With the Chiefs and Buccaneers offenses both off to relatively slow starts, will either unit wake up in time for Sunday’s primetime showdown?
Shaking off a loss is a tough thing to do. However, it’s a hell of a lot easier shaking off a loss that looks like, say the Chiefs’ 2018 instant classic against the Rams, compared to Sunday’s hideous, mind-numbing, infuriating, and all-out perplexing loss to the Indianapolis Colts. While there is plenty of blame to be shared in the Chiefs’ locker room and coaching offices, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense (players and staff) certainly have multiple crosses to bear.
I’m not going to dive too deep into the atrocious play calling, the forced throws that missed downfield, the miserable-at-times offensive line play, or the fact that Chiefs RBs had 17 carries for 29 yards. I’m not going to speculate what was said between Eric Bienemy and Patrick Mahomes during a heated on-field conversation at the end of the first half – after all, two highly competitive grown men are in fact allowed to have disagreements in the workplace, particularly if it’s a football field. To look back would be counterproductive, especially with Tom Brady and a formidable Bucs defense to look forward to this Sunday.
Instead, as a doctor of football (fD), I’m going to diagnose what is ailing the Chiefs offense in 2022, and how they’re going to turn things around, even against a spicy defense like Tampa’s. To understand my rationale and diagnosis, first, you need to familiarize yourself with my pedigree. Not only have I been a predominantly reactionary Chiefs fan my entire life, but I was also a high-achieving high school offensive lineman who parlayed that into an injury-shortened career in Division II football. While some would argue my suitability by pointing out that I played for a team that went 1-21 in two seasons, others would say I’m highly qualified to diagnose the maladies of a highly effective, incredibly talented professional football offense.
Naturally, as a man with an astute football acumen, when a matchup between Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes is mentioned, I get worked up. You tend to paint a mental picture of a game that will be a shootout with these two. One with plenty of high-flying offense, lots of scoring, and the game coming down to who has the ball last. Sensational football. One quarterback the greatest from the previous generation still doing his thing in his mid-40s, and the other the best of the current generation forging his legacy before our eyes.
However, much to my chagrin, this year is different. It’s not very often that you get a matchup of this historical magnitude in Week 4 of the regular season. It’s also not very often that you look at an over/under of 44.5 on a game with quarterbacks of this ilk and question how exactly these offenses plan on getting to that total. That’s where we stand heading into this showdown in Tampa.
To accurately diagnose, we must first review where the offense has been
While the Chiefs screamed out of the gates against Arizona in week 1 putting up 44 points in a blowout win, they have managed just 3 offensive touchdowns and 37 points in the 2 weeks following what appeared to be the grand entrance of a new look offense for Kansas City. Thus far in 2022, Patrick Mahomes and the offense have entered like lions and then simply existed like lambs.
The same can be said for Tom Brady and the once terrifying Tampa Bay offense. Here is how Tampa has gotten out of the gates in the first half of games in 2022:
Week 1 vs. Dallas: Field goal, field goal, missed field goal, field goal, field goal
Week 2 vs. New Orleans: Fumble, turnover on downs, punt, punt
Week 3 vs. Green Bay: Field goal, punt, punt, fumble
That’s great right? Surely the Chiefs can shake off the cobwebs, get out to an early lead and leave the Bucs in the dust. Well, this is where the issue compounds. The elephant in the room, the Buccaneers’ suffocating defense, has been dominant in their first three games. The Bucs D, with Todd Bowles still effectively behind the wheel with the assistance of Kacy Rodgers (defensive line coach and run game coordinator) and Larry Foote (linebackers coach and pass game coordinator), is in the upper echelon of the league in most major statistical categories.
They’re tied for the league lead in takeaways at 8. They’re number 4 in yards per game allowed, and they’re the best in the league in points allowed having given up only 27 total (9 per game). Before Green Bay scored on their opening two possessions on Sunday night, Tampa had not given up a touchdown. Like, at all. This is not good for a Chiefs offense that has been clinically sleepwalking for about 2 weeks.
So what’s got to give? The Chiefs offense has spent the last 8 quarters subconsciously bumbling around, trying to find any semblance of the group that shattered the sound barrier in Week 1, while the Buccaneers offense is still just fast asleep. Both defenses are playing incredible football to start the year – Steve Spagnuolo is painting his Mona Lisa with his defensive unit starting the season in the top 10 in yards allowed per game, and if not for a couple of garbage-time touchdowns against the Arizona Cardinals would also be in the top 7 in points allowed per game.
As it stands today, call it the middle of Week 3.5 of the NFL season, it looks like we’re spiraling towards a dually boring battle of Strength vs. Weakness with both offenses crawling into this game with both defenses standing tall. I don’t know about you, but when I tune in on Sunday I don’t want to see a Chiefs offense that looks like it did against the Colts on Sunday, or against the Buccaneers in Super Bowl 55. I want to see the team that blasted Arizona right in the face two weeks ago. I want to see the team that was up 17-0 at the end of the first quarter the last time these two met in the regular season. But how do we get there? Walk with me. I’ll show you how to cure this sickness.
The Chiefs have to establish their offense from the inside out
For all of you “Our running backs suck!” folks, this does not mean line up under center in the I-Formation and pound the ball with Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Michael Burton, Isaih Pacheco, and Jerrick McKinnon. While the Chiefs could in fact do that, you don’t cast Leonardo DiCaprio as an extra in a movie and you don’t make Patrick Mahomes a hood ornament. This simply means we need to let the Ferrari idle a little bit before we take it ripping through the hills on a Sunday drive.
Don’t think about last year. Just don’t. In fact, stop doing that altogether. It no longer matters, the offense we have today is the offense we’re riding with the entirety of the season. But it can be explosive while also being incredibly efficient and effective. Methodical in a lot of ways. We saw that in Week 1. How did we start that out? Well, 9 of the first 20 touches in that game were handoffs or short passes out of the backfield to running backs – specifically Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Jerrick McKinnon. Mahomes was patient, got the ball out quickly, and the offensive line had the opportunity to establish their footing by coming out of the gate moving forward, imposing their will on the defense rather than letting the defense dictate the physicality.
The passing game was heavily focused in the middle of the field, with JuJu Smith-Schuster and Travis Kelce catching balls over the middle for intermediate gains. What is the problem with a 9-yard pickup when you got 3 on the ground on first down? There isn’t one, that’s called a first down. The only two times Mahomes missed on those first two drives? Down the field throws – one to Mecole Hardman, and one to Marquez Valdes-Scantling. In the second half, the big plays came, but not before the Chiefs baited the Cardinal defense up in the box to protect against the run and intermediate passing game.
Fast forward to the Chargers and Colts games. The scheme was very different for each game, but early play-calling blunders stopped momentum dead in its tracks. On the first drive against the Chargers, the Chiefs were deliberately marching the ball down the field – awake and alert – until a 3rd-and-2 call where Kansas City elected to give 187-pound Mecole Hardman the ball on an end around to Joey Bosa’s side of the field. That didn’t end well. The Chiefs offense was asleep at the wheel. Similar situation in Indianapolis, except the first drive was a 3-and-out and the play that got the offense off the field was a deep ball to MVS.
Why do the Chiefs insist on getting cute in short-yardage situations, or trying to force the issue with big plays early in games? Sure, there are going to be opportunities to air it out on a defense early if you catch them with their hand in the cookie jar, but that should never be the go-to right out of the gates. Why would it need to be? This is a lazy approach that simply asks Patrick Mahomes to be Patrick Mahomes without actually scheming anything up for him to be able to meet that high level of expectation.
The offensive line, while they have certainly underperformed at times thus far, is built to set the tone early in a very physical way. Travis Kelce is the best over-the-middle/in-the-seam weapon in league history, and JuJu Smith-Schuster is very quietly on track for 1,000 yards receiving already. I’m not sure if it’s going to take smelling salts in the offensive staff meeting rooms, electroshock therapy, hypnotism – something. Someone needs to wake up and remember what the Chiefs are working with on offense. The ingredients are in the cupboard, the Chiefs just need to stop using the wrong measuring cups.
Does Mahomes want to air it out? Of course, he does, and the coaching staff should let him. You don’t just keep the Ferrari I mentioned in the garage all the time, especially with the weather we’ve been having in Kansas City the last couple of weeks. But you have to warm up the offense just like the car. Give Mahomes some easy wins. Get the offensive line confident with some basic run calls where they can get their momentum and weight moving forward. Collect easy micro-wins, and the macro will come. There is too much talent on the field for Kansas City’s offense to look like it has. Sometimes the best thing to wake up a sleeping offense are microdoses of success. Keep it simple, win the small battles consistently, and the big wins will continue to come.