- 23 minutes ago
Nick Caley got put through the fire yesterday — but what kind of taste did it leave in your mouth about him, this offense, and how sustainable it all really is?
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00:00Did you pick up what I did?
00:01Yes.
00:02It kind of felt like Nick Kaley was getting grilled.
00:04Absolutely, without question.
00:05He was like, hey, you're going to stand there and you're going to take these questions.
00:08That's right.
00:08It was pretty funny.
00:10But I don't know.
00:12Well, let's hear from him.
00:14But at the same time, I'm curious what your feeling was when it was all said and done about Nick Kaley.
00:23Where are we starting?
00:24All right, let's start with...
00:25You want to go with Kaley number one?
00:27I think the big thing that is, I think, of interest with Nick Kaley was that end of the first half last week
00:36where you get up there with like 141 left in the half and they run a play and they go back to the huddle
00:43and there's just no sense of urgency.
00:45They run another play, swing pass, doesn't get out of bounds, Woody Marks.
00:48Woody Marks honestly looked like he was seeking contact in that moment, which I'm still amazed by.
00:54Like the situational, the lack of situational awareness in that particular moment.
00:58So, I mean, let's go to Nick Kaley, the man who's play calling in that moment.
01:03Can you talk to us what was happening or tell us what was happening there, Nick Kaley?
01:06Yeah, the plan was to end the first half with points and just not dissimilar to the week before in Buffalo.
01:13Similar situation.
01:15Timing-wise, it may have been a little bit different in terms of seconds or whatever.
01:18But to be able to, you know, get our drive started, we were going to be in our normal mode
01:22and then we were going to kick it into our two-minute mode.
01:24We didn't convert the third down.
01:26So, I think that might have altered the approach from there, unfortunately.
01:28It didn't execute.
01:30That's not comforting, is it?
01:32No, and I mean, kudos to Landry because I think Landry, I knew he was going to try and, like, get some answers in this space.
01:39And he tried to, like, very much keep Nick Kaley into a place.
01:41Because, let's be honest, what he said there, we got to get points.
01:45Yes, we know that's the objective in the general sense.
01:48We're asking for something a little more detailed.
01:49And he did a good job of escaping in that moment.
01:52But, no, I think that that's one of those things that's important, right?
01:55It's an important thing to figure out or to know what is the intention first and foremost.
02:00Like, clearly that is not how you intended to go.
02:03What went wrong in that moment?
02:05And I'm not going to lie, it does still irk me that I don't know that we can get great answers out of anybody in the brain trust there
02:12as to why in these moments it doesn't go right.
02:14Especially because I know that he's talking about, oh, it happened in the Bills game.
02:17I don't think you executed particularly greatly, but you ended up getting points at the end of that first half.
02:22But even still, like, the way that they go about it sometimes isn't necessarily great.
02:26And I think that it's surprising for a team that is so much process-oriented to then, in some instances, fall back on,
02:32well, it works sometimes.
02:33Like, no, but the process felt bad.
02:35Well, the issue I had with it is the whole tone and tenor, and he actually said this, was,
02:41we were going to take our time at first and see what happened.
02:45And I get that if it's you're on your own six-yard line, you know, or whatever.
02:50You're trying to just get some room and all that.
02:53Right.
02:53It's unlikely that you make the drive, but if you're able to make some pop, let's go, let's go get it.
02:57But to say, yeah, we were going to take our time and see what happens, see if we got a first down and then go from there.
03:02Again, that's not real comforting.
03:05And couple that, or as you like to say, juxtapose that with.
03:09I do be saying that.
03:11Juxtapose that with what we heard from D'Amico Ryans on Monday.
03:16I'm always aggressive.
03:18All right, so we have the head coach saying, I'm always aggressive.
03:21And then you have the head coach and Nick Kaley yesterday saying, yeah, we were going to take our time.
03:26We were kind of slow, slow footing this thing.
03:29It just didn't hit right.
03:31No, and it doesn't even feel, the frustrating thing for me on top of that is, okay,
03:37we were going to go with the normal process, and then once we, you know, maybe found something, then we would go.
03:43You need to get yourself in field goal range, right?
03:44Like, I don't understand what the difficulty is in going with a certain level of pace,
03:50getting yourself in the field goal range, and then going from the place of,
03:53because you weren't guaranteed three at that point.
03:55Right.
03:55So the idea that we're just going to take our time feels absurd to me.
03:58We're just going to waste this resource of time until we feel that we need to kick it into gear.
04:03No, this is kicking into gear time.
04:04Like, literally, it's called two-minute drill, and you got the ball at 151.
04:09Yeah.
04:10Yeah.
04:11Exactly.
04:12And so maybe some people are out there saying, and Frank Ross said this separately.
04:18We'll hear from him later today as well.
04:20Hey, we weren't great, but we got the win.
04:23Let's move on.
04:24So some people might be thinking that, hey, what are y'all worried about?
04:26They got the win.
04:27Well, the Kansas City Chiefs are one of those teams that have a very good defense.
04:32It's going to be a very close game.
04:33We know that.
04:34That's how the Texans play it.
04:36And that's why, if you're projecting this forward, you don't want to see this again at the end of a half.
04:41You know?
04:42No, and it's, yeah, exactly.
04:43It's a projecting forward.
04:44I don't even know how much I'm looking at it for this game, and particularly with Kansas City.
04:49These are the things.
04:50Sure.
04:50These are the things on the margins that lose you football games.
04:54Right?
04:55As much as you're looking at the recipe that you have, and this is something we talked about earlier in the week.
05:00It's a fairly narrow recipe.
05:01There's not multiple ways to win with this team right now.
05:05Particularly that your defense is going to be locked down, and your offense is just going to not mess it up.
05:09That's oversimplification, but I think we've discussed it enough to understand what we're talking about there.
05:14You open up the window a little bit by being efficient or adding the most possibility to win in other facets,
05:22like making your game time decisions, clock management, things of this nature.
05:26This is one of those places that very simply, even the status quo of what we do in the National Football League goes counter to what you did.
05:34And it's frustrating to see that, and I think it's even more frustrating to see them be a little combative in that place.
05:40Right.
05:40I think it's okay to acknowledge, hey man, we messed up.
05:43In fact, it's a lot easier, in my estimation, to do that in the time where we were able to make a win, though.
05:49We were able to get a W, make it walk, and we probably could have done that a little different.
05:53I think the only thing that he said that he would have done differently is on that, the second first and ten,
05:58with one minute and ten seconds left, the swing pass.
06:01He's like, well, maybe I could have called a better play.
06:03I actually didn't think that was a terrible play.
06:05Like, maybe you wanted to get beyond the sticks.
06:06It was execution.
06:07It could have gotten out of bounds.
06:08The idea is, why are you then going full huddle, taking your time, breaking the huddle late?
06:13Like, it feels like the tempo.
06:15And it feels like, for me, that also falls in line with something where I have questions as to the capability of doing it.
06:21Because at times we've seen them go with tempo, but it doesn't really go consistently.
06:24I'm like, hey man, I wonder at times how capable they are of like, we need to get into the space, let's get up, let's run it, and let's go.
06:31I agree.
06:31I do want to get into the offensive line, what he talked about there.
06:34Because, again, projecting forward with the Chiefs, this is going to be huge.
06:38And this is too, Figge, just his first statement about the offensive line progression.
06:43Yeah, I think they've continued to get better, just fundamental football.
06:47In the run game, I think our double teams and combinations have gotten better and improved steadily.
06:52And I think just time on task, time to settle in with the guys that are in there now, you know, just more time to doing it.
06:58Honestly, we've improved on that.
07:00But I think in terms of the pass protection, the cohesiveness, starting with communication and being on the same page,
07:05those guys have done a really good job of just working together, communicating, so that we're all coordinated in terms of our distribution and the pass bro.
07:11So when you couple that, run game, pass protection, I think we've made some strides.
07:15We've still got to make some more strides.
07:17But, you know, I've been pleased with the improvement from that standpoint.
07:20You know, we get a lot of extra work at practice, do a lot of stuff fundamentally in terms of, you know, blitz pickup, et cetera.
07:25And I think, you know, it's starting to, you know, show improvement at a good pace.
07:30We've just got to make more.
07:31Now, that's all good, and that's all positive.
07:33And he's right.
07:35You know, we've talked about it.
07:36This offensive line has got its feet.
07:38But then he went on to talk about the offensive line, and this is where, you know, you kind of start thinking about, well, let's hear, Kaylee, the second part of this.
07:48Yeah, well, I think we stress communication.
07:51We stress seeing it through the same set of eyes.
07:53It starts with our mic point and our declaration, and then everybody else being able to communicate and know exactly what we're doing.
07:59Leave nothing to chance, communicate, and then be able to make our calls accordingly.
08:02We want to protect inside out, and we rep, you know, we take a lot of reps in terms of blitz pickup, stunts, pick, stunts, games, et cetera, like that.
08:10So it's like anything else, you've got to work at it to improve it, and that's what we're still trying to do.
08:14Took a while, right?
08:15But I'm thinking more Spagnuolo, this Chiefs defense.
08:21This is going to be, I left this feeling pretty good about where he is.
08:23It took a while, but they are there.
08:25This is about as good as we can expect from the offensive line.
08:28But would you agree with this?
08:30This is the biggest test for this offensive line since Seattle?
08:36I'm not certain about that, actually.
08:38Because I do agree with them.
08:40Like, they have gotten better, and one of the things is, like, they utilize duo a lot.
08:44Like, they, I mean, that's some of the thing that I think has helped them, right?
08:47When we talk about the opportunity for gap schemes, like, they're going in there with two guys attacking that man up front
08:52and then getting up to the second level when they have an opportunity to.
08:55I, knowing that I am the sicko that I am, I was like, I wonder, who have the Chiefs seen that have maybe utilized duo?
09:03And the closest facsimile I could find was the Denver Broncos a few weeks back.
09:08Maybe, yeah.
09:09So I went and looked at it.
09:10And even they don't use a ton of duo, but they use some.
09:13And in the duo reps that I saw where they ran the football, the Kansas City front, they don't shed blocks.
09:21They don't move necessarily.
09:22It's not like you're just absolutely going to muscle them off of their spot, which is kind of interesting.
09:26But they're also not shedding blocks.
09:29So I think that this is one of those where you should be able to pick up, like, three or four on a lot of, or at least the Broncos did, right?
09:36Pretty consistently pick up two, three, four every time.
09:39Now, they weren't busting them on those particular duo reps.
09:43It wasn't like they were breaking free for seven or 12 on any of these.
09:47But just pretty consistently keep those guys, you know, keep those guys blocked up.
09:52You're able to find, as long as you're reading the blocks well, pick up three, pick up four.
09:56Which, honestly, does that not sound like what this Texas team wants to do?
09:59It is.
09:59It does.
10:01I just, you know, the middle there defense, you know, we heard from Nick Wright yesterday.
10:04You know, of all the things you could talk about, you know, some issues here, you know, Chris Jones is way down on the list.
10:10And that's a different animal there, man.
10:12That's a completely different animal.
10:14So it could get, I think it's a big test.
10:16Yeah, in theory, the wild thing about it is knowing the talent that Chris Jones has.
10:22What did Aaron Wilson say that that man's nickname was, supposedly?
10:25Yeah.
10:25Stone Cold.
10:26Stone Cold.
10:26I've never heard of that one either.
10:28That's one of those.
10:28Have you ever gone on, like, the stat head websites, whether it's basketball reference, football reference, baseball reference, and see where they put the nicknames next to it?
10:35Yeah.
10:36And I love doing that because I'm like, nobody calls this person that.
10:39Yeah.
10:40I think that Stone Cold Jones is one of those where I was like, nobody actually calls Chris Jones that.
10:44But even that ethos of Chris Jones, we know he's supposed to be that.
10:48He hasn't statistically been that this year.
10:50So I'll be very interested to see whether it's the track record of this season of Chris Jones or just, like, the mythos of Chris Jones that we see in this game.
10:59And I think that that might tell us a little bit about this offensive line.
11:02I agree.
11:02That's how I walked away from it.
11:04Even watching the Cowboys last night, and we'll talk more about it, because the Cowboys, it was the Chiefs game and the Eagles game where we were like, oh, maybe they've improved this defensive line.
11:12The defensive line didn't look that great, which makes me look at the, you know, or rather not the defensive, the other way.
11:17But it made me look at this Chiefs defensive line and be like, huh, okay, not all that afraid.
11:23Not that I was already too afraid of that.
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