Views from the Game…
Joe Johnson
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I went to the game, sober, for the first time. EVAR. Apparently football games have TWO halves?!
Sigh… I want to be happy. I do. We won. That’s great. Our defense played great, per the new usual standard. But, it was one of those wins that just felt off.
The first half was extremely relaxing, outside of that first drive INT. We were rocking a shut out, we were moving the ball enough for our defense to rest, and the player I’ve called the Steal of the Draft since… the draft… Dominated.
But, AD couldn’t run. Which we kinda expected, or at least I did (KC has a 70 yard average against the run), but the plays we ran for Teddy were disconcerting to say the least. I don’t think that we should abandon the run as often as we have been, however. Teddy is clearly struggling, and while KC was knocking us back. A LOT. We still need to take some pressure off of Teddy’s shoulders.
And while clearly they are running the same pass play for Teddy everytime there are too many men in the box. That’s not what I’m talking about. If we continue to run, we can work the play action a bit more. We also don’t seem to throw any slants, or anything other than the same exact play. Over and over.
Every completion, or most of them, were the same exact play flipped horizontally every other snap. Diggs/Wallace would run 15 yards up the field, then turn back/towards the sideline, take advantage of the zone cushion, and pick up a first down.
It worked. Until Andy Reid went into the locker room during halftime (and after he devoured 15 lbs of plankton) and made the necessary adjustments to stop that wide opening.
After that? Bridgewater looked like a different QB. He couldn’t complete much, and we stalled.
I don’t know if Norv doesn’t trust Teddy to throw seam routes, or any plays that allow yards after the catch (Wright’s first catch notwithstanding). But, it shows that Teddy isn’t the ELITE QB we (myself included, kinda) thought he was. Yet.
So. We won. Our defense played good, despite not having Griffen and thus having basically no pash rush. Kendricks was picked on, as was Waynes. But, 10 pts? You can’t ask for much more than that. But, 16? Come on…
Sidenote: Kansas City fans. This isn’t a faux riverboat casino, it’s a stadium in which your 1-4 team was shut out for the first half. STOP CHANTING the EXACT same chant that the Braves did during the ’91 World Series. If you’re going to be obnoxious, pick the right time and be original.