Wild Card Special - Chiefs at Texans

So here we go. The Play-offs are finally here and the 1^st game is down to be a close one. Chiefs traveling to Houston. Chiefs had been playing some solid ball down the stretch and were coming into this one of the back of a 10 game winning streak. Houston made it in after scraping through the terrible AFC South, however they had won 4 of their last 5 home games only losing to the Pats in week. These 2 teams had met before, all the way back in week 1, when Kansas racked up a big early lead with Houston making a fight back to make the result a bit more respectable. Hoyer was benched in that game for Mallet, who is no longer on the roster.

This game was over early, so it no surprise that the plays I will be showing you are in the 1^st Half of the football game.

Our opening play, is the opening play of the game. The Kick-off. This play can easily set the tone for the 1^st few drives, big plays on either side can give your team a huge boost. So let’s look at the play and see what happens.

So this is the Alignment for the opening Kick-Off. Chiefs have a 6-man front line, 1 player watching for the chip, and 3 lead blockers. Knile Davis is the player circled up in the centre of the End zone.

At the moment of the kick the Blockers start moving back and towards the Left Hash if we were the return team. What leads me to think this is a called return to the Left is the aggressive block attempt at the bottom left of the picture. To spring a return, you need good blocking at the point of attack, to take it all the way you need to block the ‘safeties’. This I think, without scouting the Texans Kick-Off unit, is an attempt to hamper one of the safeties.

So once the returner has caught the ball and the Blockers have turned to face the coverage team, you can see that the front line players have created an angled wall of blockers. 2 of the Lead blocker have created a Wedge, with the 3^rd sitting just behind them. The Wall of blockers are going to do their best at stopping anyone to their right get across or behind them. The Wedge is going to work on the 2 remaining coverage players on the return side, and the last remaining lead blocker is going to clean up the most dangerous coverage player that slips through the Wall. The Texan circled at the bottom right of the pic is the ‘free player’, he should make the tackle if everyone else is blocked correctly.

You can see here, as the play has rolled on, the tight lane created for Davis to get the initial yards. The Texan circled is the same player from the pic before, and you can see, he has come too far inside almost expecting Davis to cut the return back towards the middle of the field.

Davis doesn’t cut it back. #21, a different Texan, is still looking inside. He has no idea that Davis has all the space in the world, thanks to the great block to the right of the pic, and no one between him and the End zone. So it becomes a footrace between Davis and the ‘half-blocked’ Linebacker. It is only going to end one way, with the Chiefs 3^rd string Running back in the End zone untouched.

This play gives the Chiefs an early 7-point lead. This is not what you want if your Brain Hoyer and the Houston Texans. You know from 1^st hand experience how hard it is to come about against this Defence, now you’ve just made your life harder by giving up points on ST.

We skip ahead to the 2^nd Quarter with only 3:53 remaining in the Half. Hoyer has turned the ball over twice already and Kansas have added 2 FGs to make the score 13-0. The Texans finally have themselves going on Offence on a big run from Running back Alfred Blue. They now find themselves running their Goal Line offence.

Though some people have, a problem about the play call on 1^st down, I am going to look at the 2^nd down play. Let look at the full situation for the Texans, they are 13-0 down and are really not playing well. You have to run your full Goal Line set. So I understand your 1^st play call. Sure, you are trying to do something a bit different that might get you an easy score if the D misaligns or misplays the formation. It was obviously part of the game plan as it is the 1^st play they ran. It fails, fine. Now run the normal stuff. And this is what we get…

We get a 2X2 formation with a Stack on both sides. We have a motion at the bottom of the pic with the back man on the Stack moves inside and runs a Quick Out under the Fade by the Receiver outside him. At the top of the pic we see Houston’s best Receiver, Hopkins in the lead position, running a nice little double move route. Starting out straight, making it look like he’s going to head to the back pylon, then cutting inside to sit in the space he’s just created. The Receiver in behind him is going to run off anyone that sitting inside the Stack, making sure Hopkins has space to come back into, and then head to the back pylon. The HB has a responsibility to make sure no-one gets the QB off the left edge, then to sit in front of the QB as a dump off.

From the line up of the Defence and the route combos he has, Hoyer will have worked out how he wants to make his reads. He should Peak at the Quick Out quickly, and if that is not on he should make a read on the combo on the other side of the field either hitting Hopkins or going to the back pylon on the throw away…

He makes his peak to the Quick Out and rightly turns it down as you will see in a later pic. So we would now expect him to flip to the other side of the field. On a side note, Chiefs only end up sending 3. This will become important in the next pic.

Hoyer thinks he is under pressure, expecting Kanas to send the 5 that were lined up in a rush position. They don’t, this confused the OL, meaning that the NT #92 gets left 1 on 1 with the Center. This is not the match-up the Texans wanted. Hoyer sees this panics and goes straight to his Dump-off, which it he is Running back…

Fine you think, it is what the route is there for, but what Hoyer hasn’t seen is the Linebacker reading his eyes and making a move towards the passing lane.

The Throw itself that wans’t great due to the pressure, making the Linebackers job too easy. The ball is caught and returned in an instant.

This just kills you as a team. Why pass the ball on 2^nd down? In addition, if you are going to pass, why is it not a quick jump ball to Hopkins? Your best receiver. Houston must have been in 4 down mode. You need to get yourself back in the game, be that scoring a TD or putting the Chiefs Offense back on the field with their QB standing in the End zone. What you can’t do it throw that pick! My god, take the sack if you have to and settle for a FG. Just a boggling play call and even worse execution by a QB that might not have a Job this time next year.