Chargers defensive strategy for Week 2 plays right into Chiefs’ hands
The Los Angeles Chargers have had some success slowing down the Kansas City Chiefs offense recently. In fact, they’re the only AFC West team to have defeated the Chiefs while Patrick Mahomes has been the starting quarterback.
During the past two games between these teams, Kansas City has won handily, and we all know that almost doesn’t count in the NFL. So what will the Chargers do differently this time around? The strategy that Los Angeles hopes to employ might actually play right into the hands of the 2020 version of the Chiefs.
“Every time they have to check it down or get a 5-yard, 6-yard gain, that’s not who they want to be,” Chargers DB Rayshawn Jenkins said, via The Athletic. “As long as we can get them to be that team, to check it down, then I feel like we, as a defense, can have success as an entire unit.”
The Chargers want to limit the big-play offense that Kansas City has become known for according to Jenkins. The only problem with that is, the Chiefs already wanted to find a better balance between efficiency and making big plays this season.
You might have noticed that in Week 1, Mahomes played an uncharacteristic game. His longest pass of the evening went for 19 yards, but he still finished the day with a 75% completion percentage, 211 yards and three touchdowns. Absent of explosive plays, the offense looked like a well-oiled machine.
“Yeah, it was funny, Chad (Henne) and Matt (Moore) both said it was one of my best games I’ve played,” Mahomes said of Week 1. “They said I actually took the check-downs and didn’t just try to force it down the field when it wasn’t there. It’s something that I’ve learned from those veteran guys. I’ve learned from Coach Reid.”
Just because the Chiefs didn’t have any receptions greater than 19 yards in Week 1, doesn’t mean their offense was any less effective. They proved that they don’t need the big plays to score quickly and that should horrify the rest of the NFL. Mahomes has already, through one game, impressed some of his new teammates with how quickly he can get the team in position to score.
“I think we had a drive where, I don’t know, I want to say there were less than 40 seconds left or something like that to score,” Chiefs LG Kelechi Osemele told reporters on Friday. “We wanted to get some points before the half and Fish (Eric Fisher) looks at me in the huddle and is like, ‘Watch this.’ We were pretty far back down there too and we just drove it down the field. And the way he (Patrick Mahomes) managed the game, I don’t want to say effortless because we all know how hard he works off the field and studies, but it was pretty smooth. The operation was pretty smooth, he got up to the line smooth, his cadence was smooth, it just clicked and gelled and it was fast. Before you know it we scored right before the half. . . . It’s only been one game, but I’m pretty excited having seen that, how fast he’s capable of scoring. That was pretty cool to see.”
The Chiefs don’t intend to put a muzzle on Mahomes’ natural ability and his penchant toward big plays. However, the natural evolution for Mahomes as an NFL quarterback is to better learn to exploit what the defense is giving him. That’s a goal for this season and they believe they have an arsenal of weapons to make it happen.
“All of us want to go for the big shot, all of us want to go for the touchdown pass every single time,” Mahomes said. “But if defenses are going to play us back and play us in coverage, I’m going to take the stuff underneath and let the guys make plays, find ways to score and find ways to win football games.”
Instead of allowing themselves to get gashed by the big plays, the Chargers intend to go by the way of 1,000 paper cuts. After what has been said following Week 1, Mahomes and the rest of the Chiefs offense will happily oblige.
