In what may end up as the best Thursday night matchup of the season, the Chiefs look to down the Chargers again. Here’s how they can clinch the AFC West.
The Chiefs face a tough challenge on a short week playing the Chargers who are still hanging around the Chiefs in the AFC West. Kansas City is coming off of a close win against a very physical Baltimore Ravens team. In order to beat the Chargers for the tenth straight time, the Chiefs will need to be firing on all cylinders, as this game has enormous playoff implications for both teams.
For the Chiefs, if you win this game, you win the AFC West and are guaranteed a first-round bye. For the Chargers, if you win the game, you win at the very least the five seed in the playoffs and hope that the Chiefs lose again, making you the AFC West champions. Here is how the Chiefs can come away with an extremely important victory in primetime:
Offensively:
Attack man coverages downfield:
Casey Hayward is a talented cornerback. There is no doubt. That being said, if they line up one on one against Tyreek Hill, the Chiefs should be looking for the homerun ball three to five times. Many teams have tried to steer the passing offense away from Hayward, but Hill is the winner of this kind of matchup.
On this play, Antonio Brown runs a simple fade route. Because Hayward is a smart player, he is anticipating a cut underneath and so he is trying to get a jump on the route. Unfortunately, Brown uses this to his advantage and gets a step on him. If this is Hill, the separation is likely bigger than one step.
Use quick screens to slow down the Chargers highly touted pass-rush:
After the Ravens showed heavy blitz packages last week, it seems likely that the Chargers will try to implement some Ravens type blitzes into their own gameplan. Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram could be a terror for the Chiefs offensive line, who has struggled as of late. If I am Andy Reid, I am trying to run a lot of quick screens to get playmakers in space and take the pass rush out of the game.
On this play, the Chargers only bring four on the rush, but Rosen runs a quick screen to David Johnson who takes full advantage of the space. If the Chiefs can do this several times in blitzing situations, I think the Chiefs will get a lot YAC yards.
Attack Linebackers in coverage:
While the Chargers have a lot of great pieces on the defensive side of the football, their linebackers are not particularly effective against the pass. If the Chiefs can isolate running backs and/or tight ends with linebackers, they should be looking that direction constantly. Damien Williams, Spencer Ware, Darrel Williams, Demetrius Harris and Travis Kelce should be open more often than not against any of the Chargers linebackers.
On this play, we see our very own Anthony “Sausage” Sherman burn Kyle Emanuel for the touchdown in Week 1. While Emanuel is typically a special teams guy, he will occasionally rotate in for coverage purposes. The Chargers struggle enough in coverage at linebacker the way it is without him. The Chiefs will need to attack the linebackers as much as possible.