Mellinger Minutes: the weirdness of the Chiefs, and is their O-line really a problem?
The only downside to being absurdly talented and accomplished and ambitious is that the standards can be unrealistic.
This is a point about the Chiefs, of course, and we’re making it two days after they beat a Super Bowl contender on the road, but did so in a way that left some fans feeling ... unsatisfied.
This is not an argument that the Chiefs are without flaws. They have flaws. They are beatable. Their pass rush is currently ineffective, they struggle against the run and the interior of their offensive line is no good in short-yardage situations.
A break or two in the other direction and the Chiefs would’ve lost to the Bucs Sunday, same as a break or two in the other direction and the Chiefs could have lost to the Chargers or Panthers or Raiders (again).
But Run It Back never meant Run The Table, so let us recognize just a few things that had to happen for the 27-24 final to be in doubt until the final minutes.
- The Chiefs had to get just six points from three red-zone possessions in the first half. Entering the game, the Chiefs had averaged 5.5 points per red-zone possession and the Bucs were not particularly good (25th) at red-zone defense.
- One of those possessions ended with a lost fumble by Patrick Mahomes, which hadn’t happened in 22 games and nearly 1,500 snaps.
- Mahomes had to misfire on this play where Mecole Hardman was capital letters WIDE OPEN, and Hardman had to be unable to make a somewhat difficult but doable adjustment back on the ball.
- The Bucs had to get two touchdowns in the fourth quarter after scoring one touchdown on their first eight possessions.
- The second of those touchdown drives probably needed two roughing the passer penalties from Frank Clark, who had been flagged for a total of one penalty in the first 10 games.
The Bucs are a good team, too. They entered the week No. 2 in Football Outsiders’ DVOA, and had every reason to play their best after a rough Monday night loss to the Rams the week before.
This is one of those games where an ugly win is a great win, but the Chiefs have so altered reality that a non-blowout win is taken as something of a failure.
Again: The Chiefs are not perfect. They are capable of moments of perfection (like pretty much the whole first quarter), but football is hard. There is legitimate concern about the pass rush, and we’re three consecutive weeks into a trend of the Chiefs being unable to put a team away.
These are real issues, and if left unsolved they could ruin the Chiefs’ postseason.
So I’m not here saying all will be better. We’ll explore some of those issues below, and again later in the week.
I’m just saying the Chiefs are approaching these issues from the high ground. Thirty-one teams — and I’m including the undefeated Steelers here — would trade problems.
This week’s eating recommendation is the KFC sichuan wings at Kobi-Q, and the reading recommendation is Wayne Drehs on the brilliance and mediocrity of Nick Foles.
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The following is both true and ridiculous. Patrick Mahomes is on pace for:
- 5,087 yards passing
- 44 touchdown passes and three interceptions
- 313 yards and three rushing touchdowns
- a league-low interception rate, and league-high passing yards
I don’t need an Elias subscription to tell you nobody’s ever done it like this before. But I can tell you that nobody has ever thrown for 5,000 yards with fewer than 10 interceptions before, and that nobody has ever thrown 44 touchdowns with fewer than six interceptions.
I can tell you that nobody has led the league in both passing and interception rate since at least 2000, and probably forever, but to be honest I got sick of checking after I got to 2000.
You asked a question and I know this is off-brand but I’m going to give you a serious answer. I would take the under. He’s averaging a cool 399.5 yards per game over the last four, which seems unsustainable.
The Chiefs have some potential blowouts and strong defenses left on their schedule, which could keep the numbers down a bit. There’s always the possibility of the starters sitting Week 17, especially if the NFL institutes the 16-team postseason and Pennsylvania continues to prohibit fans at games.
But I mean this in all sincerity: Nobody has ever played quarterback this well.
Mahomes has a lot of help, and we’ll get to that soon. I’m not sure there’s a quarterback in the league who wouldn’t trade skill-position talent with the Chiefs, and I’m sure there’s no quarterback in the league who wouldn’t want to play for Andy Reid and Eric Bieniemy.
So, yes. He has a lot of help. But not as much help as he provides them.
Any criticisms of a 10-1 team are by definition high-level criticisms. NFL rules prohibit perfection, in roster construction and execution.
It’s also worth remembering that the Chiefs are working without their best lineman (and pass protector) in Mitchell Schwartz, and with their third choice at left guard.
All that said, the numbers are kinder to the Chiefs’ protection than most fans seem to be. The Chiefs rank eighth in pass blocking, according to Pro Football Focus, eighth in adjusted sack rate, according to Football Outsiders, 12th in pressure percentage, according to Pro Football Reference (and 10th according to PFF). Mahomes has the fourth-most average time in the pocket, according to PFF.
Generally speaking, that aligns with my view that the Chiefs’ line is above average — not great, but above average — in pass protection and poor in run blocking.
Mahomes is part of this, too. He sometimes creates pressure by drifting further back than the linemen are instructed to block, and by breaking the pocket before he needs to. That said, he’s also agile enough to erase some pressures by scrambling either direction and making strong throws.
That’s the point you’re making with the Rivers reference. In some ways, the line’s job would be easier, because they’d know exactly where they’re blocking. But the mistakes would matter more, and be easier to spot.
The Chiefs gave up too much pressure against the Bucs, but the Bucs also have one of the league’s strongest pass rushes.
But the problem with the line isn’t protection. The problem is that the lack of interior push eliminates some options in short yardage, which is why you see so many gimmicks in those spots.
This is three straight games where Mahomes has taken a snap in motion, for instance, and most of us had gone our entire lives never seeing that once.
No, and this gets back to the idea of choice. The Chiefs have been intentional about their roster construction.
One of Veach’s guiding principles is to keep strengths strong, which means I’d expect the highest draft picks to continue to be used on players who can help Mahomes pass, and help Spagnuolo defend the pass.
All prospects being equal, this is how I’d want the Chiefs to draft:
1st round: edge rusher
2nd round: cornerback
3rd round: receiver
4th round: defensive back
5th round: interior line
6th round: linebacker
7th round: defensive back
This is where the concern should be, and this is something we’ll probably get into more later in the week.
The Chiefs pressured Brady on 11 of 42 drop backs, according to PFF. Watching live I thought it was more than that, but it could’ve been the effectiveness: Brady was just 4-for-10 with two interceptions against that pressure.
The Chiefs are 12th in pressure percentage according to PFR, which just isn’t enough. Brett Veach’s front office has heavily emphasized pass rush, in terms of both draft capital and salary cap. Part of why Reid wanted Steve Spagnuolo was his ability to scheme pressure.
Offenses can do some stuff with max protection or quick passing, but the pressure has to be a consistent threat. That’s true for all defenses, but particularly true with the Chiefs.
Tyrann Mathieu is on a big contract, and a terrific player, but he’s surrounded by guys acquired on the cheap: Charvarius Ward was undrafted, Bashaud Breeland is on a one-year deal, L’Jarius Sneed was a fourth-round pick, and so on. Juan Thornhill was taken in the second round, but is now a “situational” player.
The Chiefs are not built for coverage to hold up for more than a few seconds. The secondary is designed to take advantage of rushed throws, but those rushed throws aren’t happening.
The Chiefs went heavy on blitzes against the Bucs, bringing extra rushers on half of Brady’s dropbacks. That they blitzed twice as often as they produced pressure is a bad look.
Now, let’s be real. These are high level criticisms, and football teams do not develop in straight lines. There are twists and peaks and valleys and turns. It remains likelier than not that Spagnuolo, Chris Jones, Frank Clark, Alex Okafor and the rest of them will get this figured out.
But they need to do it soon. We’re in December now.
Thank you for your understanding.
This is just silly: Tyreek Hill leads the NFL with 1,021 yards, which is 43 more than Travis Kelce, who ranks second. No team has had the top two in receiving yards since the 1980 Chargers.
The league is full of good combinations: Stefon Diggs and Cole Beasley in Buffalo, D.J. Moore and Robby Anderson in Carolina, Keenan Allen and Mike Williams (and Hunter Henry) with the Chargers, Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry in Cleveland, D.K. Metcalf and Tyler Lockett with the Seahawks. The Bucs are loaded. On and on.
But nobody is on the Chiefs’ level right now, and the list of similar pairs in recent memory is fairly short: Diggs and Adam Thielen in Minnesota, Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman in New England, and I’m going to stop here before this list approaches anything that might be confused with an attempt at comprehensive.
Adding Mahomes to the mix takes the Chiefs to a different place — a Montana-Rice-Taylor place, or a Manning-Harrison-Wayne place.
The thing that makes this specific combination extra effective is that the skill-sets of each complement each.
What I mean is that Hill would be a star anywhere, but if he played somewhere else you might wonder what he’d be like backed by Mahomes’ arm strength.
Kelce would be a star anywhere, but if he played somewhere else you might wonder what he’d be like if he had someone like Hill to take safeties downfield.
Mahomes would be a star anywhere, but if he played somewhere else you might wonder what he’d be like surrounded by players who could take advantage of his gifts.
Honestly, it’s the kind of thing that Matt Patricia couldn’t screw up, so giving it all to Andy Reid is sort of an unnecessary bonus.
Totally agree, which turned out to be the game column.
Sometimes I think about what the other side would be hoping you’d do, and I almost always believe the other side is hoping the Chiefs go conservative.
Toward that end, I believe the Chiefs are uniquely positioned to be the most aggressive team in modern football history. This is a bit of an extremist view, I’ll grant you that, but the collective talents and brains of Reid, Mahomes, Bieniemy, Kelce and Hill should alter what we consider to be risky.
The one weakness of this offense is the interior run blocking, which can be schemed around in specific situations. Mahomes can move the pocket, put stress on defenders with a threat to run, and has proven trustworthy in ball security.
He came into this league with a poorly earned reputation for risky throws, but now we see him as the game’s hardest quarterback to intercept. Trust this man, and trust him always.
Reid’s decisions to throw on second and third downs of the last drive against the Bucs are clear indications that he cares little about convention in those situations.
You love to see it.
Well, it’s not fair. That’s plain. That’s obvious.
Also: the Broncos deserve no sympathy. That’s plain. That’s obvious.
The NFL can interpret its own protocols however it wants, and say that contact tracing allowed the Broncos to be confident the spread was contained to the quarterbacks room while the Ravens (and others) could not.
The NFL can say that’s why the Broncos played and others have been rescheduled, but then the NFL cannot say it had any degree of certainty that the Patriots had contained spread when it traveled with an actual COVID-19 plane to play the Chiefs. Stephon Gilmore played that game with the virus.
The league is changing rules on the fly, and that’s not pointed out as a criticism. We’re all dealing with changing information, and the NFL has way too many moving parts to account for every potential scenario ahead of time.
We can also agree that competitive integrity can go play in traffic. The priorities now are containing spread as much as possible, then getting in as many games as possible, and everything else can be tied for third.
But it’s hard to look at this specific situation and not believe the league treated the Broncos unfairly when compared to other teams.
Just as it’s hard to look at this specific situation and argue the league should have treated the Broncos differently.
The quarterbacks broke protocols with distancing and masks. They did this to themselves, and if the team had enough players to fill a roster then let’s go.
This shouldn’t go into the league’s thinking but it’s also true: the Broncos were going to lose that game with or without a quarterback.
This shouldn’t go into Broncos fans’ thinking but it’s also true: the only difference between a win and a loss to the Saints on Sunday will be a few spots in the draft order next year.
Yes. This is a great idea.
Sports have power. Right, wrong or misguided, athletes and leagues have influence.
Many people voted for the first time this year at least in part because Patrick Mahomes and LeBron James told them it was important.
Head coaches are tested everyday and operate in the same protocols as players but they’re fined for mask diligence at least in part because the league values optics.
We are weeks — just WEEKS! — from vaccines beginning distribution. We are also slamming straight into what sure as shoot looks like the heaviest wave of COVID yet.
My assumption is that the first sentence of the above paragraph will be used by many to be more casual about distancing and masks, which will make the second sentence much worse.
Athletes can have influence here. People care about games being played. If that connection is made between football and masks, and the league could draw out how a virus spread when protocols broke down, yes, absolutely, I think it could help.
My assumption is that he’s rotation depth, and that his specific role on opening day will be determined during spring training.
The Royals’ rotation is likely to look a lot different on opening day than it will in September, and that would be true even if pitchers never got hurt.
Minor is a great fit in this way. Minor didn’t pitch in the big leagues in 2015 or 2016 while recovering from labrum surgery, but revived his career as a reliever with the Royals in 2017.
He then went to the Rangers as a starter, and had perhaps the best season of his career in 2019: 3.59 ERA with 200 strikeouts across 208 1/3 innings.
The Royals had four starters they trusted in 2020, which is about three fewer than they’d like. This is all projection, but you’d expect Brad Keller, Brady Singer and Kris Bubic to be locks for the rotation.
Minor likely would not have signed without some indication he’d begin the season int he rotation. Danny Duffy would also be in that mix, and it won’t be long before the Royals are making decisions on Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch, Asa Lacy and others.
Accumulating arms has a bit of a force multiplier effect. It means the starters don’t have to be pushed, the relievers don’t have to be overworked, and an injury or two won’t wreck anyone’s plans.
The Royals are, understandably, going to be extremely protective of their young starting pitchers. Signing Minor is a significant step in that direction.
If the Royals find themselves lucky enough to have excess inventory there in July, they can trade someone. Hopefully for a hitter. They need hitters.
I’d love to tell you yes, and I suppose it’s possible.
But not as possible as the pass being deflected at the line of scrimmage or my pants turning yellow as I panic-heave it through the uprights.
George Brett has this theory that the further you get away from the dirt the easier baseball appears. I believe that’s true in all sports, and if you’ve never been near the sideline of an NFL game it’s hard to imagine the size, strength, and speed of these humans who play football for a living.
It’s also hard to imagine how quickly a quarterback’s decisions have to come, and how many contradictions have to be filtered through in seconds to make the right choice.
Think about it like this. Something like 2 million boys are born every year in this country, and most years no more than a few are drafted and become good quarterbacks.
The ones who do are freaks.
Bruce Weber is selling this as another rebuilding year, and that needs to be the message.
His contract includes a $2 million buyout after this season, and I’m not sure how motivated a university will be to burn money on firing coaches #InThisEconomy.
But the buyout drops to $1 million after next season, when Dajuan Gordon’s class will be juniors and Nijel Pack’s class will be sophomores.
You can make a sensible case that no college program should be granted this much time to stink, and you can’t make a sensible case that Weber is doing a good job if there’s not major improvement by the end of this season and again by the end of next season.
If I could, I would do a standing backflip to celebrate every accomplishment of every day. I’m talking about everything from getting the kids to school on time to coming up with a good tweet*.
* Just kidding. There is no such thing as a good tweet.
As it happens, I will celebrate filing this column by lighting a fire and popping a beer. Probably a 4 Hands Absence of Light, but I’m open for suggestions.
This week, I’m particularly grateful for this job. This year has been brutal in a million ways, and covering sports isn’t nearly as fun through Zoom as it is in person, but doing this with you is a privilege that I will never take for granted.
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 5:00 AM.