Sneed said the game speed felt slow compared to facing the Chiefs' Wrs during training camp. He prefers to play cornerback going forward even though he played quite a bit of safety in college.

Makes me wonder how far his absence put Keyes behind. He had covid or somesuch.

I didn't really watch Sneed real closely during the game, but from the little I saw he's a tremendous athlete, with serious speed. Also liked that he wasn't afraid to tangle with his assignments. Here's hoping he keeps making big strides this season.

According to NFL.com, Sneed hit the 2nd highest speed recorded this week in the NFL, only behind Raheem Mostert.

The Smee kid was impressive. As is Veach.

His coach must he a rah tard.

Sneed said he will probably move to safety later on in his career

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">2 career games.<br>2 career interceptions. <a href="https://t.co/Y47UZv0GaB">pic.twitter.com/Y47UZv0GaB</a></p>&mdash; Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) <a href="https://twitter.com/Chiefs/status/1308139299993518082?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>




It is so nice seeing 38 and thinking oh wait that's not Parker!!

The kid is a gamer.

So true.

I feel like that about a couple of other numbers too.

Danna/Zombo is another good one.

Sneed leads the league interceptions LMAO

He's going to get a couple opportunities to intercept Lamar this weekend, since Lamar has a tendency to throw up those arcing type passes when he goes downfield. That should play directly into Sneed's athleticism and ball-hawking abilities.

I wonder what his targeted completion % allowed was.

That last KC rookie to have two interceptions in his first two games: you don't have to go that far back....MARCUS PETERS. He tied for most INTs in the NFL that season with 8. (2015)

If he gets one next week we get to start calling him the Kansas City Thief. Sorry, Marcus. We've moved on.

Not all of us.

No doubt, but that was damn well the worst throw/QB decision I've ever seen. Herbert lost them the game right then and there.

Anybody with half a brain has moved on. Dude was a critical head case.

Wasnt his 40 time lower than the others who went before him in the draft? But, in reality, he's really fast.

If you are a 4.6 guy instead or 4.4 does it really make you as a football player less able to do the job?

Sneed ran a 4.37. He's fast.

Week 5 we will be fine with Ward/Breeland/Sneed. :clap:

So why in the **** did he drop to the 4th round? Just a position switch as a senior? What was that, some red flag or something?

He played at Louisiana Tech, which is an FBS school in Conference USA, so he didn't face top notch receivers. Shutting down receivers at UTEP or UT San Antonio isn't the same as shutting down guys in the ACC, Big Ten or SEC.

It was a super deep draft at WR and other positions, so fortunately for the Chiefs, Sneed slipped to the 4th.

Um...yes.

Is that a serious question?

Think of it in terms of time/space. you're talking about throws that get by DBs hands by a couple of inches at least a couple of times/gm. If you're 2 tenths faster, you're absolutely able to get to that spot just a little bit quicker, especially on anything more than 15-20 yards downfield.

And if you can't cover 20 yards downfield, you can't play. Not anymore. And if 2 or 3 of those balls you could've defended at 4.4 go undefended at 4.6, that's easily enough to lose you a football game in a league driven by parity.

I mean sure, if you're smarter or quicker or stronger you can overcome being slower - but it's harder. Yes, being faster will absolutely make a CB better at his job, ceteris paribus.

World. Class. Sneed.

Snead gonna get beat now and then but that closing speed is wow

From my final mock draft:

All the draft Escalades for Staylor.....

Yes, serious question. I understand basic physics. The 4.4 player is going to get there faster than the 4.6 player.

In Baseball, as a batter, if you fail 7/10 times your a star making $20 million a year. You fail 8/10 times your not even playing in the big leagues.

My question was does the 4.6 player even make it to the NFL?

I can't imagine 4.6 plays CB in the NFL with any regularity, no.

Richard Sherman's as smart and technically sound a CB as you'll find and he needs to be moved to safety YESTERDAY. Though he's probably not at 4.6 anymore.

He was probably around 4.6 when he broke in though, and he was obviously capable of playing at that speed. But he's the exception that proves the rule.

About time we got some karma payback. We get the #1 pick and there wasn't just a QB worth taking, but no position had anyone worthy of a #1 pick. Time has proven that.

IM ROCK HARD IN MY PENUS AREA

From ESPN+
https://i.imgur.com/VDb4Eoy.png

Once Breeland and Ward return, this secondary will go from a perceived weakness to start the season to a position of strength, with depth that will rival the defensive line.

[IMG]<script type="text/javascript" src="https://widgets.sports-reference.com/wg.fcgi?css=1&site=pfr&url=%2Fplayers%2FS%2FSneeLJ00.htm&div=div_detailed_defense"></script[/IMG]





This is for both games though.

A 35.7 QB Rating against will play, fella...

Damn right! :clap:

Yeah, the table did a bad job of clarifying that it is indeed QB rating against.

It's starting to look like one of those "Titans loss" things that really seemed to suck at the time but actually helped us out a lot.

It got us Suggs by lifting us above the Ravens and Saints in the waiver order, and it clearly lit a fire under some asses.

A healthy, non-suspended secondary and I don't think Sneed is getting run right now. I almost wonder if he'd have seen the field at all - the staff spoke really highly of Hamilton and we know their affinity for Fenton. If you have Ward, Breeland, Hamilton and Fenton healthy, the #5 corner just isn't getting snaps. Not with how Spags uses Mathieu in the slot and/or Sorensen as a 3rd safety.

But he's been a revelation out there. And sure, there's gonna be some rough patches, but he's proven he can play in this league. And I think his athleticism will REALLY play in the slot if/when he ends up there on Ward/Breeland's return.

You can't just put a shifty fast guy off the line and trust that a clean release will get him into space, not with Sneed's recovery speed.

At that point you'll have to worry about him getting beat on double moves, but that's where having a fast safety like Thornhill and a savvy one like Mathieu around to cover for errors will really help.

This secondary is going to look really nice in a few weeks.

I was excited that Rashad Fenton performed better than expected last year and Sneed is out performing that.

Dane's right, the secondary is going to be a strength very soon.

Should be strong in the backhalf:

Breeland
Ward
Mathieu 50% of the time
Sneed
Fenton / Hamilton

At some point you have to acknowledge that Spags is just really ****ing good at getting the most out of his corners.

I’m sure there will still be people bitching if we don’t take a corner early next year though.

It's already begun

Honestly, I still think it's pretty hard to argue that Sutton didn't get more out of his corners than their talent dictated.

He made Nelson a very wealthy man and Peters, as good as he is, has never been as good as he was here. Sean Smith, Marcus Cooper, Terrance Mitchell - he made chicken salad out of chicken shit several times.

The difference may end up being staying power. If Spags can get guys like Sneed to be more than the one-year wonder types that Gaines, Cooper and Mitchell proved to be (even Nelson was never truly consistent), that would be enormous.

This may be a bit early in the game to make this kind of statement because he's only been the GM since 2018, but it seems as if Veach is better at identifying talent for the Jim Johnson/Steve Spagnuolo scheme better than Dorsey was at identifying talent for Sutton's scheme.

Considering Veach spent nearly a decade of his career helping to identify talent in Philly, it makes sense that he has a very good idea of what and who will work in this particular defense. And it's not just been at cornerback, as we've seen him hit on safety, third and fifth round defensive linemen and so on.

I still can't figure out what's going on with him at linebacker. Is it that the Chiefs and this defense just don't put an emphasis (i.e., draft value) at the linebacker position in this scheme or that they just haven't felt the need to make it priority?

In a way, their indifference to spending high draft picks and big time free agent money at linebacker is similar to the way they've prioritized offensive lineman. They've spent big bucks on Schwartz and on Hitchens, although I should add that Andy knows the exact skillset he wants from his big guys, and can basically grab soon-to-be effective players anywhere, including late in the draft or as UDFA's.

But the linebacker thing is somewhat of a mystery.

Which would be so odd as Spags will tell anyone that listens that the 2 hardest roles on his defenses are DE and LB.

In terms of read keys and positioning, his defense flows from those 2 spots. He hammers on how critical they are in this scheme.

I wonder if they'll spend money but not draft capital on the spots because he wants to see how guys thing through the game at THIS level before he'll trust them.

Or maybe he's just working with what he has and the Chiefs see too much sunk cost in Hitchens.

It's interesting, isn't it? And while I certainly don't hate on the guy, as some signings just do not work out, but wow, is that Hitchens contract bad or what??!

Considering the cap floor may be $175 million next year (although I highly doubt it'll be that low), they can't even begin to think about releasing him until 2022.

That was maybe the worst free agent signing after extending Eric Berry. Even the $4 million Dorsey inexplicably wasted by cutting, then re-signing Hali to a 3 year, $21 million dollar deal, pales in comparison.

Yeah - for as much shit as Dorsey gets for his FA acquisitions, Veach's aren't much to sing about.

Sammy's catch on Sherman erases all sins there, but man, Okafor and Hitchens look roooough. Mathieu is looking like Veach's Schwartz, but Schwartz was a stud AND below market. Mathieu is playing to his deal while Schwartz played far beyond it.

And where Veach has stood out on budget signings, Dorsey did alright there as well.

Though you're right that Veach doesn't have whatever the hell that Hali thing was. I really think they thought Houston was healthy when they let that option void and took the cap hit. Then they learned shortly afterward that he wasn't and panicked. It's the only kind of explanation I can come up with that makes any sense.

The Houston thing HAD to have screwed their pooch there.

It IS, but they did draft Gay in the 2nd round. So clearly they were seeking an upgrade. I agree though it is confusing.

The Hitchens contract was horrible the instant he was signed. It NEVER made sense.

The signing itself made sense. The contract really didn't.

And as was mentioned, the contracts for Mathieu and Watkins weren't anything to write home about either. They've at least played to their contracts, though.

That being said, Hitchens was never this bad in Dallas.

Derrick Johnson was a stud, so we could put utter crap around him as situational depth and it was usually fine at the inside LB spot.

Gay has stud potential. If he reaches that potential, we're going to see most of our LB problems disappear.

Same thing at safety. In 2018 we were forced to bring back Ron Parker at safety. We get one stud in Honey Badger, and all of a sudden a rookie and the depth guy many of us never liked round out a pretty damn good set of safeties, because their roles of importance are reduced. And that position transformation happened in the course of just one season.

So here's hoping, I guess. Should still probably keep hunting for decent players in the draft, too.

I said for years that a weakness is MLB. We need one stud there and don't have it.

“Need” is a stretch. We just won a Super Bowl without one.

It would be nice to have. Don’t get me wrong.

We obviously don't NEED a stud MLB. We just won a Lombardi without one.

Plus, this team plays a ton of nickel. A couple of good LB's would be better than one stud and much cheaper too.

Let's hope Gay is a student of the game since Spags say's it is one of the two positions that is the most challenging and essential for his D to work. Surely they checked out this guy's intellect of the game to find out if he could handle a complex defense. I would think so.

When I saw Sneed's interception during the game, I thought it was all on Herbert. But wow, I can see why he threw it now. Look at where Sneed was when Herbert started to throw the ball.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I urge you to stop what you are doing. L’Jarius Sneed alert. I see why Herbert threw it. Sneed at the bottom of your screen. Charlton flushes Herbert out with a great rush. He sees a TD. Sneed just tracks the ball, accelerates &amp; closes for the awesome pick. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JacobsEyeInTheSky?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JacobsEyeInTheSky</a> <a href="https://t.co/hABZqCWmzy">pic.twitter.com/hABZqCWmzy</a></p>&mdash; Nick Jacobs (@Jacobs71) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jacobs71/status/1308597191120949248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 23, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Incredible play

That was a TD without that pick

Damn.

Who the hell is this kid?

You have a combo penis and anus?

L'Jarius Sneed is a professional football player in the National Football League. He plays cornerback for the Kansas City Chiefs. They are my favorite football team.

Kansas City is a city in the state of Missouri. Its surrounding cities form the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, which spreads across the Missouri's border with Kansas. You can Google "maps of the United States" to learn more.

Yep. You can tell the kid played some safety.

He's gonna get himself an INT return TD this year. Perhaps multiple.

I love CEH, don't get me wrong, but Sneed might be my favorite rookie on this team.

Well, besides Townsend, of course.

Sick!

It's a little early but this may be yet another Veach home run.

I think he'd underthrown it to the point that Sorensen would've possibly made a play on it.

But damn, was Dan toasted or what?

Amazing awareness and ball-skills. Kid's a ball-hawk for sure. We haven't had one of those in a looooong time. As previously noted - you can see the safety skills there.

It's good to see the All-22. During the broadcast it just made no sense to me that Herbert would attempt that pass. Now it makes a bit more sense.

How often does a rookie corner look ready and actually succeed so early in their development? Obviously Marcus Peters was the outlier but damn this kid is really impressing me.

I’m trying to be patient bc of how we’ve been burned by small sample sizes from MARcus Cooper and Terrance Mitchell.

He’s been incredible this far though.

He's just so goddamn fast.

And it's the first 5 yards that are so impressive. He is just immediately up to speed.

yeah, it's crazy to me that a guy like this just gets missed. The athletic ability is there in spades and he sure doesn't seem like an idiot.

Even if he's not a true stud, how does a guy with this tool-kit make it out of the 2nd round?

Great scouting here. Looking past his SR year tape at safety and just identifying attributes that we could develop - that's how you just keep crushing it.

I was talking to staylor before about how scouts just kept missing bc they only look at premier SEC and big name schools most of the time.

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what scouts saw to put Trevon Diggs over this kid? I mean if you really looked at them for 5 mins you’d see nearly everything from Sneed was better. Measurables, speed, ball production.

But we knew he was a great opportunity asset bc I remember Veach saying he thought abo it trading up to the top of the 4th to get him.

It must have been full blown anxiety and stress waiting to see if he would even be there for us. Thankfully he was.

Speaking of rookie corners, anyone know if BoPete got ST snaps this week?

He was active.

6 Special Teams snaps

It’ll be fascinating to see what they decide to do when Breeland gets back. These top 3 corners are outside lane guys. So someone has to spend most of the time on the bench...

You can't bench Sneed when he's playing at such a high level.

Probably some combo of how Ward and Breeland are playing and future team plans. As I'm sure you know, Ward is a RFA next year & Breeland a FA.

I wouldn't be surprised if they keep both players in 2021.

Breeland's going to come cheap next year because of the 4 game suspension (risk for another team) and his age (29 to start the year).

Ward is one of Veach's best acquisitions and while it's taken him some time to reach true Starter status, he'll be in his Prime years beginning in 2021 and I don't think the Chiefs can afford to see him walk or end up on a rival AFC roster for the following 4 seasons.

They can't lose Ward to the Ravens or Patriots, let alone the Raiders or Chargers.

Breeland has experience in the slot.

I think mostly it will allow you to keep everybody fresh.

Ward is an easy call to retain. 1st or 2nd round tender depending how he plays this year. Can’t have enough of those corners.

Yea Ward isn’t going anywhere.

Breeland doesn't have the athleticism to play inside - he needs a boundary to help him out.

I'm not sure Ward's as flexible and/or loose-hipped to turn and run as well without a sideline to play off of.

But that's where Sneed's athleticism, ball skills and comfort in space are so fascinating. He CAN play inside. I don't think he needs the sidelines to act as a 12th defender.

I think you have a damn good trio that way.

Dunta Robinson, the trade for Ben Grubbs and the Hitchens Signings are the worst deals thus far.

Hopefully Hitchens gets his act together and gives us the player that was very good for Dallas.