Familiar foe ahead
Skilled Bears alot like KC, only different
PATRIOTS NOTEBOOK
From one Andy Reid offense to another. Sort of. Chicago Bears coach Matt Nagy is a disciple of Reid, so his offense should have some similarities with the Chiefs.
Maybe Nagy isn’t quite as innovative as Reid, but he does have some decent skill players to work with, much like his mentor. There is some crossover with the scheme, and that should help the Patriots prepare for quarterback Mitch Trubisky & Co. on Sunday.
“It’s different, but there’s certainly some carryover,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said on a conference call yesterday. “Of course one of the big differences is the personnel, but there’s carryover from Kansas City’s basic stuff.”
Instead of Patrick Mahomes and his primary threats Kareem Hunt, Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce, the Pats must deal with Trubisky and his top weapons including Tarik Cohen, Taylor Gabriel and Trey Burton. The Bears also like to run with tailback Jordan Howard.
“They have a lot of good players. They have good skill players, good receivers, a big offensive line, good tight end, athletic quarterback, good backs,” Belichick said. “There’s some movement, some motion and shifting. I wouldn’t say an extraordinary amount. They get the ball to a lot of different people. They’re all pretty effective when they get it. That’ll be a big challenge.”
De facto defensive coordinator Brian Flores pumped up Trubisky, who has thrown 11 touchdown passes and has a 105.6 passer rating.
“He throws a good deep ball. He’s accurate, an accurate passer. Obviously, we know him as an elusive guy in the pocket and someone who does a good job as a scrambler extending plays, and then he does a really good job of finding receivers down the field,” Flores said. “So, he’s been impressive — a good, young player, good, young talent, somebody who’s getting better really week-to-week. It will be a challenge for us — you know, a guy who can scramble like this and extend plays, and then at the same time, find receivers down the field and put the ball on them pretty accurately.”
Nothing special
The Patriots special teams haven’t been a strong suit this season, either on coverage or returns. Against the Chiefs, the coverage unit allowed a 97yard return to Tremon Smith.
Needless to say, Belichick pleased.
“We just got to do a better job. It’s a multiple number of things. We’ve got to coach better. We’ve got to kick better. We’ve got to cover better. We need to tackle better. We’re just not doing a good job, period,” he said. “In the return game, we just haven’t had the kind of production that we’d like to have there either. There’s been some but I isn’t think we’re leaving yards out there, so it’s kind of the same thing. It starts with the coaching, the playing, the execution. It just all needs to be better.”
Asked if the new rules had an impact, not allowing for a head-start prior to the kick, Belichick conceded players aren’t getting down to cover as quickly as in the past.
“Yeah, I think it’s definitely slowed that down a little bit, maybe a step or so, 40 yards later or 30 yards later,” he said. “There’s been rules on both sides — the return team, the kicking team, where they align, where the kicking team aligns and so forth. It is what it is. Everybody’s playing with the same set of rules so we just need to do a better job of whatever the situation is.”
Pressure’s on
After six games, the Patriots are tied with the Giants and Raiders for fewest sacks with seven. Flores was asked how he valued sacks versus quarterback pressures.
Naturally, he said he’d take a sack any time. But he valued pressure quite a bit because it goes a long way toward marrying the rush with coverage.
“I think we’ve gotten that. I would say Adrian Clayborn’s a guy who he doesn’t have a sack this season, but he’s put a lot of pressure on the quarterback and that’s led to some mistakes,” Flores said. “He put some pressure on Mahomes that led to some mistakes from Mahomes last week. I think the pressure definitely helps us to create some turnovers. It created some turnovers for us (last week), and hopefully we can continue to do that moving forward.”