Pat did that when he threw the pick on our 27-yard line. No one on the defense was involved on that play.

usual defensive surge is happening

16th overall
15th yards per play
19th scoring
25th pass
11th net yards gained per pass attempt
5th rush
13th rush yards per attempt

chiefs are basically an average defense now

The pass rush seems to be improving every week.

8th in sacks
3rd in pressures :evil:

Did anyone even notice that Frank Clark was missing?

A 'no brainer' to bring him back...

This is to be expected. The defense has a ton of talent. They are just young and still learning.

It’s surprising at this point that we have to even bring this up year after year.

Now can you figure out how the defense is ranked just over the last three games? Bet that defensive ranking is even better.

The DL's performance is going to be even better when Frank gets back in there. so long as he's healthy, anyway. It's going to be the best year for the DL in the Mahomes era, and by a lot.

Heh, nope. It helps that Danna came back a couple of games ago. Needed depth. And I'm no Frank Clark fan but he was starting to play well before the suspension. Let's hope he continues that. Can never have too many good pass rushers.

3 sacks in 5 games, what a turd right?

oh yeah

it's happening

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fhnd3-IX...jpg&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fhnd3-KX...jpg&name=large

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jones and Dunlap at end. Karlaftis at nose. Willie Gay is big here in his slow walk as a spy to force the RG to account for him so the RT has to block Chris Jones one on one which is going to be a mismatch. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/JacobsEyeInTheSky?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#JacobsEyeInTheSky</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Chiefs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Chiefs</a> <a href="https://t.co/OBxIhKsfpo">pic.twitter.com/OBxIhKsfpo</a></p>&mdash; Nick Jacobs (@Jacobs71) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jacobs71/status/1592654008367616000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

jones has looked like reggie white at end this year....dude is getting PAID

Yeah, Jones has been playing at an DPOTY level all year…and will only become more productive as Karlaftis refined his technique and if Frank Clark comes back playing at the same level he did against SF.

That is such a cool play design.

And shows what Spags blitzes do even when we DON'T blitz.

Gay !@#$ed that play up by simply existing. And because he didn't rocket upfield, he could have dropped into short zones for crossers or what not. And since we only sent 3, that left 7 in coverage w/ Gay as the spy. Even mediocre coverage snuffs that play out once Jones got isolated on the RT.

That's a Spags win that Jones ultimately finished.

Point - Spags. Just an outstanding call there.

7.

But who's counting?

Yeah - he's a turd.

Chris Jones is absolutely playing at DPOY status right now. He needs to be extended

Thank God Spags is using Gay this way again.

seems like everyone has the basic scheme down now, and he's adding wrinkles

i think this defense is going to be nasty come january

that's the perfect practice against josh allen too, gay SHOULD be spying allen on every third down

you almost wonder if they practiced some buffalo calls against jacksonville since you have some of the same kind of talent there with lawrence's legs and their receivers

Jacksonville as a Rookie Level Buffalo?

I can see that...

Interesting take from Etienne:

I love our LBs. I do think as Chenel gets more experience he will be much better. Gay is a stud as is Bolton. Hope KC can keep them around.

If it was me, I'm paying Willie and Bolton both.

Ascending difference makers, both of them.

Darius Harris is underrated. He would be a beast in an expanded role.

We're pretty good against the run this year, and I think the biggest reason for that is Gay and Bolton both playing full time instead of sitting behind ****ing Hitchens

Paul Alexander was on Miller/Kirwin's show on NFL Network radio, and they were talking about Chris Jones. He brought up that Jones sometimes could be a liability against the run, but it's not as much of a deal this year because he's being moved around on the line more than he ever has and also because Spagnuolo is using that to his advantage and putting our LBs in positions to close gaps off if Jones goes too aggressive on a rush when it ends up being run.

I know the complaint doesn't apply to speedier Will backers who are still valuable to modern defenses, particularly if they can rush the passer as well, but LBs have been kind of the interior OL of the defense in terms of losing their positional value. But damn, when they suck, it makes your defense suck. And when they're great, it makes a ton of other things around you on defense also great.

This guy has to be one of the most underrated coordinators in history. Whenever we rushed 4 we didn't even sniff Herbert, so Spags dials up his creative blitzes and we end up with a ton of sacks (most by far LAC has allowed in a game, and they hadn't allowed many all year).

That's not easy to do, and 99% of coordinators either don't make the (any) adjustment, or don't scheme something that works. Like they just send the house and get burned.

The timing, the way it's hidden pre-snap, just genius.

I know we all love our coaching staff, but it really struck me when Sneed had to leave the game for a bit that we were running with three rookie cornerbacks and playing well. That's dang impressive. It reminded me of the 49ers' ascent back in the 80s when they started three rookies in the defensive backfield and thrived.

The Chiefs can identify talent and they can develop talent.

Yup. KC won’t have the 85 Bears defense, but considering how young it is they are far exceeding expectations. Not only are they starting three rookies CBs but outside of McDuffie they are all later round picks. That is very impressive.

Even early on in the spags era when I wasn't a fan of the hire I had to concede that this guy can coach the hell out of DBs.

He's been a major major asset this year.

spags is the perfect coordinator for the mahomes era

no matter the stats, his defense BALLS OUT in the second half of games consistently

Herbert usually makes you pay for blitzing, so for us to go that route and not get torched is a testament to everyone on the defense.

Agree... There seems to be a bright future as they learn this level of the game even more.

2nd to last offensive play for the Chargers was an absolute gem. D lined up with wide tackles and LB’s with wide splits leaving the middle of the LOS open.

Herbert saw that on his drop back and decided to attempt the run. But I think Spags goaded him into that as Jones went across the face of the guard or center as Herbert came forward and nailed him for the 3 yard sack/loss.

If that was coached that way, it was ****ing brilliant.

What a game for Spags. D gives up 20-pts in 1st half then 7 in the 2nd. Great job making adjustments

He and his staff held LAC to 115 yards of total offense in the 2nd half. 5 drives, one score. And it's not the first time this season.

The defense has made large improvements every year as the season progressed since Spags was hired. This year is no different. The team has 32 sacks and is currently tied for 4th in the league. 14 of the sacks have came in the last 3 games.

Karlaftis
McDuffie
Watson
Williams
Chenal
Cook

All of those rookies are playing significant snaps and excelling.

The rest of the season should show us a defense that’s playing with a lot of swagger as they continue yo be coached up snd build on communication.

Isn’t this arguably the best defense we have had since spags has been here?

Chiefs are 4th in the league in sacks.

Already with more than we had in the entirety of last season.

Spags + Cullen = godmode

Spags is a ****ing magician. All of those rookies playing key roles, and playing well. It's NUTS what he's doing.

And especially the second half of games, when it is most important.

And also, nobody can dial up a blitz at a key moment like Spags. I mean it's like serious genius.

As far as I'm concerned, he can stay here with Andy until they both retire.

I wanted him so badly but Gruden stayed with PG.

Sigh.

Can you imagine if we had (a)nother STAR DE

hello my friend

i will see you soon

:facepalm:

Prediction, 2 weeks from now. J. Chase catches a TD pass and there will be half a dozen posts in the GDT how much Spags sucks.

Agreed. Amazing how much better our defense is with those two vs Hitchens and Neimann. I would try and lock them up as early as possible as they get more expensive every year, especially Bolton.

Shut down the Chargers in the second half. That Allen catch on 3rd and 18 was clear opi and Williams played him perfectly but got pushed off as the ball was coming down. Spags is a very good coach. Aside from Fangio and maybe Quinn, you won't find a better defensive coordinator in this league.

115 yards and only one big play, 7 points, and two turnovers. KC doesn’t win if the defense doesn’t step up in the second half.

I know he has been nails at making adjustments during 2nd half. My question is are we running base entire first half and shell the entire 2nd half?

Spags is such a refreshment. Remember before spags was here the lack of halftime adjustments?

One of the biggest things to me is that I can't predict blitzes now. It used to drive me crazy in the Gunther Cunningham days when a blitzer would run up to the line five seconds before the snap and then jump around staring at the quarterback the entire time. The quarterback would then throw it to some guy who moved into that vacated spot and I would be sad because everyone except Gunther knew what was going to happen.

I don't know how or why it happens. Josh Allen rattled at his own goaline, lets him off the hook. Herbert on 3rd and 18 after getting wrecked by Gay, lets go easy here, go ahead and have a cigarette back there while you read the field. Zero blitz on 3rd n 27 while a guy sets the rookie receiving record on your ass all day.

Just inexplicable gaffes at the worst times.

Uh oh Spagnolio and Reverend Billy Graham are two people that can make a hundred thousand people all yell Jesus Christ simultaneously.

100%. I used to yell at the tv about it. Hated the fact that I not only knew when we were going to blitz every time, but knew exactly how we were going to do it just about every time.

Sutton wasn't any better. Always trying to fit square pegs in round holes, leaving talent on the shelf because of the above, predictable unimaginative play-calling of a 12-year-old . . .

Spags turned the defense into a resilient, aggressive, unpredictable, situationally proficient unit, even with wholesale turnover twice in just 4 years.

The man deserves more credit than what he gets from Chief Fan.

Steve Spagnuolo post-game presser:
<iframe width="642" height="361" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AD5ahJT6Mrk" title="Steve Spagnuolo: "He's a cerebral player, and I love those kind of guys." | Press Conference 11/22" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Couple interesting things in there.

1. It takes a whole half for Steve and his crew to figure shit out. That's why there's no adjustments until half. IMO, I'd lik to see that figured out much sooner, but that looks like that's not going to be the case. They play much better after half adjustments, so we just have to hope that the games don't get away from us in the first half, and we have a chance.

2. Put the lousy no pressure 3rd n 18 on his players. Thought the d line would get more pressure than it did (at least that's what I got out of it) and Josh shoukd have located the ball. Even though he knew there's a rocket arm back there that can make any throw.

Football is all about situations. You've harassed the guy with pressure all night. Bring pressure again, and the receivers likely don't have time to get 18 yards downfield. Instead, you choose to give him all day to make a throw, which leads your unit to giving up what is a back breaking score on 31 other nfl teams.

It was good to see the O pull it out, but we'd been in similar spots before this year where the back breaking score beat us because they intercepted the ball on our final series against Indy, and Buffalo.

So Patrick can't always pull your ass out of the fire. We have a coin flip o line. They might do their job, or Patrick could be under fire all day.

These are young guys, it's his job to help them out, and I'm sorry but no pressure on 3rd n 18 with an arm like Herbert has, you're just asking for him to smoke you. You'll never convince me that only rushing 4 was the right call there.

Pass the buck or whatever, I guess Jones should have taken up 3 guys instead of just the 2 all night right?

Amazing how much better he looks with actual talent on the defense at key positions.

I dont' like the 3rd and long stuff. It's a damned if you do damned if you don't thing. Bring pressure, you're in danger

Sit back you're in danger.

Its not all or nothing.

You don't have to zero blitz.

You can send an extra guy. It's totally fine.

Also not for nothing, but is nobody concerned that Steve Spagnuolo could not answer a question about Palmers TD to take the lead because he couldn't remember it?

Like, what?

I have no involvement with this game other than the 3 hours as a fan watching live, and I knew immediately what play the reporter was asking about.

Also, it's Tuesday at the time of this presser, which means he should have already reviewed film to make corrections, and after living the game in real time, and again reviewing the film, he STILL doesn't remember the play that gave up the lead with 1:46 remaining?

It really explains a lot. I'm expecting these coaches to call plays and gameplan drawing from their vast experiences over the years.

But if this dude can't remember the ****ing play that surrendered the lead 2 days removed from the game, AFTER watching the film, then he's drawing from 2 things. Jack, and shit.

I just can't believe the guy can't remember the play.

Meh.

Sometimes one extra guy isn't enough and now you've compromised yourself on the back end. 5 man rushes aren't great.

I'm fine with feast or famine. Go big or go home. Bring pressure and make sure it gets there or don't even bother. If you bring a little pressure, like a 5 man rush, and it doesn't get there, you're ****ed too.

JFC you're a whiny **** LMAO

I would say that he's making adjustments throughout the half. It just takes the whole half for them to get it together. I don't know how many times that we've seen the other team come out on the first drive and march right down the field usually with a big play. Then they get the big plays stopped and start getting some stops. Like the screen pass that went 50 yards on the first drive of the Titans game. That only worked once.

We’re 11th in 3rd down defense but sometimes I feel like not having a good enough pad rush gets us.

Man watching a team like Dallas with 4 good edge rushers is suffocating. Vikings were 1/11 on 3rd down and a big part of that was the fear of God from their pass rushers.

Hope Veach can get us a pass rush like that next year.

Ok staylor ran away.

If you're good with a dude having no memory of the biggest play of the game for his unit, and can't answer any questions about it, continue living your quite blissful ignorance.

Lol, here we go. Again.

Here's how the LAC drives went in the second half:

PUNT - 9yds
PUNT - 9yds
FUMBLE - 43yds
TD - 63yds
INT - (-5yds)

Wallcrawler: "iT's NoT gOoD eNoUGh!!!!"

Okay. Your right. Spags sux. Can't make adjustments. Can't stop anyone. We're ****ed.:LOL:

Happy Thanksgiving, WC!:thumb:

You're like...my third least favorite person on this board.

Da Fuq?? We’re 4th in the league in sacks

Aww. Now you've gone and made me count how many ****s I don't give about you, or the ****ing mongrel race that conceived you.

It's a real shame that you're too ****ing reeruned to use ignore, isn't it.

Continue crying, you blood belching ****.

Imagine having the illiteracy level that you display. I'm sure it's you being intentionally obtuse, because that's just the kind of **** schtick you have.

The guy said in his own presser "it takes a half to figure out what they want to do. Then we adjust at the half"

And all that shit is great, punt, punt fumble, then you have "The Magician" Steve Spagnuolo with his next trick, POOF! he makes the lead disappear.

3rd and 18 was a shit call. Period. Led to giving up the score that beats 31 other nfl teams.

Make excuses all you like.

Then when asked in the presser about Palmers second td ( you know, the one from the magic trick where the lead disappeared) he doesn't remember. Can't answer the question.

Lmmfgdao. You should be able to answer questions on the biggest plays in the game.

So going by what he said, we have to hang on through first halves, get our shit together in the second and hope that the game didn't get away from us before half.

It's all right there in his own ****ing words, so **** off, die, and enjoy drinking fire while Satan ****s you in the ass.

JFC. It's like a 10th grade study hall in here.

<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/l2Je7KqZ7jXtsKwaA" width="480" height="362" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/season-16-the-simpsons-16x5-l2Je7KqZ7jXtsKwaA"

Got it you don’t like Spagnuolo. He showed stats showing how different the first half and second half is and in spite of that you are fixated on 3rd and 18 as if that cost us the game. It didn’t and that was the only significant drive they had all second half. The Chargers also got to ball back with like 31 seconds left and two timeouts and could not get into FG range because the defense stepped up. Did you see that or did you turn the game off after the 3rd and 18? Or the Chargers TD so you could shake your fist in the air and curse the name of Spags? This team is 8-2 in large part because of the defense. They haven’t given up 30 or more this year except for the TB game where they were playing catch-up all game.

QFT

Mongrel race? What kind of racist bullshit lingo are you spewing here, dude? LOL PSSST-YOUR HOOD IS SHOWING.

And look at this outburst, by the way. I mean, wow.

Methinks thou doth protest too much.

Being on my least favorite list really got your panties all in a wad.

Speaking of obtuse, do you really think that he doesn't make any adjustments over the course of the first half based on what he's seeing? Do you think he expressly forbids allowing himself to even subconsciously make changes?

Or do you think it's perhaps that as a DC you're fighting fires all over the place like it's a triage unit, and when he's able to focus entirely on adjustments rather than in-game playcalling and related matters during a running game, then he puts his entire energy into said adjustments? Whereas during the actual first half of the game the adjustments are continuously happening but just might not be as dramatic?

Do you take everything so literally? Like, if some people hear say that you should drink antifreeze, do you really take that to mean like they wish for you to ingest poison and die?

No DC is perfect, dude.

He does this in every thread lately. He's an angry, angry person. I feel bad for him.

Lol.

How many plays did spags call? Any idea? You think he needs remember every one to be good enough for you?

And why does he have to get every single call exactly right?

When was the last time you got everything right for 3 straight hours, with 20 odd people’s immediate success on the line, plus the success of an entire billion dollar organization?

Who holds any one person to such an incredibly reeruned standard?

Oh right, whiners like you?:thumb:

Dude, when he's told to drink antifreeze, he drinks it. Obviously.

The 3rd and 18 call wasn't great, but dude made a great play on the ball too. The other guys get paid to play.

As cringe as this reaction was, the worst part about this (like many of my old posts) was my undying love for Ballard and Dorsey.

Because hot damn, the one year Spags got us into the Top 20 in DVOA, we won it all. Hoping he can help us do it again this season.

They're currently 22nd in defensive DVOA with 2 games left against the Broncos. :D