For the Kansas City Chiefs, the end of the season mirrored the beginning, offensively speaking. Unfortunately the frustrations were enough to halt them from reaching their goals of a third consecutive Super Bowl appearance.
The regular season started out a bit slower than expected when it came to the offensive side of things (even though they were still among the league’s best offensive units). And, to hear Mecole Hardman tell it, those same frustrations came back in the second half of the team’s AFC Championship Game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Watching the Bengals get ready to take on the L.A. Rams in the Super Bowl has to be frustrating for Hardman and other members of the Chiefs knowing they had Cincy on the ropes with a very real chance to put them away shortly after halftime. From there, the offense only looked worse as Patrick Mahomes threw multiple picks and some of the team’s best pass catchers dropped passes that could have extended drives.
Mecole Hardman speaks about the AFCCG loss and the offensive frustrations of 2021.
Hardman recently appeared on ESPN’s First Take to talk about the season and the Super Bowl. When it came to the season-ending loss to the Bengals, it was a tale of two halves and an offense that didn’t do its job, he said.
“It started out great. The first half was cool and the second half we just didn’t score. We put our defense in bad situations and that high-powered offense in Cincinnati, you can’t stop them forever. I think it was just on us. We had to score in the second half and we didn’t,” said Hardman.
Hardman said the offense sputtered at times early on due to defensive changes they were seeing from opposing teams. As teams learned to sit on the deep passing game with two safeties sitting high, it altered the Chiefs downfield attack.
“I think it comes with defenses changing their schemes up, just giving different looks, figuring things out that gave us problems. I think Tampa Bay started that last year in the Super Bowl with the defense they played. I think it was just the adjustment factor of trying to figure out the different looks and everything all the defenses were throwing at us.
“So definitely there were times we couldn’t get anything going, but when we started figuring things out, thats’ when we started going on an eight-game win streak. That’s when things started rolling in when we started figuring everything out.”
For his part, Hardman came on strong at the end of the season and that’s a good sign as the team’s former second-round pick heads into a contract year. If Hardman is finding a way to be more effective with the ball and more efficient in his routes, that will go a long way toward elevating the offense in 2022.
Speaking of next season, Hardman didn’t sound nervous at all about having to overcome the loss and return back to the Super Bowl. This is a veteran team with loads of talent and experience and they know what to do.
“It shouldn’t be too hard,” he said. “We know what we gotta do and just take it one game at a time.”