All this talk about the kickoff probably doesn't matter. Kick it near the end zone: they let it bounce and it probably goes into the end zone for a touchback. Squib it, they probably fall on it around the 25 give or take and no time comes off the clock because they gave themselves up immediately. A squib kick is probably more likely to give KC better field position with the same amount of time than we ultimately gave them. The high arcing kick probably would have been the right call; more likely to get the returner to panic and catch it and there's always a chance that if they don't catch it, it doesn't bounce into the end zone. But in all likelihood, 25 yard line with 13 seconds left was pretty much as good as we could realistically manage.
The defense was an atrocity. Just tackle everyone off the snap and you probably win the game on an incomplete hail mary. Mainly focus on protecting the middle of the field to force a more time consuming pass to the outside. Or just play cover 2 man defense (and probably force Hill to get open on a crosser where he at least needs to turn up field instead of just catching it while already going up field). Pretty much anything but what we attempted to do and we win that game.
It sucks, and for all the understandable frustration with Frazier after that, if he leaves, McD will just hire another Frazier. At the end of the day, we're running the defense that McD wants us to run. All Frazier leaving will do for us is likely give us the same defense but more poorly coached.
Thankfully we have time between now and free agency to kinda calm down and more logically think about how to chart our path this offseason, but for me at least, some of the things that I think need to be considered in the very least would be:
- Trading Edmunds (be it for cap relief/picks or for a more high impact player)
- Cutting Beasley/letting Sanders walk for cap relief
- Cutting Morse/Darryl Williams for cap relief
- Diggs extension (both because, duh, and also cap relief)
- Poyer re-structure for cap relief
As far as our in-house free agents go, the ones that I think will be interesting are Wallace, Harrison Phillips, Hughes, and McKenzie. If you asked me a few weeks ago, Phillips and McKenzie would be definite walk-aways for me, but they came on strong down the stretch and I think have made the decision more complicated for us. Wallace and Hughes continue to be solid players but at some point you have to let some guys go as we start to pay Allen a ton of money.
If we let Beasley and Sanders walk this offseason, WR quickly becomes a high-priority spot to address IMO. I'd like to at least gauge the price for Cedrick Wilson and Michael Gallup from Dallas; Wilson has been covered up by their WR corps but he's a good young player that could thrive with more playing time. Gallup has been relatively disappointing/injured the past couple years after kinda bursting onto the scene his sophomore year. Braxton Berrios or Adam Humphries could make sense to fill Beasley's role as well.
Outside of WR, pass rushing help will once again be a high priority and we could use depth pretty much across the board.
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