Chiefs fans want this play from loss to Broncos burnt from Andy Reid’s playbook — and he should probably oblige
One play from the Kansas City Chiefs’ loss to the Denver Broncos in Week 11 stands out above the rest.
There are a lot of plays that the Kansas City Chiefs probably want back from their Week 11 loss to the Denver Broncos, but one of them truly stands out as a waste in a series that could have flipped the outcome of the game.
The Chiefs got the ball back at their own 26-yard line with the score tied at 19 with four minutes and 10 seconds to go in the fourth quarter. Patrick Mahomes said after the game that it’s the exact type of situation you want to be in as an offense. They had an opportunity to eat some clock while marching down the field to punch in a touchdown or set up a Harrison Butker game-winning field goal.
“Just having an opportunity at the end of the game and not coming through,” Mahomes said of what didn’t work on Sunday. “Getting the ball back with four minutes and all you need is a field goal is a spot that we’ve been in a lot, and we’ve been able to do that.”
They weren’t able to do that in Week 11 against the Broncos. Mahomes shouldered the blame for the failure on first-and-10, but what came next actually killed any chances at a successful drive. The Chiefs trotted out a 13-personnel look with WR Rashee Rice in the backfield and RB Kareem Hunt aligned wide at receiver, with TEs Robert Tonyan, Noah Gray, and Travis Kelce in-line. The goal behind a formation like this is to catch the defense off guard, but it didn’t fool anybody here.
The pressure forces Mahomes to his right and away as Tonyan comes open. The play was doomed before that because the Broncos’ defense just dropped into zones, with virtually no threat of anyone coming open before the pass rush flushed him out of the pocket. Mahomes and Kelce nearly made some magic happen on the sidelines, but a better playcall here could at least put you in a manageable position to convert on third down. Instead, it puts you into a third-and-10 situation where the Broncos can pin their ears back and send pressure, which they did. It resulted in an 11-yard sack and effectively ended the game. That three-play series dropped the Chiefs’ win probability from 69% to 35% according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
Chiefs need to scrap the positionless plays and simplify things on offense
The Chiefs’ move toward these types of positionless football plays, with guys playing out of their natural position, feels like a poor attempt to mask some inefficiencies of the current offense. They struggle to generate explosive running plays out of shotgun with their current personnel, so why not put a player like Rashee Rice back there? The problem is, there’s virtually zero threat of him actually carrying the ball with any measure of success, even if he has a running-back-esque skill set. The bigger problem is that it’s not putting Rice, one of the team’s best players, in a position to succeed.
“I love the way he goes about it,” Chiefs HC Andy Reid said of Rice after Week 8’s win over the Commanders. “He just works his tail off, and then he’s so physical out there. He’s like having another running back, as you know, as a wide receiver.”
But it’s more than just one player. Kareem Hunt shouldn’t be aligning out wide unless he’s motioned back into the backfield to get a read on man vs. zone coverage. They’ve used Xavier Worthy out of the backfield before and found some success, but with his shoulder injury, they’ve gone away from that. They’ve moved rookie RB Brashard Smith all around the formation.
It’s one thing when you can use this type of positionless football to exploit a defense and force a bad matchup. It’s another thing entirely when you’re asking guys to play roles that don’t put them in the best position to be successful. Right now, the latter is happening at key moments, at a cost that is entirely too high.
Kansas City Chiefs News
Josh Simmons is Chiefs’ silver lining amid Week 11 loss to Broncos by boasting rarified level of success as a rookie
Chiefs LT Josh Simmons is doing something that hasn’t been done by a rookie in the NFL in a septennial.
