On Sunday, the Cincinnati Bengals’ defense made some subtle adjustments that completely changed the outcome of the AFC Championship. What made their performance so fun to watch was the number of different looks and coverages defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo’s squad used to defend the Chiefs’ usually explosive offense; Cover 1, Cover 3, Inverted Tampa-2. They dropped eight defenders into coverage, used spies and brackets, while rushing three, four and five.
These subtle differences in critical situations forced Patrick Mahomes to look for different receivers deep, which ended up being his ultimate demise.
“They just had a spy on me for the most part,” Mahomes said after the Chiefs’ 27-24 loss. “I usually do a good job of getting around that guy, but they had a good game plan. They were doing a lot of similar stuff in the first half. We were just executing at a higher level, and they stayed with it. They fought and that’s a good football team, but it takes a lot of fight to stay in a game whenever you’re down like that, but I’ve got to be better. When you’re up 21-3 at one point in the game, you can’t lose it. I put that on myself.”
