The duel between the Los Angeles Rams and the Kansas City Chiefs is the absolute highlight of Week 11 (Tuesday from 2.15 a.m. live on DAZN). Two of the most spectacular offenses and two of the most talented young quarterbacks meet. While Jared Goff and the Rams want to keep up with the Saints, Patrick Mahomes is already applying for the MVP Award. Before the highlight duel, the up-and-coming star revealed perhaps his greatest weakness at the moment.
Patrick Mahomes is the face of the first half of this season. The second-Year quarterback of the Chiefs plays a fabulous season, he’s on his way to breaking numerous records and should find a prominent mention in everyone’s MVP discussion. But he does not win many hearts for himself exclusively because of the way he plays on the field, but also because of how he behaves away from it.
Despite all the hustle and bustle around his person, Mahomes seems to be completely relaxed and doesn’t let any of it get too close to him. In a league in which extroverted and diva-like individuals search week after week for ways to claim headlines for themselves, Mahomes has stayed on the ground. And there even small things like his strange sounding voice, which coach Andy Reid describes as “froggy”, seem very likeable.
If Mahomes hadn’t told us in an interview what his great weakness was, we would probably still be looking for it now. It wouldn’t have been easy to figure that out: Mahomes plays excellent from clean pocket as against the lightning. His technical skills and ability to throw the ball from various platforms are impressive. And that from a standing position as well as from a running position. Even small impurities against Pressure one wants to forgive the young star gladly.
One thing, however, is currently causing a dull gut feeling when it comes to Mahomes, it is perhaps his only weakness at the moment: the one for ketchup!
Such a talented young athlete storms into the league, leads his team and a superstar-studded Offense with an impressive ease and applies in his first year as a starter directly for the MVP Award… and this youngster then says that after the games he really likes to smear ketchup on his steak or pasta. Well, if you have to.
Seriously: What Mahomes conjures up on the field this season is worth all the honours. And when he meets Los Angeles Rams on Monday night in the first duel in the history of the NFL, where two teams with an average of at least 33 points per game meet at this late point in a season, he will once again provide a lot of spectacle at the feet of Hollywood.
That’s what Rams-head coach Sean McVay expects. “The consistency with which Patrick works is phenomenal,” says McVay. “He quickly finds his rhythm and makes plays even when things don’t go according to plan.”
Mahomes is operating from by far the most effective offense of the league and even the coming opponents from L.A. are lagging behind. This is mainly due to this unstoppable passing offense, which has by far the best defensive-adjusted value over average of 77.7 percent after Football Outsiders. The Rams are here with “only” 49.4 percent on place 3.
Kansas City often runs out of the so-called Unbalanced Formations, where never the same number of receivers are on one side of the field as on the other. Then a lot of pre-snap motion will cause confusion. End Arounds and Jet Sweeps are faked or played out and partly built into Triple Options. And that at such a high speed and with such dangerous weapons executed that defenses are forced to caution.
Mahomes always seems to find a clear read through these schemes, and here the young quarterback currently operates with so much self-confidence that he believes his insanely hard throw will make its way into every window. And often rightly so.
However, all this would not be so great to observe if it did not bear fruit in the most important discipline as well. The Chiefs dominate the Red Zone! Because they all exhaust their possibilities and are also unpredictable here. While the passing game in the open field is carried almost exclusively by Tyreek Hill, Sammy Watkins and Travis Kelce, in the Red Zone all possible options are involved.
Also the high rate at which Kansas City scores again compared to the Rams Touchdowns from Red-Zone-Drives (71.11 to 56.6 percent), impresses in L.A. “It’s a hell of a lot of fun watching them as football fans,” says McVay about the Chiefs Offense. “It’s less fun to prepare for a football game against them. But I’d be lying if I said we hadn’t copied one or two of them.”
But first we have to find a way to stop the chief’s opening. In the last duel with a high-powered open against the New Orleans Saints in the first half, there was virtually no way to slow down the opponent’s passing game. And this, although it actually hangs in the defense of the run.
Not only does the Rams seem to be less concerned with defending the run due to the mantras of Defensive Coordinator Wade Phillips, they also seem to have a lot of players who don’t look good away from Aaron Donald. Among other things, this has to do with problems with tackling, in which approaching linebackers become conspicuous again and again with a bad angle during tackling and in Kareem Hunt now meet the front runner in the matter of forced Missed Tackles.
In the passing game, the constant problems seem to continue to be the weak season of ex-Chief Marcus Peters and the problems of defending the slot position. Peters contributes a large part to the fact that the Rams have one of the worst defenses against long passes. His big-play greed never had such a serious impact on the game as it did this season. Against his former employer and his weapons, this could make itself felt once again, and Andy Reid might have some play in mind.
Page 1: Mahomes, the Chiefs – and Marcus Peters as problem zone?
Page 2: The Rams without Kupp – Bookmakers suspect historical facts