Is stopping Charles the key to stopping the Chiefs?

Yes.

It's the key to stopping their offense. But the key to winning the game falls on Fitzpatrick's decision making.

 

He knows that lol

I get his point, and its the logical thing to do with a new QB this week.

You dont want to open the playbook much with a backup QB in his first game.

 

If we go balls out there's gonna be some fines coming down

 

Your right, what was I smokin lol

 

I meant like how we blitz.

 

I never understood the phrase 'balls out'. Especially in football, sounds dangerous.

 

Stop Charles, put Verner on Bowe and well.. does Donnie Avery scare any of you? I would blitz, blitz and blitz some more. Hammer Smith and the rest will take care of itself.

 

The answer to the question is YES!

And really we mean, contain him. We are unlikely to prevent him from gaining any yards, but we need to know where he is at all times and not only have him covered by someone with speed, but we need to swarm him and tackle very well when he has the ball. Much like CJ in his early years, he's faster then he looks so it's easy for back 7 players to take a bad angle and then you can't catch him. We can't have plays where he catches a swing pass, makes 3 guys miss and runs for 75 yds. Tackling and pursuit MUST be excellent as well as our run fits!

Their top 2 TE's were hurt against the Giants so that leaves Bowe, Avery, and McCluster. I will be very interested to see if in nickel or dime looks we match size and put Campbell on Bowe with either a S over top or Campbell playing off and dropping a LB underneath. McCluster and Avery like to catch short passes and get a lot of YAC so again, crisp tackling and pursuit will be key. Verner and McCourty have been very good at coverage and tackling when giving up the reception.

Believe it or not, Smith has a propensity to take off and run vs man coverage...especially in 3rd and long so we need to have a spy. Similar to what we did vs SD when we tackled them frequently just short of the sticks!

The other factor is special teams with McCluster. We can't give up big returns or a TD. Might want to punt it high and force fair catches or kick it out of bounds. With Bailey hopefully back, we should be ok here but he's their other spark plug who can score with one touch.

Gut