The outcome can be pretty irrelevant if you are trying to judge calls as something that has a genius design and succeeds in 80% of the cases might fail in that specific instance and something that is an awful low percentage idea might succeed. Just because one of the two succeeded and the other failed (i.e. one made points the other didnt) doesn't make the successful one a good call.
Similarly it is pointless to look at the success KC had in the second half and ignore that a lot of their issues in the first half had to do with execution.
Not really. They could have had two more TDs in the first half had Mahomes not thrown off his back foot. The miss to Hunt in the first quarter is a perfect example of what was happening when he wasn't able to diagnose what the Pats were doing pre-snap and they got a rusher in his face. Those rushers weren't getting anywhere near that much pressure through large portions of the second half. That was because he appeared to be able to see what we were doing a bit more clearly. And that still doesn't dispute that point that points in a sport are never irrelevant in a conversation. They're always relevant.
That is what I saw. I didn't see even close to the amount of advanced disguises in the second half as in the first. You don't have 20 of them going into a game and can just use one every 4 plays. I think they just used a lot of their ammunition in the first half to jump out fast. I mean the most confusing look they gave Mahomes in the entire second half was the cover 0 call.
It's possible but I don't recall them disguising less in the second half in obvious passing situations.
I saw a defense that played well for 90% of the game against an absolute elite offense and at times against their own offense (turnovers) and ST (returns). As Schofield has said in his Podcast, given the context the defense played essentially a game where they gave up 27-30 points. Which I will take any day against an offense like KC.
I'll disagree here. Ignoring the TD that was given up after the 97 yard return, the Chiefs still had 3 out of their 6 second half drives that went for TDs. In other words, even taking out the drive after the long return, 50% of their drives ended in 7 points.
Again you keep ignoring the context of how the game ended up so close. With the offense turning the ball over twice, short fields and ST mishaps.
Actually, I'm not ignoring the return at all. I've repeatedly tossed that out. The drive after the fumble I will absolutely include, however. They still had to go 30 yards to hit paydirt and they did when Mahomes tossed up a rainbow into the corner against, again, the #1 guy the Pats had to take out.
I don't even get why you keep referring to it as first half and second half defense. It is the same unit and they played for 60 minutes. It is an overall performance. But keep being negative if that floats your boat. Given how things looked a few weeks ago against Detroit I am pretty happy with where the defense is. I think that overall this might be the most solid team we have had in a while. Maybe since 2014.
It's the same unit of players but the defense was wildly different from the first half to the second half. Hence, first half defense and second half defense. The first half defense didn't have any blown coverages, stuck to their assignments, and held the Chiefs to 9 points while forcing two turnovers. That's good defense. The second half defense allowed 31 points and blew coverages which directly led to 14 of those 31 points. That's not good defense. This shouldn't be that hard to understand unless you're willfully trying to ignore it.
The offense, on the other hand, was fine. Your only critique of them is that they didn't play a perfect game. Yet they held the ball for almost a quarter more, gained over 500 yards of total offense, and scored 43 points. If the defense didn't wet itself in the second half, this would have been a blowout. Put another way, consider this - your critique of the offense is that they weren't perfect while your defense of the defense is that they blew coverages. That should tell you all you need to know about who to blame for this bad boy coming down to a FG at the end and who you should be thanking.
