The Ringer NFL Show - Kansas City Chiefs: How They Could Repeat as Super Bowl Champions | The Play Sheet

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

In another "Anatomy of a Super Bowl Champion" preview video, The Ringer’s Ben Solak breaks down what makes this year's Kansas City Chiefs team potential repeat champions. Subscribe to the Ringer NFL channel to catch more Super Bowl preview content this week, and check out all the Ringer NFL podcasts on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Howdy? I'm Ben Solac. This is the Playsheet live from Radio Row. This is our third of three episodes that we're doing to preview the Super Bowl. The first was like matchup schemes that'll matter right, the X's and O's of the game. You can watch that here. You can also watch our anatomy of a contender for the San Francisco 49ers. We did that one yesterday. It's also here. Today we're doing anatomy of a contender for the Kansas City Chiefs. Okay, so how did the Chiefs make into the Super Bowl? Reason number one, Patrick Mahomes, ever heard of them? By every metric we have to describe quarterback play, this is supposed to have been like,

a bad Mahom's season by both expected points added and success rate, worst season of his career as a starter by far. He has never had to lower adjust to net yards per attempt. He has never thrown more passes behind the line of scrimmage. He has never had to scramble more. He's never had a lower explosive pass rate. Mahomes this season has the highest time to throw of his career and also the lowest depth of target of his career, which is not good. Like that's objectively bad. He's got to hold the ball longer to throw it shallower. It's not how it's supposed to work like at all. So if this is like theoretically the bad Mahomes season, then why pray tell? Okay, by what black magic and necromancy did the chiefs get back here? What it is actually pretty

cool. Like so much of Mahomes' career up to this point has been about the incredible plays that he's put on the field, like the deep downfield passes and the long scrambles. This season has been a lot more about like the negative plays that he's erased. The stuff that should have happened that was terrible, that he's been able to save the team from. This has been especially true in the post season for Mahomes. Last year's playoff, he took a sack on 2.9% of his dropbacks.

That is an astronomically low number. He also hasn't thrown an interceptable pass, not an interception, an interceptable pass in the last two post seasons. This post season, his sack rate is at 1.9%. Joe Flacco was the lowest on the season at 3.8%. The average is 6.8%. He doesn't have,

negative plays anymore. They're just gone. Let's watch some film, baby. Let's talk about erasing a negative play. This is third and 10, two minute drill, still a one possession game in the wild card round against the dolphins. Send a man in motion. What do we like here coverage-wise? What do we think we're getting? Ball's about to be snapped. This, like, the dolphins do a good job. They don't walk any of these linebackers up, but every single player here on the second level is coming. And then we are just locking man coverage across the board. Man coverage here. Man coverage. Man coverage. This is decently well disguised, right? This safety is low and that's suspicious.

But in general, they do a nice job hiding this. However, since they're sending rushers from depth, Mahomes does have a moment to see this coming, right? He has time in the pocket to realize, uh-oh, all that pressure. We don't have nearly enough bodies to stop this pressure. So now he's going to throw this slant to Rishi Rice, and he's going to start releasing it before Rice breaks, right? We're going to run through right here to hold this player,

and then it's just this man coverage right here. This looks pedestrian, okay? This looks very, very regular. When you see this, you're like, all right, Ben, why do I care about that play? Okay, nice throw, hit him in the face, mass catch, or whatever, but that's not special. End zone view.

What I want you to see from the end zone view is how quickly Mahomes speeds up his physical process to get rid of this ball. We're gonna play it just like at regular speed once. Okay, there's our pressure and there's the throw. Again, like this looks human. This looks like a thing that mortals do. This is not a thing.

that mortals do. Firstly, we're on drop timing, right? It's going to be a three-step drop, and then it's supposed to be, I think, a five-step drop. But he just kind of back-shuffles and lands that back foot down. So he speeds up the drop, because he already knows he's hot, right? No one is blocking this right here. They had five-down offensive linemen, and then Isaiah Bichiko took the sixth player. But Miami sent seven. They sent more than you can block, all right? So you know you're hot. You know you're going to get hit. So he speeds up his drop, and then watch how fast he loads his back foot and gets rid of this ball. See how he drops his hips into the ground

So that he can torque and get power on this Like like you usually have to step with your front foot and actually unlock your hips You have to twist them to get power on this throw He just kind of drops his weight and then pops out of the ground with the ball This is not human throwing I don't this is not real dude I don't understand the still as I'm watching it How he just kind of loads that back leg

Springs he can power from the ground up springs, throws this while he's getting hit, and it just hits for she rice in the face mask. That's so dumb. That's so freaking dumb. That sort of rush is supposed to end in a pressure, and at best, like an inaccurate pass that falls incomplete. Maybe you're getting a sack, maybe any hit on the throw in the balls in the air, and you can pick it off, you can return it, maybe you put points on the board.

And Mahomes just, like, erases all of the good stuff that was supposed to happen for the defense on his talent alone. We haven't even, like, folded in the rob into his Batman yet. And that's tight end Travis Kelsey. Mahomes can really survive all these defensive wins. He can erase all these negative plays, not just on his own, but with the pairing of Kelsey, with the chemistry that they have together.

Stephen Ruiz wrote a piece for us this week about those two, their connection in the scramble drill. Extremely cool stat from that piece here. On plays in which a quarterback is pressured, and the dropback takes more than three seconds, so you're entering like scramble drill mode, you're entering creation mode. Quarterbacks on average,

negative 0.36 EPA per play, Patrick Mahomes, 0.45 when targeting Kelsey. That's like better than the best quarterback. It's better than Brock Purdy this year on a regular dropback. If you get Mahomes pressured and off schedule, him targeting Kelsey is better than all other quarterbacks in their regular offense. Very stupid. Now, a big part of the Chiefs season, like their path here, has been about the poor play of the receivers. You've had drops from Michael Hartman and Cadarius Tony. You've had growth and improvement from Rishie Rice, but you've also had an older like long in the tooth Travis Kelsey season. We talked about this in our play sheet episode during the season about the chiefs receivers,

but Travis Kelsey's yards per reception, air yards per reception, yak per reception, they're all down this year. He's gotten over 18 miles per hour like once all season. He just doesn't move as fast as he used to. But even as the physical ability dwindles, the acumen, the mental ability, the connection with Patrick Bajolmes, the feel for space, the instinct for the position, all that remains. Okay, I feel like everybody's already seen this play because it's just,

hilarious. Travis Kelsey is right here and he doesn't run the route the way that he's supposed to run it. He talked about this on his podcast. And so Mahomes gets put in the scramble drill and Kelsey's running around and the home just to avoid pressure. And then while he's like falling backwards, he throws this and Travis Kelsey catches it and it's deeply hilarious. That's obviously an example of like their chemistry in the scramble drill. I love this example of their chemistry within structure. Okay. We have Travis Kelsey right here and he's going to end up running what is a flag route. It's a corner route. It's supposed to break into the sideline here. And if you were to draw this like on a playbook, right?

You kind of get into the wake here because Justin Watts is going to be on vertical as well. And then this can break hard into the boundary depending on coverage. Or it can kind of like bend up field depending on coverage, right? This is how you would draw it. It's like, okay, that break can be flat or it can be a little bit further deep downfield. What ends up happening here coverage-wise is the Ravens have like a little pressure look going on. They don't actually end up sending the pressure. They end up, you know, dropping some linebackers off the line of scrimmage.

And they're trying to, you know, occupy any routes like this, right? Like they're trying to get bodies and eyes on in-breaking routes. Well, what happens for Kelsey is Kelsey knows he's working to this area of the field. This vertical route is going this way. And out of the corner of his eye, he can see Kyle Hamilton, who's like, that's the player that's going to kind of be in his window. He can see Kyle Hamilton start to move this direction, start to go get connected to this flat route. And all right, you've got a deep safety right here.

And then there's just like a void. Like there's just, right, right, right here. It's just space. Like that space is clearly going to open up when Hamilton drives down And as this corner stays occupied by the vertical threat So Kelsey just like doesn't he doesn't stop running the route really But he just goes okay like I know where room is So I'm just gonna chill where there's room

He gets his head around fast. Mahomes is already throwing this Mahomes is already he's like yep I know that Kelsey is just gonna kind of curl here and sit So he's already releasing it which is very annoying and amazing And they just throw this to the void They just throw like you hear it all the time like oh just throw it away their space that's what this looks like this is what it looks like when you do that. You just throw, like, look at how he's like perfectly equidistant.

It's very funny. Equidistant from all three of these players. Like he found the void and he just sat there. Like this route was maybe supposed to do this. It was maybe supposed to do this. But Kelsey just decided to sit it down right here and Mahomes knew he was going to do it the whole time. That's chemistry.

Now the Mahomes and Kelsey connection is a key story of the chief's offense. It's what a many. You can talk about Isaiah Pacheco, talk about the running game, talk about where she writes has developed. element, but that I think has been the key one. It's Mahomes' new excellence and his relationship with Kelsey. However, any story about the Chief's Super Bowl run would be woefully incomplete without joy, without praise for Steve Spagnolo and this Chief's defense. Last season, the Chiefs

had a big youth movement on defense, right? It took a developmental year. They spent two first-round picks on corner Trent McDuffie and Eddruster George Carloftus. They were both day-one starters. Second-round picket safety, Brian Cook, third-round picket linebacker, Leo Chanel, both those guys were rotational players. They had two more corners on day three. Fourth round pick, Josh Williams, seventh round pick Jaylon Watson, who fought for the starting job pretty much all year. They put a super young roster on the field in 2022, and they knew they'd make mistakes, they knew they'd mess up, but they knew a brighter future was ahead. In 2023 now, the Chiefs are reaping what they sow defensively. EPA per drive they've jumped. 0.03 to 0.52. And the real magic,

the real fulcrum that led to that jump was the versatility in the defensive secondary. This season there have been key roles for McDuffie, for Williams, for Watson, for Cook, who he got injured midseason, but he was an important piece. They have a veteran safety tandem in Justin Reed and Mike Edwards, who was a free agent pickup this offseason. Cornerback Legerius Sneed has emerged as like a true corner one, seventh round corner nickel safety hybrid Chamari Connor. He's got a key role now in the postseason. They have so many dudes who can do so many different things, and that allows Spagnolo to call the sort of defense he wants to call. They lead the league in two high coverages, right? Split field safety rate. But they also are super high in in man coverage rate.

They will get up on the line of scrimmage. They will press you. They will bracket your star receiver. They lead the league in explosive pass rate surrender. No team makes it harder to hit a big chunk play through the air than the Kansas City Chiefs do. And last but not least, they blitz. They blitzing time. This is probably my favorite play from the Chief's entire season. Regular season against the Dolphins, third down, what are we doing? It could be a little press man coverage on the outside, man up, maybe play too deep. Wow. Oh, nice. Could be, oh, maybe Tampa 2, right? We have a little zone coverage. Get a Tampa 2 pull runner, zone underneath. Oh, interesting. What is it actually? We're going to blitz the corner off the side. All right? We're also bringing the linebacker.

George Carl Loftis, the edge rusher, is going to have to drop in underneath zone coverage as a reaction to the blitz. That lets the nickel become a new deep half safety, which lets this deep safety become the other deep half safety, which lets Justin Reed then become the man coverage defender over this receiver who the corner is blitzing from. And then we have a little crossfinder here. This guy's going to play any dig routes. and then we're going to have this corner staying outside. This is Spags, okay? This is what he comes up with laying at night. This is how he decides to play football.

And what's incredible is how well this chief secondary communicates, how well they time everything up, how they rotate these coverages. I just want you to watch poetry in motion as Tyreek Hill goes in motion. And you can just see the entire coverage rotate in a place, the coordination. It's like they're all on a string, right? Like, watch these three players. It looks like actually these four players. It looks like all of them are connected.

And as he goes, he yanks him, as he goes, he yanks him, as he goes, he yanks him. Like, you can feel them all move in concert. That's just straight good coaching. Free rush or off the edge to a sack. They got a pun. The Spag's chaos defense is really important to talk about with the chiefs, not just for like how they got here, but also what the rest of the league might learn from the chiefs and their potential eventual Super Bowl victory.

Because there's nothing really to learn from the Chief's offense, like go get Mahomes, not helpful information. Have a Travis Kelsey, nobody can do this. There's stuff to talk about with the running game and the RPO game, the investment in the offensive line, but in general, not a lot of lessons from the Chief's offense. The Chief's defense, on the other hand, I mean, think about it. They spent one first round pick on corner. Otherwise, it's been like day two picks and later. That's considered a premium position. People are paying out the wazoo for guys at cornerback, and Spag's got like a top five pass.

defense out of all dudes under the age of 26. The book on pressure in the league right now is pay an elite edge rusher, pay an elite outside rusher. The chiefs didn't do this. They have an elite defensive tackle and then a solid player in Charles of Menahue, a solid player in George Karloffis, but they believe in generating pressure with numbers, with manipulating your protection rules. Teams have gotten really good at like neutralizing a top edge rusher, double teams,

leaving him unblocked in the running game. They've gotten good at ignoring a top corner and kind of going after the other guys. you run this chaos defense with all these rotations and all these blitzes and different players playing in different roles, it becomes a lot harder for the offense to game plan around your best pieces. It's a lot easier as a defense to put your best pieces in a position to succeed. And Spags isn't the only guy doing this, right? Ravens' defense coordinator Mike McDonald, who just became the head coach of the Seahawks,

he is a coverage rotation and send pressure from depth defense coordinator. Brian Flores, the ex-dolphin's head coach, who's now the Vikings defensive coordinator, is like the most pressury of all pressure defense coordinator. He blitzed from like half his dropbacks this year. It's all about quarterback disruption. So many of the offenses in the league nowadays are based on timing, right? They're based on rhythm and precise ball placement. If you can disrupt those dudes, just get a grain of sand in the cogs of that machine,

you can be successful without elite players. Just look at who like the Cowboys are interviewing, right? They're bringing in Mike Zimmer and Rex Ryan to talk to about their defensive coordinator job. These are pressure package defensive coaches. the era of like a four-down rush dominating, we're swinging away from that right now. We're looking for blitzes, we're looking for overload pressures,

we're looking for disrupting quarterbacks in the pocket. Nobody does that better than Spags. And that'll do it. For us here on the play sheet, thank you so much for watching. Joining us here on Radio Row as we give you the Super Bowl experience. They get to McCorme-McConnell for producing the episode. Thinking Michael Sokolie for also producing the episode.

Thinking Ron McNair, he didn't really produce, but he's hanging around. We did it. We did all of our Super Bowl preview episodes. It was a great time. Watch and subscribe and then watch more when we do more later. Peace. Thank you.