I’m not willing to accuse the Colts of laying an egg this week. We just experienced what the rest of the league has felt for the last six or seven years, in that it is an extremely low odds proposition
to go into Arrowhead and beat that team in a win or go home game. If you missed it during the broadcast, their win yesterday moves them to 15 – 1 over those last 16 home games. I realize saying that will lead many to determine that I am giving the team the dreaded “Moral victory” and maybe I am in some aspects of the game, particularly on defense.
The defensive effort was playoff win worthy. They forced two turnovers, one of which provided the lead that was kept until the game tying FG as regulation time expired. Mahomes was sacked 4 times, albeit for only 7 yards and we helped him miss on 17 of his 46 passes. I guess you could say we stopped him on 21 of his 50 drop backs. We held them to 3.6 per carry on the ground. We did allow them to possess the ball for 42:35 of the 68 minutes played.
I’ll also give the special teams a win on the day. We were better at returning kicks and better at changing the field with our punts. The only blemish would be losing the FG kicking contest by a 5 – 2 score.
We lost yesterday because one of the guys on the sidelines has been in charge for 73 playoff games. He boiled the plan down to doing your best not to let the opponent’s best player beat you. He accomplished this both on defense by by stacking boxes and sending run blitzes, and on offense by possessing the ball. He stuck with it, even when it wasn’t perfectly clear that it was working.
Unfortunately, that guy wasn’t on our sideline. Steichen may at some point become a top 5 coach in this league, but on the needle that has seen him everywhere from “hotseat” to “Coach of the Year candidate”, he moved closer to the former option on Sunday. You simply have to have a better plan of how to beat the same strategy that you have been shown for three straight games now. For lack of a better comparison, our guy is like a young baseball player who starts out with some success, until pitchers get a book on him. The good hitters adjust when pitchers have adjusted to him. Shane didn’t use his week in AAA to figure out how to attack the new approach that pitchers are taking.
Jones wasn’t great, but we could win a lot of games with a 19 – 31, two TDs, and no turnovers. Hell, it almost won this one. But those stats have to accompany a running game that does a hell of a lot better than 74 yards on 19 carries, with only 16 going to your league leading rusher and MVP candidate. For much of the season Jones was hitting layups, but teams are putting that 7 footer in the lane and making us take a different shot.
I think we are catching a little break from the national media, because they are focusing on the Chiefs doing what they had to do, rather than beating up the Colts for what has to be called a choke job on the offensive side of the ball. National talking heads really do not think less of us for losing. They don’t think more of us for extending the champs to OT. The likely truth is that they really would prefer not to think of us at all. We as fans are essentially taking this worse than the national media, because frankly, they do not have the same expectations that many of us do or did, or didn’t, then did, and now don’t. All clear?
Like many, I am placing the lion’s share of this loss on the head coach. Some would like to say that losing to the best team in football over the last seven years, in their building, in a game that they had to win, while being a 3.5 point underdog, in overtime, was a good showing. I’d agree if we’d simply lost a shoot out to them. We were the top two ranked offenses, so seeing us make the mistake of leaving Mahomes too much time with the last possession, would have been more palatable. Losing when you only gave up 20 points in regulation and seeing your weaknesses exposed for the third consecutive week, feels much worse. Especially when you closed out the game with four consecutive 3-and-outs on offense.
So yeah, in a piling on moment, I am putting the brunt of the loss on Steichen. I call him Steichen when I’m pissed and Shane when I am happy or encouraging him. The one thing that I am not going to beat him up on, is taking the ball to start OT. A Google search to the question “Are NFL coaches choosing the ball or kicking off for overtime in NFL game?”, produce the answer “NFL coaches are choosing whether to receive the ball or kick off for overtime, and the decision is being split almost evenly since the new rules were implemented to guarantee both teams a possession.” Here is an article from ESPN: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/46150828/nfl-new-regular-season-ot-rules-coin-toss-two-point-conversion
I believe if you are saying it is a slam dunk to kick, you are ignoring the argument for taking the ball. I’m saying that you should not have a preconceived decision and that all OTs are not created equal. What has happened over the previous 60 minutes, has to be weighed. I’d point to a couple of game flows to see me in favor of taking the ball.
1st. The defense had just been on the field for a 15 play drive, where they were able to hold the Chiefs to a FG to force OT. Our offense had held the ball for 3:14 seconds in the 4th quarter. Our defense had been on the field for 91 plays. Asking them to strap it back up after a very quick turnaround, would have been too big of an big ask in my opinion.
2nd. Even though both teams are guaranteed a possession, they are not guaranteed equal time for that possession. The period is only 10 minutes, so if you use eight of them to score, you give your D an advantage. This is what really needed to happen. We needed a long scoring drive to let our defense rest and allow them to do what they had done for much of regulation for a small length of time.
3rd. Unless you are going to beat Steichen up for taking the ball to start each game, eschewing the strategy to score at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half, you should not be beating him up for continuing to want the ball in his offense’s hands.
So, in closing, I’m willing to blame SS for not throwing rocks during a rock fight. I’m willing to blame him for not figuring out how to have his offense beat the pressure of run blitzes. I’m also willing to blame him for not doing “something” different. Don’t you have to at some point show some no huddle sets? Don’t let them sub according to the situation. But, I’m not going to beat him for his decision to take the ball in OT.
As always, I appreciate your input as you let me know just how much of yesterday’s loss you are heaping on our head coach. For those of you who still want to blame SS for taking the ball, I’ll hear you out, but I will have to just agree to disagree with you on that.
