Why the Kansas City Chiefs’ offensive breakout against the Raiders may well persist
The Chiefs’ best offensive game of the season — their first eclipsing 500 yards — came against a wrinkle. Or against a fresh look, at least.
After nine weeks of facing deep two-shell secondary looks, the Chiefs on Sunday confronted a Raiders defense featuring a single-high safety at the onset of snaps. The Chiefs replied with 41 points.
Which makes you think that’s the last of that defense they’ll see, right? Every future opponent should revert back to the two-shell, right?
Well, let’s actually back up.
As it turns out, while the Raiders might have shown a single-safety look before the snap, their defensive structure post-snap was actually not all that different than what the Chiefs had seen over the first two months of the season.
“People were talking about it being a single-safety middle defense, but if you really know the ins and outs of that defense, it plays a lot like two-high,” Mahomes said. “We’ve had trouble with that defense in the past. ... It was different because it didn’t start off with two-high, but in a sense, that’s what they were trying to get to.”
In Mahomes’ words, then, the Chiefs simply found a way to finally execute against those two-deep looks. After totaling just 36 points over the previous three weeks, they scored 41 with relative ease.
How did they finally solve it? After weeks of talking about taking the openings underneath the shell, they followed through. Mahomes crushed the Raiders with short, quick passes. Tight end Travis Kelce got involved early, and running back Darrel Williams caught a team-high nine balls for more than 100 yards.
“I think just taking what was there, especially early in the game — not trying to force it, letting the big plays come to me,” Mahomes said of his film observation. “I think we saw that when you’re patient and you take what’s there and you execute, defenses will eventually come up. And then you’ll be able to hit some of the shots later in the game.”
The Chiefs went two weeks without completing a pass that traveled 20-plus yards in the air. Their ineffectiveness on short routes against the Giants and Packers meant those defenses didn’t need to make alterations. They blanketed the back end.
Last Sunday, though, after the Chiefs were effective early with short routes, they completed three deep passes — all after halftime.
Not a coincidence, Mahomes says.
So in the search for whether the Chiefs’ output against the Raiders can translate to similar success against future opponents — the Cowboys on Sunday, for example — Mahomes pointed toward the need to execute the same formula.
Take the underneath jabs early. Then hit them with the big hooks late.
“It’s a battle every single week,” Mahomes said. “Obviously I’m sure they’re going to do some different type of two-high stuff, but they’ll try to have mix-ups too. They’re not going to sit back and give us the exact same coverage every single time.
“They’re going to try to find ways to confuse me, to confuse this offense. So we have to make in-game adjustments and still take what’s there, and whenever those shots do present (themselves), we have to hit those.”