Week 11 proved to be one of the most exciting of the season with seven one-possession games. In tight games, coaching decisions are put under a microscope.
Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott made the right calls when it mattered, ending the Kansas City Chiefs’ hope of an undefeated season.
Seattle Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald’s system takes a little while to learn, but Seattle’s defense might be finally getting it down. It played its best game against the San Francisco 49ers.
Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus made another mistake that cost Chicago a game.
We’ll get into all this and more in this week’s coaching calls.
McDermott presses the right buttons
The Bills took down their greatest obstacle to their Super Bowl hopes, beating the Chiefs 31-20. Patrick Mahomes mustered only 181 yards passing, and Kansas City couldn’t convert in critical situations as it has the entire season. Bill Belichick on “Inside the NFL” compared McDermott’s play-calling style to spinning a wheel because of how unpredictable he is.
Coach Belichick breaks down how the @BuffaloBills “spin the wheel” defense keeps you guessing
Game show host assistant @ochocinco helps do the honors 😂🎙️ pic.twitter.com/YlXP4Xv73x
— Inside the NFL (@insidetheNFL) October 5, 2024
Mahomes has gotten to the stage mentally where it’s difficult to fool him, but McDermott had his number on a few key plays, which was enough for the Bills to get over the hump.
Second quarter, 9:56 remaining, third-and-10
The Bills are typically a zone-heavy team, but they played a little more man coverage than usual against the Chiefs early. On this third-and-10 play, they showed bump-and-run man coverage with a pressure front and five defenders on the line of scrimmage.
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After the snap, they rushed only three and dropped into a Cover 2 zone. This could be tough on quarterbacks because, against man coverage, their reads and how they want to attack defenses can drastically differ. It’s a quick and sudden mindset change they have to shift from post-snap against disguises like this.
Up front, they used a strategy they’ve had success with against Mahomes before called “odd mirror,” in which a three-man rush attempts to flush Mahomes in a predetermined direction. This is designed to have the quarterback spy know where to go rather than guess where the quarterback will scramble. Dorian Williams (No. 43) was the spy. Von Miller was lined up to Mahomes’ right (left of the image), and his job was to rush inside and flush Mahomes to the right, but Miller beat right tackle Jawaan Taylor so cleanly that he ended up getting the sack.
Fourth quarter, 1:14 remaining, fourth-and-13
On linebacker Terrel Bernard’s game-ending interception, the Bills again called “odd mirror.”
This time, none of the three rushers could get off their blocks, but Mahomes sensed there was space to his right and rolled in that direction. Williams triggered toward the backfield as soon as he saw Mahomes run.
The defense was in zone coverage and had every route covered up initially, but tight end Travis Kelce did a remarkable job of finding a hole in the zone. Mahomes saw the same thing almost immediately. Bernard, who was in zone coverage near Kelce, saw Mahomes scramble, but he had faith that the scheme would account for the scramble and turned his back to Mahomes to start sprinting toward Kelce.
This is a play Mahomes and Kelce would complete nine out of 10 times, but this time Bernard ended the party early and picked off the pass because of his overall awareness and trust in his teammates.
THE BILLS PICK MAHOMES TO SEAL THE WIN.#KCvsBUF pic.twitter.com/RfCyRynpQ9
— NFL (@NFL) November 18, 2024
McDermott deserves praise not only for the calls but also for how prepared his team was for the Chiefs. He also made a gutsy fourth-down call with 2:27 remaining. The Bills were up by 2 and in field goal range. Instead of kicking and just going up by 5, he went for it on fourth-and-2, and Josh Allen scrambled for a 26-yard touchdown to seal the game.
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The 49ers’ ‘hot’ issue
The same issue with the 49ers’ protections and philosophy of throwing hot against blitzes rather than adjusting the protection showed up again against the Seahawks. Throughout the game, Macdonald was selective with his blitzing but caught the 49ers at the right time. He called two blitzes right into a couple of Brock Purdy bootlegs, and at the end of the game, the Seahawks executed perfectly on a Cover 0 blitz.
With less than three minutes remaining, the 49ers needed a first down to continue to milk the clock with a 4-point lead. If they converted on a third-and-11, they would at least be able to force the Seahawks to burn their final two timeouts and get to the two-minute warning.
Fourth quarter, 2:58 remaining, third-and-11
The Seahawks brought six defenders to the line of scrimmage but blitzed the nickel from Purdy’s right. The 49ers had six blockers with Christian McCaffrey staying in to block. The 49ers slid their protection to the overload side.
After the snap, the Seahawks blitzed both defensive backs from both edges but dropped out two defensive linemen from the side the offensive line slid toward. Purdy seemed to see both defensive backs blitz from the edge, but he didn’t seem to see the defensive tackles drop or he might have taken his time to look downfield rather than throw hot. With the two droppers, the 49ers should have had the numbers to account for the blitz, but left guard Aaron Banks and left tackle Trent Williams didn’t push out toward the blitzer on the left, leaving him unblocked.
Purdy ended up throwing hot to Jauan Jennings well short of the sticks. Defensive back Coby Bryant made a fantastic tackle to stop Jennings for a gain of only 5.
This play is a little bit of great execution by the Seahawks and bad execution by the 49ers. The 49ers should have been able to pick up the blitz, but it looked like Purdy would have thrown hot anyway. This is technically the correct answer against the blitz, and the hope was Jennings could break a tackle and get the first down, but this is a hard way to live. Throwing past the sticks typically works out better. Purdy needs more tools to adjust the protection, whether it’s flipping it, bringing in another blocker or using the hard count to get the defense to show its hand. The 49ers don’t have to completely change their philosophy of throwing hot, but in these critical situations, they can’t keep getting forced into throwing short of the sticks.
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Taylor’s end-of-game management
Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor is taking some heat for not running more clock at the end of the game. After coming back from 21 points down and tying the score at 27, the Bengals had a chance to take the lead. Quarterback Joe Burrow drove the ball to the Los Angeles Chargers’ 33-yard line. On first-and-10, he called a run that netted 2 yards, and on second-and-8, he called a pass that fell incomplete and passed it again on third down. The sequence resulted in a missed 51-yard field goal and the Chargers getting the ball back with 1:52 remaining.
Passing the ball in this situation wasn’t necessarily the wrong call. Burrow was red hot, and using two downs to aggressively try to get the first down was exactly what he should have done.
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What was baffling was why Taylor used one of the Bengals’ final two timeouts when the clock was already stopped. On the Chargers’ final touchdown drive, after Ladd McConkey’s 27-yard reception, he stepped out of bounds, stopping the clock. At that point, Taylor called the timeout. Taylor might have been instructing his team to let the Chargers score so they would have a chance to get the ball back, but couldn’t the defensive coordinator have done that through the headset? The Chargers scored on a 29-yard touchdown run on the next play.
The Bengals got the ball back with 18 seconds remaining and got to the Chargers’ 43-yard line but were hamstrung on choices because they didn’t have another timeout. The chances of a touchdown were slim, but they could have gotten closer and given themselves a more realistic shot.
Is a Kingsbury offensive regression coming?
Washington Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury does not like to move his receivers to different spots. That’s partly because he’s from the Air Raid coaching tree and they want receivers to master running routes from one position. Washington uses a lot of no-huddle and tempo, and moving receivers around takes time. However, the NFL is a matchup league — you must find ways to get your best players in favorable matchups. Receiver Terry McLaurin had just one catch for 10 yards against the Philadelphia Eagles on “Thursday Night Football.”
Quinyon Mitchell aligned across from Terry McLaurin on 20 of 25 routes (80%), including 19 of 20 aligned wide (95%).
Mitchell was not targeted on any of his coverage snaps against McLaurin and was targeted just once all night (0 receptions allowed).#WASvsPHI | #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/ivlaRKu6rx
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) November 15, 2024
Rookie Quinyon Mitchell is quickly becoming one of the best corners in football, and he shut down McLaurin. Sometimes even the best get bested. But it didn’t need to happen; McLaurin lined up outside to the left on 80 percent of his snaps. All Kingsbury had to do to get McLaurin matched up with another defensive back was move him around the formation, but he didn’t do that. On a team with limited talent at wide receiver, the focus of the offense should be putting McLaurin in a position to get targets. This is part of why Kingsbury’s offenses tend to regress as the season progresses. The offense is too simple, and defenses start to catch up with it. It’s too early to say Kingsbury’s old ways will catch up with him in Washington, but he needs to evolve his offense toward the pro game to avoid regression.
Eberflus again?
Eberflus has quickly taken Las Vegas Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce’s home on the bad side of the article. Since swearing off including the Raiders in this article, including this week, Eberflus has made it on the negative side three times.
Once again, one of Eberflus’ late-game decisions directly caused the Bears to lose, which is a shame because Caleb Williams played a great game and put the Bears in a position to win with an exceptional drive. Down by 1, the Bears got the ball back with 2:59 remaining. The Bears overcame a third-and-19 situation to get into field goal range with the ball at the Green Bay Packers’ 30-yard line and 35 seconds remaining. A field goal attempt would have been from the 48-yard line.
A first-down run netted 2 yards, but Eberflus decided not to try to get closer. The Bears let the clock wind down to three seconds and attempted a 46-yard field goal. I would understand this approach with an attempt from less than 40 yards, but a 46-yard field goal is no sure thing. Since 2019, kicker Cairo Santos is 80.9 percent from 40-49 yards and 72 percent from 5o or above. He’s an average to below-average distance kicker.
Just talked to several players on the Packers FG block unit and all of them said they noticed that Cairo Santos kicked with a low trajectory when doing film study and they expected the Bears to run another a play, which in their opinion, would have made it more difficult to block
— Kalyn Kahler (@kalynkahler) November 17, 2024
He has to kick from a low trajectory on long-distance kicks because his leg isn’t very strong — the Packers knew it — yet Eberflus didn’t want to risk a turnover or negative play.
“They were loading the box there,” Eberflus said. “You could say you could do that for sure, maybe get a couple more yards, but you’re also going to risk fumbling and different things there. We felt where we were, if we’re at the 36 or 35, you want to do that because you want to get it inside there. I felt very confident where we were at that time with the wind and where we were on the field.”
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There are many safe choices to get some yards, especially because they had a timeout left. A couple of weeks ago, in overtime in a sudden-death situation, Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay called a shot play from the Seahawks’ 39-yard line, knowing Seattle would blitz to create a negative play. McVay’s aggressiveness was rewarded with a 39-yard touchdown pass. Of course, field goal blocks are rare, but chancing a long field goal in that situation was much too conservative.
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(Top photo of Sean McDermott: Timothy T Ludwig / Getty Images)
