Week 4 Thoughts: Red Alert!

Several Chiefs defenders react to a horrible personal foul call against Jarrad Page

Ok, so going in all of us who were realistic knew there was little chance the Chiefs would win this one. Let's not forget that just two seasons ago the Giants won the Super Bowl with roughly the same team. No, the outcome was not in doubt, especially not after the Giants were given a gift on the game's opening play. The bigger problem that emerged yesterday is that after four preseason games and four regular season games, the Chiefs have absolutely no identity on offense. Since I've been openly critical of Jason Whitlock here, I will point out that he nailed it today in his column.

I did something new yesterday as I watched the game. I sat with a notebook and journaled every play, which was both effective and enlightening. Here are my thoughts on the game:

• Third Down Breakdown: Last week we were 0/11 on third down, which led me to want to dig deeper and see how many of those were third and long situations. Yesterday we faced the following distances on third down: 8, 5, 10, 10, 9, 8, 13, 18, 7, 12, 11, 7, Goal (from the 11), Goal (from the 2), 27. That means we faced a third and short ONE TIME! 14/15 third downs were long - most of them very long. If my math is correct, these numbers mean that on the series when we got to third down, our average gain between first and second down was -1 yard! You could do better by intentionally spiking the ball on first and second down!!
  
  For the game we were 2/15 on third down. The two we converted were on third and 8 (an 18 yard pass to Engram) and third and 7 (a 12 yard scramble by Cassel). Third down isn't really the problem - first and second down are. When your average third down play needs 11 yards, you're not going to be very successful.
  
  
• Second down break down: these were our yards to go on second down: 2, 5, 10, 10, 6, 8, 13, 14, 7, 12, 11, Goal (from 1), 7, 15, Goal (from 6), Goal (from 11), Goal (from 1), 8, 15. Our average distance to go on 2nd down was 8.5 yards!
  
  
• So what's happening on 1st down? Not much! Here are our first down gains for the game (R=run, P=pass): 2R, 8R, 5R, 0R, 0P, 4R, 16R!, 2R, 2R, -4P (sacked), 3R, 3R, 19R!, -2R, -2P, 7R, 1P (TD), 3P, -5R, 0P, 0P, 7R (QB scramble), -5R. So to summarize: of the 23 plays listed here (I didn't include the last play of the game) we chose to run (here I'm not counting the scramble) 15 times. We had two big gains (16 and 19), lost yardage three times, and gained less than four yards seven more times. Our average gain running on first down was 2.93 yards. Whew.
  
  But that's actually BETTER than what we did when we tried to throw on first down! Only three times did we even complete a pass on first down: -2 yards on a screen pass, a 1 yard TD to Sean Ryan and a 3 yard dump pass to LJ. That's 3 of our 8 first down passes. The other five were: incomplete deep to Bradley (who was open), -4 sack (empty backfield), incomplete to Pope from the 1, incomplete at LJ's feet from the 1 and Cassel scrambling for 7 yards. It's bad no matter how you summarize: Our first down completions averaged .67 yards (COVER YOUR EYES!) and if you factor in Cassel's scrambles and yards lost on sacks, our attempts at passing on first down netted us 5 yards (an average of .625 yards per play).
  
  
• As of now, I am anti-Matt Cassel. There's no other conclusion to make from the stats above. Someone will surely comment that he doesn't have time to throw. Sometimes that was true, but the thing that gets me is that he isn't even TRYING! I'm tired of looking at stats and adding up numbers or I would continue to build my case. But the guy just doesn't look down the field. It wasn't until the fourth quarter that he made a "long" pass completion (20 yards in the air) which turned into a 43 yard gain for TE Sean Ryan. How about that?! Our longest play of the season! When we actually T R I E D. Ug.
  
  What's even worse here is I don't think Todd Haley believes in Cassel either, because far too often he's calling run plays and screen passes and never tries to take the big shot down the field. The guy can't hit the deep ball and is too worried about his protection to look down field and try to complete a decent pass. It's just dump pass after dump pass. Last week he was 14/18 for 90 stinking yards. Until Matt Cassel does something to prove me wrong, I am officially in the "we wasted a lot of money signing this guy" camp.
  
  
• What was with the play calling? While we're at it, let's question what in the world Haley was doing calling the plays that he did. Starting out in the Wildcat was bizarre and ineffective. Going empty backfield meant the Giants could just pin their ears back and go after Cassel, which they did with ease. What I really don't understand is why we never let the run set up play action. LJ broke off some good gains in there. Why not follow one of those up with a play fake and try to go deep? The Giants said before the game that they still respected LJ (which could have been blowing smoke) but they definitely had to pay attention to him all day. But alas, I know why we didn't try to go deep: because Cassel can't do it. Fans who followed the Patriots last year have already pointed out that even with Randy Moss he couldn't hit the deep ball - why would it be any different now? I sure hope to be proven wrong, but I have a bad feeling about this.
  
  
• Other negatives: It looked like Ryan Succop had an outside chance of recovering the onside kick, but he went alligator arms and didn't sell out for the recovery. Bummer. Why go anti-pass all day and then refuse to run when you're close to the goal line? It would sure be nice to see Bowe and Wade hang on to the ball more often. (And for the record, those were still short gainers that they dropped.) What's with the announcers gushing over Matt Cassel? I'm tired of it. Even on his TD pass to Wade he actually overthrew Battle and got lucky Wade was there in the back of the end zone. Last one: even the refs hate us. Late in the game the Giants got a 15 yard facemask on an attempted sack of Cassel. Unfortunately the officials only gave us ten yards for it.
  

Enough doom and gloom, I guess... on to some positives:

• Carr is a player! As I went back through my notes, I was pleased to see how often I had written about Carr making a good defensive play. He and Flowers are very solid and give us something to be happy about.
  
• It's a good thing we have Colquitt. He consistently boomed long, high punts all day, temporarily helping out the team. I wonder if he can throw deep...
  

And unfortunately, that's all the positives I have. I did enjoy taking detailed notes of the game and might turn that into a regular habit. Hopefully I'll continue to develop a better system that will allow me to dig deeper into the game. I let the defense off the hook yesterday, but I might try and break down some of that as well. I'm also interested in specific formations that we ran on offense and what the situations and successes were of those.

The surprisingly 4-0 Broncos held off the Cowboys yesterday, so I expect Dallas to come right out and punch the Chiefs in the mouth. My prediction: it still won't be pretty... 30-10? I want to see the Chiefs throw more on 1st down (but not from an empty backfield) and actually throw it down the field. I'd also like to see them develop some play action passes when the run works, not just (what looks to me like) calling it randomly.