I’ll credit the defense for keeping us alive in the loss vs. the Chiefs. They didn’t play exceptionally, but there were three straight drives where we stopped them. That’s a moral victory!
The offense is still not very good. Malik Willis is proving to be average at best. It seems like every deep ball he threw was into double coverage, where our WR wasn’t even close to being open. I don’t know why he’s throwing those balls instead of running or just waiting for someone to get open. The short crossing routes are better for him, but his long game makes me miss Tua and Hill. A lot.
Now onto our inept head coach.
First, how the hell does Hafley only dress two RBs? This is a ludicrous game plan, and they proved me right on only the 5th play of the game. Asking tiny WR Malik Washington to take RB snaps when Ollie Gordon had to leave the game was simply embarrassing. For all of Hafley talk about discipline and good decision-making, he has to start by looking in the mirror…AND looking at the fact that every other roster in the NFL has three or four active RBs on game day.
Hafley’s clock management was horrendous. End of the 1st half, we were in field goal range on 4th down and 5. Maybe Hafley didn’t trust Patterson to make a 57-yarder. I get that. Then the other option is to go for it. Malik is decent at picking up 5 yards here and there, and it was a makable distance.
Hafley did neither. He took a delay of game penalty and punted the ball to Mahomes.
At this point, it worked out well, because we pinned them deep. We stopped them on first down. Any other coach in the NFL would have used his timeout in hope of getting the ball back at midfield with maybe 30 seconds left. But not brainiac Hafley.
He refused to take advantage of the fact that the Chiefs were pinned deep. He let them get away with it. Amateur coaching mistake.
Skip ahead to the second half, and this time Hafley decides to go for it on 4th down. The play call came in late. The offense was scrambling into position, confused. The play clock was clicking down 3, 2, 1… Surely Hafley would call a timeout to discuss this important 4th-down play, right? Nope. He refused to use a timeout in a situation where the whole world saw that we were hurrying, and we weren’t lined up correctly. The result is just what you’d expect. A failed play. KC’s ball.
Asking a head coach to have a proper, sound knowledge of basic football strategy is NOT too much too ask. But clearly our coach doesn’t have it.