Defence is of chief concern for New England
Defending champions couldn’t stop Kansas City’s hotshot rookie, or anyone else in red
How ’bout them Kansas City Chiefs?
The New England Patriots found out the hard way they’re pretty good.
In a shocking NFL regularseason curtain-raiser Thursday night in Foxboro, Mass., the visiting Chiefs embarrassed the defending Super Bowl champions to the tune of 42-27.
Understand, it was no fluke. The Chiefs played magnificently. And the Pats?
“Bad defence, bad coaching, bad playing, bad football,” head coach Bill Belichick said.
Four principal take-aways from the first of 256 regular-season NFL games:
1
Kareem Hunt, breakout star How’s this for an NFL debut? Rookie running back Kareem Hunt fumbled on the Chiefs’ first offensive play, then gained 246 scrimmage yards (148 rushing yards for one touchdown, 98 receiving for two TDs). That’s the most scrimmage yards by an NFLer in his first game in league history, according to Elias Sports Bureau. The five-foot-11, 216-pound dynamo from the University of Toledo played as though he expected to dominate. Did Chiefs coaches expect it? “Well, yeah,” head coach Andy Reid said. “He’s a load and, you know, he is talented and he’s a smart kid, which helps in that position. He can think on his feet and that becomes very important when we are asking you to run the football.
“But then we are asking you to pass-block, we are asking you to run routes, and you have got to know all of the blocking schemes up front to know exactly how the line is going to handle each front. And he spent the time learning how to do that. Hats off to him, but he can be better. There are things that we will look at, he’ll look at, and he can grow from.”
Reid said Chiefs coaches often watched Hunt play for Toledo Thursdays, and said something that “jumped out at us” was how Hunt would “be stronger in the fourth quarter than he was early.”
A native of the East Cleveland suburb of Willoughby, Hunt in the fourth quarter had six carries for 76 yards and a score, plus two receptions for 82 yards and another score.
Overall, he averaged 11.2 yards per touch.
It said a lot, and maybe meant everything to Hunt’s confidence, when after his fumble coaches told him on the sideline to calm down, that they were going to go right back to him on K.C.’s next play, and did. Hunt burst for nine yards. And away he went. Good gracious, what a start.
2
Patriots defence looked confused, slow and awful
Belichick normally fields a smart, tight defence. Not confused and cavernous. Kansas City ripped up New England for 537 yards, the most allowed in Belichick’s 18 seasons in Foxboro.
He and defensive co-ordinator Matt Patricia always aim to take away, or at least limit, the thing opposing offences do best. In Kansas City’s case, that’s rushing the ball and throwing often to tight ends, slots and backs. The Patriots failed miserably in all regards.
It was no secret their front-seven would be the team’s weakness this year. No one thought it could look this bad.
New England’s defence allowed by far an NFL-worst 126 points in the pre-season. While much of that probably can be attributed to the usual tinkering and resting of starters Belichick likes to do in August, it clearly meant something.
Pats defensive linemen let themselves be sucked in by K.C. blockers. Linebackers often looked out of position. Defensive backs looked slow and unsure. On one play late, Hunt took a pitchout around left end and sped 58 yards down the sideline before so much as being touched. Awful.
Worst thing? Kansas City mounted five drives of 75 yards or longer, all of which ended in touchdowns, and had another 60-yard touchdown drive to boot. This is largely the same defence that led the NFL in scoring defence a year ago (15.6 points per game) and ranked eighth in total defence (326 yards per game).
Patriots defenders barely touched Chiefs passer Alex Smith, hitting him just four times as he became only the second QB against a Belichick-coached team to throw for more than 300 yards with four or more TDs and no interceptions.
“There’s a lot of things we need to work on,” Belichick said of his team in general. “It’s a pretty lengthy list. That’s what we’ll do.”
An old football axiom states you’re never as good, or as bad, as you look in an opener. Another claims a team makes its greatest improvement between Weeks 1 and 2.
The Pats hope both prove true. 3
Alex Smith keys a fast, creative attack
From a lot of four- and fivereceiver sets, the Chiefs spread out the Pats, forced them to play six DBs much of the time and exposed their slowness and soft zone pass coverages — not only with Hunt flying out of the backfield, but with two lightningfast, quick-footed receivers off the line: five-foot-10, 185-pound second-year player Tyreek Hill and five-foot-9, 200-pound fourth-year Albert Wilson.
Hill and Wilson together caught 12 passes for 170 yards. It seemed on every pass route they could run three circles around each Pats defender before moving on to the next one. That duo plus Hunt and starting tight end Travis Kelce accounted for all but six of Smith’s 28 completions (on 35 throws), and 308 of Smith’s 368 yards passing.
4
Eric Berry’s injury
“Eric Berry has an Achilles tendon potential tear,” Reid said of the 2016 first-team all-pro safety after the game. “I don’t think that it’s positive here. We will see what the MRI shows.”
Alas, Friday’s MRI confirmed it: a ruptured Achilles. Berry’s season is done — a gigantic loss for K.C.’s defence.