My Gut Feeling Was The Play Calling Yesterday.

[MNWILD]

Just go with what's been working as of late, be consistent. Just my opinion.

[Guest]

Here was the first series:

Kickoff	(15:00 - 1st) H.Butker kicks 65 yards from KC 35 to end zone Touchback.
No Gain	1 & 10 - MIN 25(15:00 - 1st) K.Cousins pass incomplete short left to D.Cook [K.Saunders].
No Gain	2 & 10 - MIN 25(14:56 - 1st) K.Cousins pass incomplete short left to A.Thielen.
No Gain	3 & 10 - MIN 25(14:50 - 1st) K.Cousins pass incomplete deep middle to L.Treadwell.
Punt	4 & 10 - MIN 25(14:44 - 1st) B.Colquitt punts 47 yards to KC 28 Center-A.Cutting out of bounds.

Here's the second series:

Result	Play
+2 YD	1 & 10 - MIN 18(13:12 - 1st) D.Cook left tackle to MIN 20 for 2 yards (M.Pennel; A.Hitchens).
+5 YD	2 & 8 - MIN 20(12:37 - 1st) K.Cousins pass short left to C.Ham pushed ob at MIN 25 for 5 yards (C.Ward).
+2 YD	3 & 3 - MIN 25(11:59 - 1st) A.Abdullah left end to MIN 29 for 4 yards (R.Ragland; D.Sorensen). Kansas City challenged the first down ruling and the play was REVERSED. A.Abdullah left end to MIN 27 for 2 yards (R.Ragland; D.Sorensen).
Punt	4 & 1 - MIN 27(11:45 - 1st) B.Colquitt punts 42 yards to KC 31 Center-A.Cutting. M.Hardman to KC 33 for 2 yards (A.Abdullah).

It took the third series before Cook to really get involved and when they mixed it up they moved the ball and scored at 2:54 in the first quater.

[Guest]

Yup.  Stef needs to figure out these road games.

[Guest]

It's not just Stefanski, Zimmer does too. NE, Indy & HOU all beat the Chiefs by playing Man and/or doubling Kelce and Hill. The Lion almost beat them doing the same thing.

So Zimmer trots at his zone and doesn't double either player. Doesn't blitz early. And when he did blitz the Chiefs looked ready and picked it up. No A gap looks to confuse a journeyman backup QB. No exotic pressures with Smith or Mac. Very little NASCAR with a DE rushing from a Tackle spot. 

And that 2nd & long call at the end was awful. Rushes 3 but still doesn't double Kelce. Or if he did then Harrison Smith blew it cuz he was like 5 yards away. And 3rd & short he leaves poor Waynes singled again on Hill, who was crushing him all day.

Total crap gameplan from Zimmer. Worse, actually, than Stefanski. At least he anticipated the stacked box and tried to throw them out of it. Zimmer came in vanilla and never adjusted.

[Guest]

I didn't have a problem with the play calling. In fact, I thought Stef called a good game. Chiefs took away Cook, Mattison and Diggs and he adjusted well by using a lot of Rudy, Irv, Bisi, Treadwell, Abdullah and Ham. 

Matt Moore was hot, Cousins was not. That's the biggest story of the game IMO. And then we lost the game of inches about 6 to 2. Missed extra point by a foot. Barr saying he got a piece of the game winning kick. Another half inch. Cousins overthrows Diggs. Another 6 inches. Moore completes similar pass to Hill. Inches. Cousins slides short of the 1st down. What happened on that play when we appear to get a sack, maybe even a fumble, but Zim called timeout. Seconds. Inches. There was so much of that in this one. 

[Guest]

Only referring to our offense here.


I think we weren’t ready for them to play the defense that
they did.  I think they were clearly
stacking the box on almost every play, such that they were going to kill the
run and the play action boot/roll out game. 
I think it took us out of our strengths and we just didn’t have anything
that we’re good at to compensate.  I
think in the future we’ll have to come up with some better plays to scheme guys
open at better angles for Cousins, although with Diggs and Thielen maybe they
don’t need to change the scheme at all, but with Diggs solo, we were kind of
hamstrung.  It seemed like we had some
deep ball opportunities but if Cousins is having a game where he’s floating
those, we need something else that he can be more successful at that can pull
people out of the box.  I think we’ve
kind of boxed ourselves into a corner here where we’re set up to mostly go with
heavy formations having so little quality WRs. 
I’d be curious to see some wrinkles where we spread the field out more.


On defense, I wonder why we’ve stopped the press man game,
or at least it feels like that’s what we’ve done.  It seems like we had so much more moxie when
we did that a lot.

[Guest]

@medaille said:
Only referring to our offense here.


I think we weren’t ready for them to play the defense that
they did.  I think they were clearly
stacking the box on almost every play, such that they were going to kill the
run and the play action boot/roll out game. 
I think it took us out of our strengths and we just didn’t have anything
that we’re good at to compensate.  I
think in the future we’ll have to come up with some better plays to scheme guys
open at better angles for Cousins, although with Diggs and Thielen maybe they
don’t need to change the scheme at all, but with Diggs solo, we were kind of
hamstrung.  It seemed like we had some
deep ball opportunities but if Cousins is having a game where he’s floating
those, we need something else that he can be more successful at that can pull
people out of the box.  I think we’ve
kind of boxed ourselves into a corner here where we’re set up to mostly go with
heavy formations having so little quality WRs. 
I’d be curious to see some wrinkles where we spread the field out more.


On defense, I wonder why we’ve stopped the press man game,
or at least it feels like that’s what we’ve done.  It seems like we had so much more moxie when
we did that a lot.

Yes, they seemed to load the box and cousins couldn't make them pay deep.  Frustrating game, as MB sez, a game of inches.

[Guest]

when you have Diggs bracketed and a stacked box you have to be able to throw the intermediate deep routes to ????  Choices are Bisi, Tread, Irv.  not exactly huge threats down the field 

[Guest]

2-9-1

Cousin’s record vs winning teams with the purple...

[Guest]

Can't put this blame on Cousins, he didn't play great but defense gave up two huge scoring plays and our punter really screwed the pooch. All  we needed in the end was a stop and we go into overtime, but defense gives up a 20 yard pass......defense was the main issue here.

4 huge plays that average 50 yards per play against any D will probably spell defeat.