The team that's 2-4? LMAO

It's damn near impossible to have a team that has an amazing offense and a shut down defense. Shit doesn't happen anymore.

Yeah, that was exactly my point. :thumb:

This pretty much seals it that KC is winning the super bowl in a shutout.

The defense isn't going to carry this team. It shouldn't ever be expected to.

Help out and make the other team punt a few times. Maybe throw in a turnover here and there.

Look at the person that you quoted. Yes....yes he is.

Whoa. This is a terrible take. Put to crack pipe down, bud.

Let me get this straight, you are going to argue our defense can close out a game when the offense is struggling?

Or

Is your take that the offense CANNOT struggle with this defense?

The defense has closed out 2 games already this year with the offense struggling.

And if you're going to pick an element of this team that can least afford to struggle, it's the one that has 2 HoFers and a shitload of resources and time dedicated to.

My 'take' is that you're ****ing reeruned.

Philly,

But we are not creating turnover is our major issue right now.

The same Eagles defense that gave up 35 to the Lions offense?

Yea, they've been good since, but they haven't exactly played anybody either. Pretty sure the Lions offense is easily the best they've faced, and I don't think they're as good as the #s suggest with Goff at QB.

Spags is a very frustrating guy to watch.

You can see him come out and screw their plan all game, and then there's one or two calls that get made, that just undo literally everything.

Shit like backing off on a rattled Josh Allen on 3rd and 2 from the 1 with the stadium shaking with noise. Boom. Out of a jam, plus a Randy Reidtard classic defensive timeout, and they walk right down the field for a td.

Or shit like putting Davante mother ****ing Adams in single coverage.

Or like the zero blitz on 3rd n 27 at Cincinnatti last year.

We've seen the guy put qbs like Brady in a box for an entire game and totally shut him down, so the ability is there.

And when your offense is struggling, you just can't have the "oh boy yeah. Gosh I'd really like to have that one back and maybe call something different" plays you lament in the press conferences.

Defense was not in any way to fault for this loss. Yeah they gave up a long drive for a TD. That’s what happens against an elite QB sometimes. They gave up 24 points.

The Chiefs offense had two golden opportunities to win this and they ended it in a 3 and out and INT.

This one was on the offense

Do you remember the games against the Packers, Giants, and Cowboys last season? Do you not remember just how much our defense outplayed our offense?

It's on Mahomes for sure. His INT's were really bad and he held the ball too long at times. He had a few good drives, but for the most part he was too sloppy. He's gotta be a lot better next time around.

That said, I'm not too confident in the defense for a rematch. They were extremely fortunate Buffalo scored zero points on 2 trips into the Red Zone. Could have easily been a 38 point game for Buffalo.

I do,

But I also think our personnel is better this year. I just don't feel like the defensive play calling is playing to their strengths. Feel the same way about offense honestly.

Trent McDuffie and especially Willie Gay are crucial. They change a lot.

Also Bryan Cook is way faster than Deon Bush. We missed that speed a lot.

Spags has been alright, but the defense is inconsistent...need a different scheme
 

I think it's clear that while the defense has its moments, it's not really able to put consistent pressure on opposing QBs without clever blitz packages (or CJ being superman). Even so, forcing turnovers has not been a strong point with Spags. The Eagles in one year with Fangio advising were able to transform themselves into a turnover machine.

This article does a great job of explaining why the NFL is looking to Fangio and his proteges to confuse quarterbacks.

See this link: theathletic.com/3311028/2022/05/24/vic-fangio-defense-analysis/[/url]

When our guy goes scorched earth, he's a badass.

When their guy does it, our defense sucks.

:shrug:

I don't disagree at all - the DL just isn't as strong as I'd like it to be, or anywhere close to it.

But the roster is what the roster is. So it's up to Spags to make the pieces work. And given that he has a mediocre (at best) front 4 to work with, he's gotta take some high risk, high reward shots.

And sometimes they don't work out. Sometimes the bear eats you.

And it isn't just because 'Spags Sucks!!' - the other guys are pretty damn good sometimes.

Allen had like 10 straight incompletions at one point in the game I believe. He did a good enough job for the offense to pull away and they just couldn't do it.

They may look better, but they still have some god awful stats in many categories. Last in missed tackles, last in opponent passer rating, last in YAC.

if mahomes and co did their job up 3 with 6 minutes left everyone today is sucking off spags

I hate to say it, but this is 100% accurate.

You get that through the first six weeks KC has played five playoff teams from last season? Including three teams (BUF, TB, AZ) that were among the league's top-5 passing offenses from last year? With no less than five new to KC and Spags players, including a couple rooks?

And yet, they've only allowed an opponent to score more than 30 once and more than 24 twice? Are you suggesting they fluked their way into those numbers?

I personally think that's where we blew our chance. The end of the first half was a disaster but despite that we had a chance to put them away. I'm not bothered looking back at the way the final drive ended. It's the drive you were talking about that bothers me.

You’re talking about LAST YEAR. This is THIS YEAR. Does TB, and AZ look like the same teams from last year? Let’s go on the merits of the current season.

This man is on a resonance wavelength with my ass.

There is no way at all that 4 straight AFCCG is a letdown. If we didn't win any of them, then sure, get fussy. People like the 2000's Chiefs fans will call you an entitled ****, but that one I get.

Here's the thing. The Goddamned Brother****ing Cheatriot ****bags (and their associated officiating) has ruined expectations for the rest of the league.

Here's the reality: AFTER the salary cap era, dynasties don't happen, unless you're obviously cheating, have a great coach that fell ass backward into a great QB, and the officiating is always in your favor. That's a HEAVY ****ing lift for any dynasty to achieve over the long term. And I think the refs have been pretty clear that Mahomes isn't getting those calls.

Mahomes is the best there has ever been, and I'll die on that hill... to the grave. But as good as he is, he can't make up as much ground as cheating, coaching, and reffing can from his one position.

I'm with you. And I was as vocal as anybody about singling up rookies on #1 receivers.

HOWEVER, me in the heat of the moment, and you now are obviously missing the times that he did it and it worked. So yeah, fire away, but if he's always rolling safeties over and playing it conservative, he doesn't get the good plays and we just take a nice stroll down the field for a touchdown.

Much like I'd never try to coach Mahomes out of that last interception because you lose entirely too much good to get rid of the bad, you just gotta wear those. Unless he can convince Veach to go hog on passrushers like NYG did when he was there, it ain't happening.

Respectfully, I'll gladly coach Mahomes out of that last interception.

That was first down. You cannot make that play there and if means missing on the occasional remarkable play on 1st down (that he'll probably just make on 2nd or 3rd instead), so be it.

But the issue with that play isn't that it happened, its that it happened on 1st down with a minute left and 2 timeouts. Just throw the damn ball away.

Allen would've...

Patrick Mahomes is elite. So is Josh Allen…maybe.

I’m still shocked that a defense composed of rookie day 3 starting corners, a backup safety, no Willie Gay, no Trent McDuffie and a struggling pass rush held that offense to 17 points until the last few mins and 24 overall.

Josh Allen struggled. Like he struggled pretty badly until the end of the 3rd. We had that man in hell for a good 2 quarters.

But the point remains. Patrick and the offense had every opportunity to drive down and win. Hell even get a FG on that drive and your last drive becomes a “get 35 or so yards to set up a game winning FG” but instead they needed a TD.

They went 3 and out. Just can’t do that. I guess that’s the adjustment to the new offense

https://twitter.com/scottkacsmar/sta...kLqRA6AgO_Ngbw

Consider the source, this guy is a jackass, but there is some unfortunate truth here

And do what, exactly? What are these strengths that Spags is not playing to?

Lookit, you've got two rookie corners. You can't get to the QB with your front four. What do you do?

You do realize that you can't really blitz AND drop 7 to cover, right?

so what do you do?

The two rookie corners both have excellent length. Good press man skills. You'd rather have help over the top for them, but you can't get to the QB without blitzing, which means you CAN'T have help over the top.

So what do you do?

You risk it. You take the chance that yeah-you might get burnt, BUT you also might get enough pressure to screw the play up, get a sack, or maybe a turnover. At least an incompletion.

If you love it when it works, you can't complain when it doesn't, and blame the coach. That's just reactionary, emotional fit throwing.

To get effective pressure right now, we have to blitz. That means leaving corners on an island. Rookie corners. Scary.

And if Mahomes and company do their jobs, Spags probably is a genius this week.

Spags ain't the problem.

Clark is a problem. Dunlap hasn't helped much. Karlafkis is a rookie and not getting much done yet. Wharton out hurts more than is immediately apparent.

It's the front four.

Forget driving for the win late.

They had MULTIPLE chances during the 2nd and 3rd quarters to build an insurmountable lead and simply couldn't move the ball.

Josh Allen was never "in hell"

For ****s sake, they marched up and down the field all day.

And think of how much the offense could've helped the defense out.

The drive before the Bills long score at the end of the half was held back by a taunting penalty and then snuffed out entirely by a sack. Don't commit that penalty or don't get sacked on 2nd down and Buffalo probably doesn't bother using timeouts and doesn't get the ball back with any time at all. Could the defense have done better? Sure - but that gets back to the 'hey, the DL sucks and those guys are good'. They made a play. Shit happens.

And like you said, 3 and out with a 3 point lead and 7 minutes left....you've just gotta be better there on offense. It still took Buffalo 12 plays to get down the field there, including a 3rd and 4th down conversion. We were trying to force them to do what teams do to us - execute a dozen times to drive the field. They did.

With a chance to do the same the drive before it, we didn't.

And that was the difference in the ball game.

More reeruned shit from the most miserable **** on CP.

You do realize that there are ways of creating turnovers aside from INTs, right?

Sneed has 3 FF, and when talking about our corners lack of INTs, I have yet to see you even acknowledge that once.

Jones had a turnover taken away too.

The Chiefs play a lot of man coverage. Getting INTs in man coverage can be difficult.

Would you say the Chiefs marched up and down the field all day? I suspect not.

Meanwhile both teams had the ame number of passing yards. The Bills had 26 first downs to our 23. They averaged 4 YPC to our 3.8. They had a very slight edge in TOP, but nothing notable.

If the Bills 'marched up and down the field all day' then so did the Chiefs. And I believe we can both agree the latter is NOT the case.

The game came down to their quarterback executing a drive late in the 4th that ours didn't and 2 bad interceptions ours threw that theirs didn't. It wasn't the defense and you shouldn't oversell Buffalo's production.

Other than the Chris Jones sack, did you ever really feel like the Chiefs D "stopped" the Bills or more the Bills did something dumb or just ****ed up?

Same with KC, only the Bills actually have a pass rush and made it hard on us.

Turning them over on downs is not 'the Bills did something dumb' when it works. That's rearview mirror rationalization. That was a huge play. And then we immediately followed that up with a 3 and out.

Turning them over on downs at midfield is also not 'the bills did somthing dumb' and hand-waiving the sack is a little disingenuous.

That's 4 drives out of 9 where the Chiefs defense stood tall and actively made plays that stopped drives. Like I said a few days ago - that's all you can reasonably expect from a defense in todays NFL, especially against a high-end opponent.

It ain't 1994 fellas. Defenses 'win' on red zone stands and 3rd/4th down stops. You just don't stop defenses from moving the ball between the 20s anymore.

I don't disagree. The defense played well enough.

But the stops were a WR falling down on fourth down in the endzone over his own feet and a flukey fumble in which the rb kicked it to us. The other two were absolutely great defensive stands, I agree.

I just don't consider that actively making plays on the first two. But as you said earlier, same with KC. We did dumb shit like a taunting penalty and a flukey int in the endzone and a dumb ****ing PI that took 4 points off the board.

It also acknowledges that we aren’t getting many takeaways regardless of fumble or interception, only one game with multiple takeaways in last 11 games.

I said it before the game - the Bills offense scores most of its points from outside the RZ. The Chiefs game plan should have been to force them to be flawless in the RZ and guess what? They weren't.

The defense did EXACTLY what was needed to win this game. The offense didn't hold up its end of the deal.

But that's EXACTLY the idea behind the bend don't break models that everyone is using now. That Fangio bullshit.

It says that if you make them execute 12-15 times, eventually a WR is going to trip over his own feet on 4th down.

Gotta recalibrate your speedometer here. These ain't the same sized tires you were driving on 25 years ago.

Bingo.

This defense is not 90’s era Chiefs, but it’s really hard to pin either loss on them. STs cost us against Indy and the Offense/STs against Buffalo. If our STs were even competent against Indy we win easily. Against Buffalo, the bad INT early when we could have had 3 and the missed FG cost us that game. They hit those and KC would have had a 26-17 lead and Buffalo would have needed to score a TD and get an onside kick to have a chance. Or had the offense been able to close out the game when they had a 20-17 lead things would have been different.

The defense still needs to grow and we still need a pass rusher in the worst way, but I can’t see how they are getting criticized for their performance so far.

The defense played ****ing spectacular.

They held a top 3 offense to 24 ****ing points and if our offense could have just picked up a few first downs it would have been 17 points.

This loss is on the offense.

It's all about performance against expectation.

The defense is doing what it needs to do, despite the warts. Can they get better? Yes. Will they get better? Probably.

The offense is a big problem right now. They need to put together more drives.

First 4 drives:

Turnover
FG
Turnover on downs
Punt

They were putting heat in Josh too and he couldn’t handle it at all. 30+ pts per game offense couldn’t score a TD until the end of the first half when we had a terrible penalty helping them out.

Spags young, inexperienced and injured defense did that.

I do think that some of the criticisms come from PTSD from the bad defenses of yesteryear. For a long time our defense was not very good and as such fans expect it to be bad and default to it as a reason why KC loses. We have become so spoiled with a Reid/Mahomes offense that we sometimes won’t blame them for not performing and just revert back to ol’ Trusty, which is the defense.

Spags is a ****ing magician as far as I'm concerned.

He was playing a shell game and winning most of the day.

We've got pass rush problems, but you can't hang this on Spags.

Interesting stat from the Buffalo game - Buffalo was -.2 EPA against the blitz including the 2 TD's the rookie gave up. INCLUDING.

Overall they ended the game at .21 EPA and a whopping .49EPA against the pass so the blitz was way way more effective than none blitz defense.

But they made us pay 2x. Its a double edged sword.

we really can't blame spags

if this was the alex smith era we'd be screaming bloody murder about only scoring 20 points against an elite QB

mahomes gotta do better

Fluke fumble
FG
WR tripped on his ass in endzone
Punt.

The defense played admirable and well. They didn't have Josh Allen in "hell".

If 350 and 3 TD's is hell, then yikes.

LMAO 2 punts, 2 turnovers on downs, and a turnover. Against the 2022 Bills that's an absolutely fabulous performance. They more than held their own, especially given the manpower problems in the back 7.

Now imagine we have McDuffie out there as opposed to Williams.

Those 2 TDs are probably a lot harder to come by.

The QB makes half a billion dollars. You aren't gonna have an "elite" defense, money just ain't gonna happen to allow it.

You've gotta win that game. The defense gave you all the chances you needed.

Wouldn't hurt for sure. But those were dime throws to good WR's. Other team makes plays, it happens.

Still only giving up what they did is great.

That’s fair.

I’m guessing it’s semantics we disagree on. I don’t want to coach him out of making those type of plays or even looking for that play in that situation. You can coach him on game situation and what to look for with routes. I’m
Not worried about overloading that dudes brain. But I under no circumstances want him to stop escaping and looking to make a play when shit breaks down. Those are what makes him great and if you have to eat some of those to get the 4 AFCCG Mahomes let’s roll.

Yep. This game was super winnable. But I’m not going to cast a bunch of stones at the offense because they’re good too.

Much like you can’t dog the defense for not shutting out Allen I’m not going to assert that the offense should have been flawless against the Bills D.

This was pretty much a coin flip game. A couple plays here or there and it’s a different outcome both ways. And that’s what we can expect after the last playoff game and our losses. Besides it’s optimistic because we have fixed our cap problems and they’re all in and have to make hard decisions moving forward.

I’m guessing you’re not making the points I’m trying to refute, but I haven’t participated in most of the postgame meltdown, so I’m getting it out there.

I just have a hard time making grand proclamations (again, not saying you are just responding to the group) about two evenly matched teams. Plays happen in sports. Nobody is undeafeated.

You can't beat elite QB's with the blitz. Occasional well timed blitzes, sure.

But that can't be where your pressure comes from.

How the hell did we get here guys? How did they ever think this front 4 was good enough? I'll never understand.

Oh I understand it.

I also think it's a reason you need blue chippers. Hear me out here, but the more times you ask guys to make plays, the more likely flukey shit happens.

It's why you need that guy to make a sack, or that guy to make a play on a YAC.

The depth and stuff absolutely matters thru the season. But against other elite teams and in the playoffs, I'm thinking you need your Mahomes and Kelce's and Jones and insert whoever, to just be able to wreck a play.

Well I mean we almost beat him with the blitz, it took remarkable plays against a rookie 4th round CB along with a little help from the refs to lose.

The OL and our tackles are the most to blame along with Mahomes making a couple bad decisions (he most likely wont repeat very often) for this loss IMO, to be bitching about the defense is asinine.

It's not just this game. You can't be successful against elite QB's with the blitz consistently. The numbers bear it out.

Frank Clark is how we got here. Not investing serious resources into the defensive line is how we got here.

Yet here you are....pining for trading away picks for another DE that's going to need another contract.

Frank Clark WAS a serious investment of resource. It's been mismanaged resource as much as a lack of it.

That investment didn't work, so dont' do it again?

Spags saw a catastrophic secondary full of old washed losers who gave up so he fixed it.

That same guy’s defense played an elite Buffalo team as well as they did either time last year.

So yeah it’s working. Not perfect but it’s a start

That's not what I said....but every year you come to the same conclusion. Trade away our first round pick. At some point....you need cost controlled talent. Yes, that means that you have to scout it correctly and pick good players.

So, just draft good players. It's worked great for the Packers, we should do it.

I’m thinking next game vs the Bills you sit in cover 2. Pretty much what defenses did to us last year. Make them be patient and clamp down in the red zone.

Have McDuffie and Sneed on Diggs/Davis and blitz 6 while having one safety help on one of Diggs/Davis.

I hate you.

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It's a work in progress.

I've said it a dozen times at least: This team is not yet what it will be in December and January.

The increase in team speed on defense is startling. They're YOUNG, and inexperienced, and that will show up sometimes. I think it's worth the risk. And they'll get better every week, along with getting key guys back, like Gay and McDuffie.

As for the DL-yeah. I expected Veach to go hard THERE in the draft more than the secondary, but I suppose value and staying true to their board won out. Furious George will continue to improve, and Dunlap's been...underwhelming so far. Clark is same old Clark, unfortunately.

I dunno. But I'd about bet the house this ends up being a top 16 defense by the end of the season, even with the front four issues.

How did we get here on the DL?

Overspent on Clark.
Probably should have kept Ogbah and Ingram.

Kaindoh was a completely blown draft pick.

Danna is injured.

Outside of week 1, Karlaftis has been meh.

Best we can hope for is Danna returns and is effective, Clark can string together 1, or heaven forbid 2, good quarters per game and Karlaftis plays like week 1 for the rest of the season.

The Packers haven't drafted enough good players. Try again.

46-sack pace

they had 45 sacks in 2019

LMAO Poor Spags was getting absolutely massacred in the Discord chat. That one drive where we gave up 2 first and twenties was ****ing awful, but other than that we did alright. The 49ers offense is incredibly potent when healthy, and we faced probably the healthiest version they'll have all season.

they gave up 16, 7 on patrick (skyy)

I just wish Spags would quit spotting the other team 2 scores to make it interesting.

They gave up 30 points 1 time this year and that was in garbage time when they were up 41-24 with less than 5 minutes left in the game.

They have pass rush issues but it’s easy to see that they are much better this year

It's week 6. I predicted they'd be a top-10 defense by week 11. Think we're right on schedule.

Only gave up 16 points through 52 minutes of play. Have to love that. Netted 5 sacks, a fumble recovery, and an INT. Also, the sacks came from five different players. 4 TFLs, 8 PDs, and 8 QB hits! That's a big improvement over the last six weeks.