run. Bad vs run = managable third downs = lots of conversions = our best player on the bench. 

“That’s what’s frustrating,” Spagnuolo said. “We take a lot of pride as a group in our third-down package that we’ll put together every week because you need to get stops. But you got to get them into those third downs, and you want to get them into unmanageable third downs from their perspective. But we haven’t done that quite as good as we want to.”

But how do the Chiefs fix the run defense woes? 

“You can’t live tackle (in practice), we’re not in pads, the whole thing,” Spagnuolo said. “But for what it is we can do, they’re doing it and more. They care about it. I can work with guys like that. They care, they’re passionate, they hurt as much as anybody, the want to get it fixed. Sometimes it takes a little while.”

Spagnuolo expects the Broncos to emulate the game plan the Colts and Texans used to great success the past two weeks. The Broncos have averaged 120 yards rushing their past three games behind Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman.

“It’s a short week, I’m sure Denver will look at the film and try to do the same thing,” Spagnuolo said. “So until we stop it, we’re going to see it.”

[jetlord 10,209]

9 hours ago, Adamixoye said:

I say it because it's true.  In today's NFL, the old clichés about running the ball and stopping the run do not apply as much.

 

 Ask the Patriots about that.  Ask the Saints about that.  If either had stopped Henry or Cook, they would still be playing.  Stopping the run doesn't win the game.  Failing to stop it, will probably lose it.