Andy Reid famously tapped into the Air Raid offense Patrick Mahomes operated at Texas Tech before the first season as the Kansas City Chiefs full-time starter in 2018, and now the future Hall of Fame coach is tinkering with his roots in the West Coast offense again.
Through two games in the playoffs, the Chiefs have utilized 13 personnel — one running back and three tight ends — on a whopping 23.7% of their offensive snaps. Those 29 plays in that personnel grouping is 25 more than any other team. Striking disparity.
On those plays, the Chiefs have averaged 5.9 yards, including a sizable 5.5 yards per rush. Patrick Mahomes has completed 5-of-7 passes for 49 yards with a touchdown out of 13 personnel.
Comparatively, during the regular season, the Chiefs came out in 13 personnel on 7.4% of their offensive snaps. It was a minuscule part of their attack.
Integral to Mahomes winning his first postseason road game was this grouping that clearly aimed to exploit the Buffalo Bills’ depleted linebacker group down Matt Milano and Terrel Bernard. And it worked to perfection.
Notice how the Travis Kelce motion shifted Buffalo’s defense away from the eventual run direction. The Chiefs still had two tight ends — and a pulling tackle — to lead block on this 9-yard Isiah Pacheco run. These type of holes were frequent for the Chiefs en route to 146 yards on the ground for Kansas City at 6.1 yards per attempt.
The presence of those two tight ends — with Kelce drawing attention on the other side of the formation, gave Kansas City’s linemen time and space to get to the second level as pullers. Watch on this next play how No. 83, tight end Noah Gray, quickly engaged with defensive end, No. 90 Shaq Lawson, to turn him inside.
That meant it was No. 81, tight end Blake Bell, and No. 79, left tackle Donovan Smith, in one-on-one situations at the second level with two Bills…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/2024-nfl-playoffs-the-new-chiefs-wrinkle-thats-turned-offense-around-after-mediocre-regular-season/
Author : Chris Trapasso
Publish date : 2024-01-23 15:35:00
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