Key DECISIONS Loom as Patrick Mahomes Faces Offensive Line Questions!

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1:00affordable upfront pricing. In delivery, you can depend on. Because knowing your logistics are handled lets you focus on everything else. Visit usps.com slash Ground Advantage to start shipping with confidence. USPS Ground Advantage, we mean business. Everything's calm right now, but there's a storm brewing for Patrick Mahomes offensive line. From the land of the free and the home of the chiefs, this is the Lockdown Chiefs Podcast. You are Lockdown Chiefs. Your daily Kansas City Chiefs Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team, every day. Welcome in Chiefs. Kingdom were brought to you today by CalSheek and check them out. Over at CalSheek.com for a limited time, if you download the CalSheek and use the code Lockdown, you get $10 when you trade $10, so check them out. We've a lot going on today. It is that lull just before the team comes back with what is a delayed week there. This week we're going to go over. Is this just more of the same treatment and expectation of Patrick Mahomes?

2:01That's later in the show. Before that, lifting this offense is a bit different of a chore this year than past. What does that difference look like? And we start where the controversy seems to be. That is on the offensive line. Now the only thing that we know for certain is what Andy Reid said last week. That is that both Josh Azuda and Diego Pounds were getting some reps. Diego at both guard and tackle. I do think that something you can read into it. That sounds like preparation for what is an undeclared situation right now. How do you read things? What do you think? Because I'm struggling here to come up with any sense until we get them back in the room. That's going to be the big question. Who shows up? What do they show up and do and who practices? Who doesn't? The only thing that we can really take for them last week is when you start looking at the state of the protection of Patrick Mahomes. Josh Simmons was not at practice from every report that I saw was that he was not at practice throughout the week last week. That usually means it's going to be a longer term deal than just a day-to-day situation.

3:07Until we see, we don't know. There's speculation out there. There's people that have been talking about it a lot. I don't know what to make of it. I'm in a situation where you see that he's not even there with on the sideline. That to me has always been a situation where he's going to be out. The player is going to be out for multiple weeks, usually, because they would at least be on the practice field if they're going to practice at some point during the week. Now, we'll see. We won't know until they report to practice. I guess they come back to the building on Tuesday. So maybe we'll get a little information there. Maybe Matt will have some information when we record with them for Wednesday. I don't think they actually have practiced till Wednesday this week since it's a Monday night game. So it's also going to throw our schedule off a little bit. We'll have an extra day to talk about getting ready for the Broncos game that we normally wouldn't because our preview show will be Monday versus on Friday. Well, and that's honestly the big thing that stands out to me, too. This is all conjecture. Nobody knows anything.

4:08If there's a blogger or a beat reporter that is making a solid statement because they think they have sources, well, I'm not seeing it corroborated. So I'm of the mind right now that I don't care that he was now there. I think everything is weird this year. From Andy Reed saying that he's going to call 40% run all of his own words to just the strangeness around a number of these positions. It feels to me like they're trying to do everything they can to allow him to get back. I think they gave him the week last thought. I will not be surprised if what it was it they had just had five days off, right? At the time they have to report back to the room. Plus giving him those two practices off last week. That's to me says that's an attempt to let his back rest, et cetera, et cetera, and trying to see if he can go this week. I feel like it's exploratory and they don't know, but I expect them to try probably early in the week. And I guess my issue is I don't the difference I'm making is he didn't even he wasn't even on the sidelines. Like I'm not saying he needed to be out there and practicing.

5:08That's fine. I'm not even being on the sidelines to me. Generally, he's always been a situation where the player is going to miss a game or two because they are not ready and not close to being able to practice. So we will see if that if that drink continues and we like I said, we won't really know until Wednesday when they report to practice. If he's going to even be out there with with no helmet or he's going to be out there practicing. I mean, that's that's really the question of it. Then it comes down to you have to look at it both directions. If he doesn't play who's the starting left tackle and if he does play, then you pretty much know here line is and I don't think there's really much to talk about in that regard. So we can just basically skip it and say if he plays, obviously it's Simmons, Sumatia, Humphrey, Smith, and I would expect more based on everything that we've kind of talked about over the past couple of weeks. But if he doesn't play, that's where the question comes in because that then it becomes a question of, do you reduce two spots to make one better than it would be otherwise because

6:15it's the blind side of my homes that you're talking about at that point. And that's that's really the debate. And it is clear that more is the number one right tackle right now if Josh plays, okay, fine. But that's really the question. He's also clearly of the other remaining options, the best overall blocker. So if you're going to put one guy, as you said, to protect the backside, it should probably be more, but Andy's history does not make us think that what he's done in the past is try to keep replacements. And I know that's a negative connotation word substituting to as few positions as possible. So to follow that mind, one option to be to leave more there and to let either a zoo to or pounds start that. Now I am of the mind. Benson is not in this math. Now if Andy Reed is talking to Andy Heck, maybe that changes and we'll see what happens. Maybe they're trying to see what the first practice of the week brings. I certainly, if Benson is allowed to start Patrick Mahomes first came back from an ACL

7:20injury, he must be on the right hand side. There is no responsible way to put him on Patrick's backside as an undrafted free agent Rookie in his first start. That's ridiculous, especially against Nick Benito. So I would say pounds would be in the same boat. I completely agree. So for me, it's very clear that if you're going to keep more consistent to keep the right tackle side, the same thing, I would say Zoodoo is probably the next best option if it's not Josh Simmons. And we will see if we get more information to figure out if that's going to be in the case and in the direction they go or if it's going to be somebody else. I really don't know what to expect. I will say this, the third preseason game shocked me because I never expected them to give Benson left tackle snaps. Like I figured that they would, they want him as a right tackle or maybe a guard because what you saw at right tackle when he played it didn't really show something that would make you think that he should be able to flip over and be okay at left tackle.

8:21Like they're, I understand it's the same position, but it's, you're dealing with generally way different types of pass rush and it's going to be a much bigger problem for him at left tackle than it would be at right tackle. And just from everything we've seen that is clearly the case as well. And you have to do what's most responsible for him. That's why this is the most important job out there. It has to be what you're doing to keep Patrick a healthy, but, but be get him off to a good start because quite frankly, he's probably rusty didn't play in the preseason. We've talked about that quite a bit. Didn't finish out the season. So that's important as well. And Patrick can do some things. He can't affect the offensive line play itself. He can redirect and he can make changes in the play, but he's going to have to do some lifting as well to the rest of the offense. And that's got to look very specific and that's next. Running a small business means wearing a lot of hats, even this one and payroll HR benefits

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11:28up front, but the whole thing. And that's where things have changed over the years. And there's been different ways that Patrick's had to deal with what's playing with him. And there's a lot of folks focusing on, especially what the White receiver group looks like this season, not terribly different from last season. And comparing that to years ago to the Super Bowl championship years, even before that, especially early with Tyrake. There's only one Tyrake. You can't really change that. But lifting the offense this season has to be gone about, I think, a different way because of his physical situation. Now I'm not going to call it a limitation because he seems to be moving as well as ever. I don't know if there's what the percentage is about. What is top end or is availability or possibility is. But I think for his protectionism, he needs to take care of himself a little bit differently. And elevate his game in a different way this season. Well, lifting the offense doesn't necessarily have to fall on his shoulders. I know we're talking about Patrick Mahomes, but the reality is that Andy Reed needs to work

12:30on lifting the offense and using the new pieces that they have. And that means running the ball. Like that's just the reality of lifting this offense. You want to lift this offense. You want to protect Patrick. The weighted protect Patrick is run the ball 40 to 50% of the time, especially early in the season and let him get his legs under himself. Like that is lifting the offense. That is protecting him because you're not putting too much on his plate. If you can find a way to get a win against the Broncos, regardless of how you get it done, you're in the driver's seat for the next three games. You should be able to beat the next three teams. I'm not saying that they will win every single game. I'm just saying the next three games after that should be winnable. It's just a question of can they find a way to get a win against the Broncos and get off to a hot start? Or are they going to have to be starting a little bit slower because they falter because he has rust because the rest of the team has rust because some of the guys didn't play. And then we talk about the protection in the offensive line.

13:32That becomes an issue too. And I just love this that I don't have to be the protagonist for the run game this year. It seems to come from a circle at this point. It would be a lot different if they hadn't gone out and spent $15 million on Kenneth Walker. See, that's the argument that everybody makes. And I think that's bold. It should have been this way forever. This isn't a new situation. I just, justifying because you spent the money is not the reason I disagree is because they didn't have the guys to do it before. You know what you had with Bacheco and Kareem Hunt. And true. Don't get me wrong. Kareem Hunt had a specific skill set and that's getting short down first downs. That's valuable. I'm not saying it's not. But he's not a guy that was going to continually get four, five, six, seven, eight yards on a run on a regular basis. He would hit the whole. He'd get positive yards. But you're still only getting three, maybe four at the most because his average was a three point something. Same with Bacheco with the running game that they have right now.

14:33They should be averaging over four yards of Kareem per Karee. That changes the math when you start looking at your situations in football. When you start talking about, you know, second or third and fourth is a lot different than third and two. That's just reality. And it's more is beyond that even because it would have been what I would have called more of a grind run game the last two seasons because you don't have that expectation. But here's the way that it swung and it's more about the concept of the plays, not necessarily who's running them. It's just the fact that you now have talent that can spring an explosive, a 15 plus yard run off of any play call. So it's about giving them enough volume, walk or in particular to get to the point where he sees it and hits that explosive. If you give him enough on average, he's going to get you those explosives and change the complexion of what the offense has to look like. But the other reason that it wasn't really something that they could do last year is because defenses weren't giving any mind.

15:36Like they weren't playing to stop it. They were literally saying they were they were giving you the option of running the ball. And that is why I'm saying it's different this season than it was in last because I do think that they're going to have to stop the run. They're going to have to respect the chief running game, which they haven't had to do for three years. And you can say that they should have you can say that they should have run the ball more last year. That's fine. But if you're running into heavier boxes because they don't respect the running game or they're not even having to put in heavier boxes because that's how little they respect the running game. You're not setting yourself up to win. You're setting yourself up to put more of my homes and shoulders because you're going to get them into more third and six is third and sevens because you're going to have running places that aren't going to get yardage at all. And that's a last year. That's a temporary point of view. If you run enough volume, you will make them respect the run because for yards at a time you'll get first downs and move the chains. It's the fact that you weren't getting the chunk plays that Andy reads backs off of

16:38the call. There are ways to do it in either direction. The problem is this allows the play call to shift back to what he wanted to be because of that possibility of an explosive or because on average, it's probably I expected to be a yard and a half, maybe two yards better per rush. This isn't just based on the talent in the backfield. So that allows in Andy's mind to back off of the run call, which is again, the problem. You have to give it the volume to make it be respected. And that's something I think what Patrick has to do too when he has the option or when he has the influence when they call two plays in the huddle, he's got to make sure that he isn't drifting back to old standards to try to push the past game just because it's what he wants to do. The best thing, this is like eating vegetables for Patrick Mahomes. You have to put in that groundwork in order to make the run game work for you, which is what they both need this season. Yeah, no, and I agree with that. I think that it's when you start looking at this and you start looking at how this is going to play out. It's just a question of Andy Reed has to go against some of his old tendencies, but I still

17:41I still would argue that his tendencies made sense based on the people that they had at the time because you don't you didn't have an explosive running game. You didn't have anybody that was going to really be worried about a checker or cream hunt for the past two seasons. Now you have three guys and they wouldn't use Bashar Smith last year. Now you have three guys that they have to worry about because Bashar Smith has shown that he has the ability to run the ball too. Now sure, he can catch the ball of the backfield and he can do a lot more than that since, but Image Johnson has shown that he has the ability to run behind this line. Kenneth Walker has shown in his career he has the ability to run in the NFL. You have a running game that should be something teams have to actually worry about and I fully expect that they're going to use it. The big question when we get back to state of protection and we start looking at how all this is going to play in together is depending on what they do at left tackle. Maybe they come out and they run jumbo 20% of the time against the Broncos because then you're giving them an extra offensive lineman to deal with on that side of the line to try

18:45to protect the blind side if Simmons doesn't play. Does it slow down your offense? Does it take away some of your offense? Yeah, it can. But if you're in a better situation and my homes isn't getting hit and you're able to run the ball because you're running over them, then I don't think it really matters. I think that's the benefit of it. I think that's the direction you have to go. We're going to talk about it later in the week and certainly on the preview from Monday, but I think the answer to beating these Broncos in week one is to getting physical with them and running more running down hill more. I know the stretch in the outside zone is the bread and butter of this offense, but I think they have enough and they showed it in the preseason to run at them in particular a couple of guys on the defensive line. Yeah, and I would be attacking Nick Benito every single running play. Not every single obviously, but I would be going and hammering him in the running game every single down. You ought to be able to beat him with an offensive lineman and just absolutely hammer him because you're going to wear him out. That's the other part of this is if you run at him, you're going to wear him down and

19:47I'm not saying you're going to I'm not saying take him out. That's not what I want to try and say, just run at it. Wear him out in that side. He's not going to be able to be as effective as in the past row side. Later edges are fatigued more by the run game. So use it to your advantage. It is a club swing the thing. Now the other thing that has to happen is it's not just running more, but it is adapting more. Patrick's got to get the ball out. There's a number of things he has to change. Is it just more of the same fixes? That's going to be the question that determines everything and I'm going to tell you right now. It cannot be. With schedules getting busier and everyone getting back into their normal routines, figuring out what's for dinner can become a daily headache. Home Chef makes the cooking simple with fresh food delivered right to the door. Easy recipes to follow and meals that actually taste great. Weekly deliveries help eliminate the meal planning, grocery runs, complicated prep and even a lot of the cleanup. And with more than 30 meal options every week, there are choices for different tastes and dietary needs, including 30 minute meals and oven ready option.

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21:52Download the CalChi app and use code locked on to get $10 when you trade $10. KAL, SHI, CalChi, trade on anything. 18 plus restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risks and may not be suitable for all investors. CalChi products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see CalChi.com slash regulatory. What we get into is looking at how Patrick himself is affected. We're going to do this by the way through the season and spend a lot of time specifically looking at where Patrick Mahomes is at. So it all comes down to him, especially as the goat tries to get back on board, if they're doing things right, in my opinion, it cannot be the same process where we deal with whatever we deal with, whether it's a new left tackle yet again, or if it's piecing together a 10

22:52n group or dealing with wide receiver injury, whatever it is, it just can't be more of the same where the coaching staff doesn't make the adjustment and they rely on Patrick and his athleticism and his prowess to make the difference up. And that's I think a change in mentality that hopefully this this longer off season will bring, especially with the mentality that Eric the enemy is back. And you can you can like Eric, you can not like Eric the enemy. It doesn't really matter. He's going to be more straightforward. He's going to be more realistic and down earth. And I think that's something that maybe not just like the X is no part, that's the thing that maybe has been missing the most in the last few years. Could be. I will say this when you when you start looking at this, it's it's also I understand what you're saying about the coaching staff can't put it on my homes. I agree with that. But they also have to limit Patrick to an extent. And what I mean by that is they put them in situations where they've called an RPO and he goes with the best option 85 to 90% of the time.

23:52Like, and maybe it's that he doesn't fact he didn't have faith in the running game. Maybe that's it. I don't know. But the reality is is you if you're going to be giving him that option, he has to be willing to go the other direction with it. Because part of the problem and I don't mean to you know part of his problem is how competitive he is. He's always going to want the ball in his hands. He's always going to be want to be the one that's going to be responsible. And I don't fault him for that. But they're going to that's something that they need to work on a little bit with him just so he doesn't always try to have to take over the game because that's where he's going to end up getting himself hurt this year. In my opinion is he's going to try to do too much when he should be. And I want to say this clearly, I don't care if they lose week one. If it means that he's still healthy in week two, because the reality is they need him more than they need to win in week one. I'm not saying you shouldn't go out there and try to lose the game. I'm just saying he needs to understand that it's a team effort and he can't go Superman

24:57in week one when he hasn't played at all. That's the other part of that. He didn't get any preseason staff. So you can say what you want in practice, but he still doesn't have he still didn't get up to speed. So what it could that look like. We'll talk about that more later in the week, but I'm not concerned about the mistakes he will make. The natural tendencies that he has early in a season or in the preseason when he is first in the game. That doesn't bother me. The only thing that matters is what you said before is that you cannot come out of week one against the Broncos with a hurt Patrick Mont period. I don't care if it's if it's a hang nail. You can't have that. So overall you have to make adjustments for him as well as with him. Your point about the RPOs is absolutely correct. And I think they will pull the RPOs out of the office quite a bit, especially given how much we've seen them practice under center. That's got to be it. But it's also got to be working on Patrick understanding that the play all this work is setting up your play action, which is what you want. Patrick wants to go deep against single high defenses.

25:59That's what this does. So you got to keep getting him to buy in. Well, but you also have to you also have to force them to go to single high deep. And the only way you're going to do that is running the ball. Like you have to have an effective running game. You have to be you have to go out there and I don't care if you have two or three drives where you go out there and run the ball and you don't have success. You have to be willing to stick with it. Now, obviously you're going to have to make some changes and try to score points and like I get all that, but you have to be willing to stick with the running game and you have to be willing to go back to it because you can't ask my homes to do everything. The question I'm going to have when you start talking about play calls, yeah, they've had a lot under center. Are they going to, you know, even if you go shotgun, a lot of what they've done in the past couple of years is they've done situations where you call bootlegs. I don't even think that they should be doing that early in the season. Like just use him, just give him plays that are designed to be one, two or three reads at most and haven't been getting the ball out. He should be with where he is mentally in this game.

27:00He should be able to go to the line of scrimmage and know within the first couple of seconds of looking at the alignment generally where he's probably going with the ball and then you use the motions that you're going to get to get a little bit more information and you should be knowing where the ball is going probably before the ball is even snapped. You're going to still have to go through your reads because you're going to be waiting for timing on some of those throws, but at the same time, like it shouldn't be a scenario where you're trying to throw deep 20% you know, 10% of the time. Yeah, you want deep shots, but you want to be able to set them up with the running game and with play action and you're not going to get that early in the game and get the Broncos. The Broncos aren't going to respect the running game I don't think just because they haven't seen it. Yeah. I mean, and I treat the first quarter of this Broncos game kind of the way I see the first at least a, what would that be a third, the pre-buy weeks of this season is that it is all set up. The whole thing. I don't care if you come out in the first quarter against the Broncos, you have three drives that sputter out because you didn't get enough first downs or you barely got into field

28:04go range. That still works because every time you attack the middle layer, the linebackers in particular, that pulls a safety down farther and farther and farther. When you get to the point where you're having success, that makes the deep has a coordinator change where he aligns the safeties and that's the key that they're looking for. Yeah. And that's exactly what they need to be looking for and that's what they need to be establishing because if you did the Broncos to start bringing the safeties down, other teams are going to see that on film and they're going to be adjusting the same way, which is exactly what you need to have this, this offense be successful. And they're going to run under center a lot more than they've ever run under center over the past couple of seasons and that is going to also change the looks that my home is getting one, but it's also going to change the way that this offense is going to operate because you're, you're looking at it from a different perspective and you're not going to get the whole wide view that you're used to getting. So you're going to have to have different reads, you're going to have to have different looks and the other, it's not just the reads, it's also the windows. So you have to realize normally when you're in shotgun, maybe you're still taking two

29:07or three steps back, that's a much different window than taking a three to five step drop from under center. You're talking about different windows and different abilities to hit different players at different depths. That changes everything when you're under center more. And I think that's what they have to rely on. They have to continue to pump up the guys that can get loose early or can get the advantage early in a route. That's what we're going to talk about later in the week. We have plenty coming up for you, but need to remind you as well. We're sending 24 seven feeds unlocked on YouTube channel for 2026. The season preview is up so you can get that across the board. What team is likely to give the Chiefs the biggest run, get on that locked on NFL feed and you can see it all. We are going to have more for you all week long as we get ready. Hope you had a good holiday and you ready to get back not just to work, but into the football groove because we are about to get started. I'm excited about it. We'll have more for you all week long. Thanks for being with us today. Have a great one and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

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