How the Chiefs are and should be spending their three weeks before a playoff game
First of all, it’s not an off week. That’s what a lot of people call it, including me. The term isn’t necessarily inaccurate, but it’s not descriptive, either.
The Chiefs are not off this week. And, for that matter, their stars weren’t off last week even as they knew they would not play in the season finale against the Chargers.
But they were not off, because off is when you don’t set an alarm. Off is when you eat pizza for breakfast, lay on the couch, take a nap, reorganize your closets.
Off is not what the Chiefs have been doing this week and last — daily COVID-19 testing, ramped up workouts, meetings to address weaknesses, practice reps to retain sharpness, loads of film study to identify both their own room for improvement and vulnerabilities of opponents before practice resumes on Thursday.
The Chiefs will have gone 20 or 21 days between competitive football games by the time they play in the AFC Divisional Round next weekend. They will not have had 20 or 21 days off.
“I know I’ll get the best effort out of every single guy on this team,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “They’ll raise their game to be even better. I’m excited for it, because I know what this team can do. It can be a special run and I’m excited for it.”
The Chiefs don’t yet know their opponent, and once they do we will spend plenty of time picking out places where they are both superior and susceptible. The game will be played, and we will pick out the major plays, good or bad.
But the truth is a disproportionate amount of the Chiefs’ success or failure this postseason will be determined by how well they handled their three weeks between competitive games.
The most obvious point will be physical. Many players — most notably Mahomes and Frank Clark — moved faster and more dynamically after last postseason’s first-round bye. Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce, Eric Fisher, Sammy Watkins, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, and Mike Remmers are among those who’ve been dealing with varying forms of injury.
Each will presumably benefit from time to heal. This week, Mahomes said this is the best he’ll feel for a postseason in his career.
If the Chiefs can avoid COVID-19 absences — not a given — then they will have a physical advantage over their opponent.
That’s an enticing reality, particularly for this team. Their best is better than any other team’s best, and they have shown themselves to play closest to their best in the biggest games this season. There is a confidence around the organization that the playoffs will continue the trend.
“You have to be able to take it up another notch without getting so tied into that that you completely can’t function,” coach Andy Reid said. “Sometimes you can try so hard that everything goes the opposite way.”
We’ll unpack that idea more completely before the playoff game, but for now let’s focus on one other area that could be improved with this much preparation time: the offensive line, specifically with pass protection.
Minutes after the Chiefs’ last competitive game, Mahomes stood in front of a microphone and claimed responsibility for the poor pass protection. The 17-14 win over the Falcons was, objectively, the offense’s worst day of the season and a real point of concern going into the playoffs.
Many factors went into that, but the most notable was the Falcons’ ability to pressure Mahomes — 18 of his 46 drop backs were pressured, according to Pro Football Focus. Those problems came despite the Falcons blitzing Mahomes just 12 times.
One-offs can be set to the side, but Mahomes was pressured on more drop backs from weeks 13 to 16 than any other quarterback. It’s worth noting that the Falcons appeared to surprise Mahomes with more pressures than any other game in recent memory.
All quarterbacks face pressure, and Mahomes can often anticipate and respond accordingly. The Falcons got to him from angles he did not expect.
Mahomes brought up the issue and claimed blame for missing protection calls. There is surely some sincerity there — he has the power to make those calls at the line of scrimmage — but it’s a more complicated process that involves Reid, line coach Andy Heck, offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy and five linemen who don’t have much experience together.
Which is another place these three weeks could prove beneficial. That’s time for Fisher and Remmers to heal, and it’s also time for the five starters — two of them midseason replacements — to fix problems with communication and strategy.
“We’ve learned a lot this season with having a lot of guys rotate in, and having to build that chemistry together,” Mahomes said. “I think it’s brought those guys closer together, battling through good games, bad games, whatever they are.
“We ask a lot of those guys. We ask them to do a lot of different things that not a lot of teams do. And it usually helps us out a ton. But I think having a game like the Falcons game, it teaches us that we need to make sure that we’re clear and definitive with what we’re calling and what we’re trying to do.”
The 2020 Chiefs had four months to show who they are. Teams are not remade in the postseason. That’s not how this works.
But for all the time spent on flaws and strengths visible against the Falcons or any other previous opponent, it’s also worth remembering how much time the Chiefs will have had without a game.
Next weekend’s playoff game will be analyzed and remembered for the three hours or so it lasts. But the result could turn on how well the Chiefs will have have used these three weeks or so to improve.
This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 5:00 AM.