Lots of receiver talk again, and, while yes they had problems obviously, that game never should have come down to two dropped passes from 3rd/4th & 25. But since they were the last two plays it’s all anyone will talk about.
Here are some of the other issues I saw:
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Bad 2nd half play calling. This is really starting to stand out to me, especially when the Chiefs have one of the best first half offenses and the worst second half offense in the league. We are changing play calling in the second half to move away dramatically from what was effective in the first half. Chiefs are so good at runs, screens, and YAC from short passes. Most of our successful first half are just combinations of these things. Yet we move off of these things in the second half of games. Why? It makes no sense.
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Bad red zone turnovers. Especially frustrating tonight when it came from the two star players on offense. Kelce’s was somewhat defensible as just a lucky jab thrown at the ball by the defender - tough luck but he should have pulled the ball in tighter to his chest anyway. But Mahomes interception was just inexcusable. 1st and 10 and just throws the ball straight to a defender. The intended receiver Watson had no ability to make a play on the ball. Just really, really bad.
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Utilization of receivers. This is the one that I think is the biggest problem, and I was hoping it’d be addressed after the bye but it wasn’t. Basically, receivers are getting targets in numbers that don’t make sense, specifically Watson and MVS. These two combined for a monstrous 14 targets and only 5 receptions, all by Watson, and it’s that number of incomplete targets resulting in wasted downs that’s just killing this offense. These two players combined should have 5 targets per game at most. That’s been clear for weeks, but last night it was worse than ever. If the play call just shifts 9 of those targets to some combination of Rice, Toney, and Hardman then the Chiefs win that game. These guys also had only one incompletion between the three of them.