Andy Reid Thinks He’s Coaching Football in Kansas City. He Should Rethink That.

Imagine an NBA game featuring a pair of high-scoring teams. Team A hits a lay-up to lead by 1 point with 25 seconds left. Team B takes the ball out from under its own goal.

Team B is going to hold for the last shot, right? It’s time-honored basketball strategy. Otherwise, the coach would be counting on his cagers to drain a shot and get a defensive stop against a prolific offense. But Team B throws an alley-oop to the net for a thrilling dunk and a single-point lead with :15 left. Surely, Team A will see the silver lining and set up its own play to hit the winning shot with negligible time left on the clock.

Nope. Team A’s point guard hurls a baseball toss at a long-streaking forward, intercepted by Team B with :10 left. Now, it’s 100% predictable that Team B will try to run out the clock, and maybe force Team A to foul its best free-throw shooter with a few seconds remaining.

But instead, Team B attempts risky passes toward the hoop, giving up the ball and allowing Team A yet another unlikely chance at a winner.

“The 2 dumbest teams on Earth,” you might say. “What is wrong with the coaches?”

For those who haven’t figured it out already, I have been describing – in hardwood terms – the finish of the Week 11 Kansas City Chiefs vs Los Angeles Rams battle on Monday Night Football, which Team B – er, the Rams – won 54-51 in a shoot-out for the record books.

Starting with L.A.’s possession that began with 2:47 left, Andy Reid and Sean McVay each made self-destructive choices in play-calling and QB management. Having quickly driven into KC territory, Jared Goff was allowed to launch a missile down the right sideline to Gerald Everett for a 40-yard TD, giving the Rams a 3-point lead as good as fool’s gold with 2 minutes to go. The Rams had been trailing and absolutely needed a TD, but a medium-range completion could have set up a clock-draining Red Zone sequence and allowed Los Angeles to score and win without further ado.

The decision-making would get worse. Down by 3, the Chiefs moved the ball to the edge of FG range. Patrick Mahomes was almost unstoppable on short throws, but both signal-callers knew that standing in the pocket was dangerous. The defenses had already combined to force 5 turnovers, leading to easy buckets, nay, points.

Reid allowed Mahomes to drop way back in the pocket and wait for a WR to get open deep. Pressured, he launched a hot-air balloon that was picked-off by Marcus Peters.

https://twitter.com/CaseyBake16/status/1064744294886584320

The Rams could now run the clock down under a minute while forcing Reid to use his 2 remaining time-outs. Stupidly, McVay ordered 3 passes in a row and used up less than 30 seconds. Only the legendary boot of Johnny Hekker saved the home team by punting the Chiefs deep before Lamarcus Joyner snagged another interception for the win.

NFL coaches are known for going by the book, employing time-honored principles of game-management like score however you can, trust your defense, and don’t give the opponent anything. However, that “book” is starting to feel like a relic from an NFL that doesn’t exist anymore, at least not during scenarios in which the offenses are more likely to score than not, and in which defenses can only take advantage whenever QBs try to do too much.

Reid’s best defense is his magnificent offense. But when teams are trading TDs like dunks, it’s not always beneficial to go for the alley-oop, even if it works. You might leave the other offense too much time to retaliate and “dunk” in your own end zone.

The KC defense is a chaos agent, a weapon, but it can’t be trusted in traditional NFL terms.

The 60-year-old skipper is not likely to radically change his thinking in midst of an epic season. But in an ideal world, Reid might consider scrapping football-based strategy and using elements of the Pulaski Academy system instead.

Pulaski Academy is a prep school from Arkansas currently working on a 5^th straight state football championship. The program routinely beats bigger and/or faster teams using a method of game-management based in basketball concepts. The Bruins are not concerned with field position. They just want as many possessions as possible to score as many TDs as they can.

Pulaski uses all 4 downs on offense 100% of the time, and on-side kicks at least 75% of the time. If the team fails to recover an on-side attempt, their opponents get great starting field position. But when the Bruins recover, they get great field position too. Meanwhile, they’re almost impossible for defenses to stop because of the advantage of using all 4 downs.

Picture the Chiefs with a 4-down offense, extra possessions, and a defense protecting half the field. KC’s defense is soft against the run but likes to get after the pocket and create turnovers. The unit might prove more effective in short bursts than in trying to defend 80 yards. With Mahomes’ wizardry in passing and in the option game, the “Pulaski Chiefs” would score TDs on 50% or 60% of their drives and average at least 45-50 points.

Opponents would average maybe 10-12 possessions, and would have to score touchdowns on 6 or 7 of them to stand any chance of winning. If they lost the turnover battle or faltered in the Red Zone at any point, they’d be toast.

Consider it a thought experiment, a pipe dream. But what if Andy Reid ever realizes the sport he’s coaching is closer to basketball than traditional NFL combat?

If that happens, the Pulaski coaching staff may get an on-campus visit they’ll never forget.