Kansas City Chiefs: Wasting offensive firepower

The blame has to largely be placed on the duo of Alex Smith and Andy Reid. What percentage of the blame lies on the KC quarterback and what percentage is on the man that is calling the plays is hard to say. If you listen to some it is mostly on Smith while others will defend Smith and place the blame largely on the often baffling play calling by the Chiefs head coach. I believe that both deserve a decent portion of that blame and don’t think it’s worth the time and effort to try and determine the exact percentages.

Alex Smith, in a season where we all hoped he would be the best he’s been under Andy Reid, has actually been worse than last season. His yards per attempt is down a full yard per attempt from last season. So he’s completing shorter passes than he was last season and despite the shorter passes his completion percentage is actually down as well.

Alex Smith has not played well enough. Period. It’s the same issues we’ve seen with him since he came to Kansas City. He gets jumpy in the pocket. He dumps off too much and doesn’t test defenses deep enough. His play has been sub par and if Kansas City wants to improve on offense and have a shot to make the playoffs he has got to be better.

The gray area between blaming Alex Smith or Andy Reid for all the short passes is the question of where the ball is supposed to go on those plays. Did Reid design the play to go down the field but Smith bailed on the primary routes to check down short or is the play designed to go short in the first place? We all know that Reid has certainly called up LOTS and LOTS of screen passes, but even if you really break down the “All 22” film on the non-screen passes the best you can do is guess at who the primary and secondary targets were when Reid called the play.