The first was that vertical passes were wildly successful, and horizontal passes were exactly the opposite – that’s the obvious part of all this. The second is more frustrating – this team (at least the passing offense part of it) is built to win with medium-deep passes. Sure, Alex Smith’s arm isn’t the strongest – but he can throw it 15-30 yards without many issues. And the Chiefs weapons (Maclin, Conley, Kelce, etc) are much, much better suited to those kinds of passes than they are to catching the ball in the flat.
It defied all logic to keep going to the screens, and Reid did it anyway. Frustratingly enough, that’s probably why he kept doing it. Reid loves to find unique ways to move the football and score points. Sometimes he gets inside of his own head too much, and the result is a series of play calls whose only redeeming factor is unexpectedness. Nevermind that it means… oh, I don’t know… Smith rolling to his off-hand side for a 3rd and short pass.
I’m a glass half-full kind of a guy, though, and I think Reid can get back on track. In order to do so, however, he needs to fix a couple of things. I mentioned some of them above, and some are more of an issue of planning against whatever team they happen to playing that week. This week, it’s more important than ever to get that second part corrected – Reid absolutely must gameplan very, very well for the Raiders.
That’s not just because the Raiders are good (they are), or even just because of the massive difference between 3-2 and 2-3. A loss puts the Chiefs 2.5 games behind the Raiders, approximately a third of the way through the season. They also have a tough schedule ahead and only one remaining game against the Raiders to make up that divisional deficit. There would also be no possibility of winning the head-to-head tiebreaker if both teams finish with the same record.