Because of all the interest in this thread, I've place all of the video content of Patrick Mahomes II's college career, and draft day goodness into a single post that can be found here. Enjoy! [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
I think teams need to blitz Mahomes, but they have to do it sporadically.
You're not going to find a 'plan' against him anymore. He's just seen too much. But you can try to get him caught in a rocking chair.
Think of it this way - the best hitters in the world will hit any fastball you throw them if it's all you have. And they'll hit any breaker if they recognize it's coming.
But even the greatest hitters can get caught in the middle. They can get sped up ahead of an off-speed pitch. Or slowed down behind a fastball. And when you get them there even once or twice, you can keep them there because they start to over-analyze.
Now oftentimes, despite a pitchers best efforts, it still doesn't work. But it's the only way you'll be able to truly dominate a great player - get them 'in the rocking chair'.
So you have to intermittently blitz Mahomes to get him thinking. Then you just kinda hope. You hope he gets himself caught in between. So I'd say blitzing 20-30% of the time and blitzing at erratic times/situations is how you have to approach him.
And don't get me wrong - it PROBABLY won't work. But it might. And 'might' is the best you can hope for when you're facing an immortal.
That and just hope that he has an off half or game. He's been shown to have those from time to time. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
I think teams need to blitz Mahomes, but they have to do it sporadically.
You're not going to find a 'plan' against him anymore. He's just seen too much. But you can try to get him caught in a rocking chair.
Think of it this way - the best hitters in the world will hit any fastball you throw them if it's all you have. And they'll hit any breaker if they recognize it's coming.
But even the greatest hitters can get caught in the middle. They can get sped up ahead of an off-speed pitch. Or slowed down behind a fastball. And when you get them there even once or twice, you can keep them there because they start to over-analyze.
Now oftentimes, despite a pitchers best efforts, it still doesn't work. But it's the only way you'll be able to truly dominate a great player - get them 'in the rocking chair'.
So you have to intermittently blitz Mahomes to get him thinking. Then you just kinda hope. You hope he gets himself caught in between. So I'd say blitzing 20-30% of the time and blitzing at erratic times/situations is how you have to approach him.
And don't get me wrong - it PROBABLY won't work. But it might. And 'might' is the best you can hope for when you're facing an immortal.
I agree. I think you don't try to trick him. You play games with him on the pre-snap read, he'll lock in, figure you out and rape your stupid soul.
I think you have to hope he checks out for a bit. The reality is there is only so much mental capacity. That's why it is so hard to repeat. That's why we go fucking batshit crazy about shit like the Colts game (fucking colts :-) ).
I think you have to get into the mental shortcuts that we're all going to take and blitz from a normal starting position. Showing a blitz and then blitzing, you're fucked unless our tackles suck. Try to fake us out, he'll figure it out, and you're fucked. I think you need to pick some down in the middle of a drive and go get him. But your best shot is to catch him while he's checked out mentally. Which is definitely a gamble. Similarly, it might be prudent to bail on a coverage late and try to get under a pass to Juju or Kelce. Again, he can't be locked in, or he's going to where you came from. But honestly I'd just try to get home with 4 and hope he's having an off day. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Hammock Parties:
I'd start blitzing him on first down if I was a DC.
Off chance you get an incomplete or a sack and force him into a long yardage situation.
I could even support taking a random number generator from 1-50, telling it to grab 25% of the numbers scattered throughout there and blitzing him on whatever numbers it pulls up.
I'm serious when I say it should be erratic as hell.
The point isn't to catch him napping - it's to just try to get him out of sorts. And if there's just no rhyme or reason whatsoever to when you're sending pressure, you might be able to get him thinking more.
I'm serious when I say that you show NO pattern whatsoever. You take it completely off the script. You just throw a monkey with a machine gun into the mix and see how shit shakes out.
Oh sure, the monkey may turn around and mow down all your guys - but lord, what other choices do you really have? [Reply]
Originally Posted by Hammock Parties:
keep blitzing reeruns
No QB has faced more man coverage this season. That's interesting. Couple different ways you could take that, i suppose.
1. Mahomes has elevated his game to the point where zone coverages are just getting shredded.
Or
2. Teams feel comfortable playing our WR's in man coverage, which could indicate that they're not great at beating it.
Or
3. Our run game has become so effective that teams are stacking boxes and playing the run game more often, which could result in the usage of more man coverages.
Or
4. All of the above. Mahomes is simply that much better at beating zones, and our WR's w/o Hardman and Hill are that much easier to defend in Man, therefore it's less risky to play man than Zone. And with the added effect of the run game working, teams are finding themselves in more man coverages anyway.
Originally Posted by Detoxing:
No QB has faced more man coverage this season. That's interesting. Couple different ways you could take that, i suppose.
1. Mahomes has elevated his game to the point where zone coverages are just getting shredded.
Or
2. Teams feel comfortable playing our WR's in man coverage, which could indicate that they're not great at beating it.
Or
3. Our run game has become so effective that teams are stacking boxes and playing the run game more often, which could result in the usage of more man coverages.
Or
4. All of the above. Mahomes is simply that much better at beating zones, and our WR's w/o Hardman and Hill are that much easier to defend in Man, therefore it's less risky to play man than Zone. And with the added effect of the run game working, teams are finding themselves in more man coverages anyway.
/shrug
I think it's 2 and 4. Teams were playing us aggressively in man I believe long before our run game became effective this season (ie, during the dark days of CEH). [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
I could even support taking a random number generator from 1-50, telling it to grab 25% of the numbers scattered throughout there and blitzing him on whatever numbers it pulls up.
I'm serious when I say it should be erratic as hell.
The point isn't to catch him napping - it's to just try to get him out of sorts. And if there's just no rhyme or reason whatsoever to when you're sending pressure, you might be able to get him thinking more.
I'm serious when I say that you show NO pattern whatsoever. You take it completely off the script. You just throw a monkey with a machine gun into the mix and see how shit shakes out.
Oh sure, the monkey may turn around and mow down all your guys - but lord, what other choices do you really have?
What is probably more important than showing no pattern to blitzing is to hide it better. If he picks it up bad things happen for the other team. He’s getting Manning/Brady like in his ability to see them coming. [Reply]
Originally Posted by tredadda:
What is probably more important than showing no pattern to blitzing is to hide it better. If he picks it up bad things happen for the other team. He’s getting Manning/Brady like in his ability to see them coming.
The only way teams can truly 'hide' blitzes is if the opposing OC gets lazy or stupid.
You fall into a 'pattern' on your snap counts and cadences and you can eventually start disguising your blitzes. Or if the QB is just a slow processor.
But if you have a quick processor, your blitz has to be timed perfectly. And to time it, you've gotta hit the snap count right. And if the opposing O is mixing that snap count up, that makes it awfully difficult. Especially so with the amount of motion the Chiefs include in their offense.
"In five seasons as a starter, his lowest season-long completion percentage is 65.9 percent; his fewest TDs thrown is 26; his career high in interceptions is 13; his career high in sacks is 28; his career low in rushing yards is 218. Without even mentioning Mahomes’s best statistical category—he has thrown over 4,000 yards in all five of his years as a starter—we can put those numbers together as a sort of Frankenstein’s monster of the worst parts of Mahomes’s career: 65.9 percent completion percentage, 218 rushing yards, 26 TDs, 13 interceptions, 28 sacks. Here is a list of every quarterback in NFL history who had even one season that matched or bested the combined worst performances of Mahomes’s career:
Lamar Jackson (2019)
Josh Allen (2020)
Kyler Murray (2020)
Mahomes, of course, has reached or surpassed those marks five times in five years. He is a unicorn. He is one of one." [Reply]
