Posted on 09/09/2020 9:02:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
If the Chiefs can blitzkrieg opponents as they did in the playoffs last year, they may find themselves on their way to changing the game of football.
A new National Football League season kicks off this week, after a turbulent and eventful offseason. During the last seven months, two national stories dominated the football headlines: The coronavirus outbreak and its effects, and the summer’s protests over race and policing. Both will affect the season, with fan-less stadia and player protests likely to continue.
On the field, however, two stories will resonate. Tom Brady’s offseason decision to leave the New England Patriots placed a spotlight on his new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The improved roster of the Buccaneers, including Brady’s New England teammate Rob Gronkowski, has garnered media attention and speculation about the revamped roster reaching the Super Bowl — set to take place in Tampa Bay’s home stadium.
The intense offseason focus on Brady and the Buccaneers has allowed the Kansas City Chiefs to remain under the radar, as they attempt to defend their first league title in half a century. In February, the Chiefs managed a come-from-behind victory over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV, capturing their first NFL crown since they won the Super Bowl’s fourth edition back in 1970.
How the Chiefs managed comeback wins en route to their championship — they trailed by 10 or more points in all three playoff games — speaks to another dominant champion of recent years: Basketball’s Golden State Warriors. Just as the Warriors revolutionized NBA play with their high-powered offense, burying teams in a blizzard of buckets, so Kansas City’s point-scoring potential could change football strategy in the years ahead.
Consider how Kansas City won its title, by turning deficits into leads during each of its playoff victories last season:
Basketball’s Warriors used a similar approach during that team’s run of five straight NBA Finals appearances. Golden State’s heavy emphasis on three-point shooting meant that, while the team could go through dry spells, once shots started to fall — as they almost inevitably would — they could overcome just about any deficit, no matter how large, by overwhelming the competition. Basketball writers have spent much time in recent years analyzing the power of the spurts the Warriors produced, which normally (but not always) came during the third quarter of games.
Like the Warriors, Kansas City plays an up-tempo style that lends itself to quick, potent bursts of offense. While the Warriors have stretched basketball defenses with an emphasis on long-range jumpers — making the three-point shot the hallmark of their offense — the Chiefs stretch the field with the threat of deep passes to speedster wide receivers Tyreek Hill and Sammy Watkins.
Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs’ quarterback and MVP of last year’s Super Bowl, bears a passing resemblance to Warriors point guard Stephen Curry. More importantly, the two stars similarly play their respective games, leading fast-break offenses and using their athletic abilities to distribute the ball to their teammates in such a dizzying manner that opposing defenses often don’t know what hit them.
At the end of the first half of the Super Bowl, San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan used an unorthodox clock-management strategy. Rather than stopping the clock to give his offense enough time to march down the field and score, Shanahan let the clock keep running until mere seconds remaining in the half.
The Super Bowl broadcast showed that even John Lynch, GM of the 49ers, questioned Shanahan’s strategy; Lynch instinctively made the “time out” signal after the team’s defense stopped Kansas City’s offense — but Shanahan would not call one. The reason for Shanahan’s decision to let the clock run?
While he didn’t give his offense much time to try to score, Shanahan said the goal was to make sure that Patrick Mahomes and his quick-scoring offense would not have a chance to get the ball back before halftime.
Of course, by preventing Kansas City from getting the ball back at the end of the first half, Shanahan also gave his team less of a chance to score points on its last possession of the half. It speaks to how the foreboding offensive potential of the Chiefs forced Shanahan to make a decision that ultimately cost his team.
While Kansas City’s run through the 2019-20 NFL playoffs showed hints of the Warriors’ dynasty, only time will tell if the Chiefs can create a dynasty of their own. While Golden State won three titles amid five straight trips to the league’s championship series, this era’s version of the Chiefs holds only one title as of yet.
But if the Chiefs can blitzkrieg opponents as they did in the playoffs last year, they may find themselves on their way to a status akin to the Warriors — and change the game of football in the process. It’s one key story to watch as this NFL season unfolds.
Life time Chiefs fan. I endured the suck. On the cusp of a dynasty.....I don’t give a shiite about the NFL, the Chiefs, or anything they stand for. It is a waste of time.
Time is better spent mentoring boys to be real men.
Well it seems to be unanimous. Eff the NFL.
If a teepee falls in the woods . . .
I am surprised The Federalist thinks their readers would be interested in such a topic.
Who cares?
Anyone that still watches this crap is a commie america hater.
Dear NFL,
You will not miss our family. We don’t watch.
But that’s okay, you now have a new friend. His name is Empty Seat. You will have lots of these new friends, more every week.
May your Chapter 11 dreams come true.
Makes no difference to me.
I’m taking the season off from football, in the hope that they’ll all wise up.
If not, life goes on.
I can’t control what other people do, I can only control my own actions. I refuse to watch pampered millionaires virtual signaling while they support racist, marxist, cop hating organizations.
You would have thought the NFL would have learned its lesson the first time. The nonsense with Kaepernick and subsequent kneeling during the anthem significantly lowered viewership the first couple of seasons. The league was starting to get some of their lost viewers back last season, even conservatives (yeah, I know, not from this forum!), partly due to the Chiefs. Seems they’re willing to go with losing viewership again to support an anti-American cause with BLM.
Not that I really care about the NFL, but don’t we already have Basketball?
Why do I want to watch a football game where people just sling the ball around with QBs and WRs who can’t be touched for fear of penalties.
Traditionally playing good defense was much more widespread under old rules than new. I suppose modern ADHD culture only wants to watch if they can see scores of 64-50 every weekend.
They’ll be on their knees, which for homos is their favorite position.
Can you be any more of a fkn idiot.
Cucks everywhere want to know!
The St. Louis Ram’s Greatest Show on Turf teams of the late 90’s early 2000’s were supposed to be a team that changed football. In a sense, the game did open up for more passing, but that was really more of the result of rules changes than of offensive philosophy. The Ram won one Super Bowl, and lost another during that stretch. Dynasties don’t come often in any sport. And as much as I like the Chiefs, it’s just too soon to put that on them. Let’s see how defenses adjust.
Who cares?
If a tree falls in the forest and....awww c’mon man...you know the rest...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.