Quote:
Originally Posted by Lzen
While points allowed is a key stat, it is not everything. Time of possession and yardage are still important factors. I'd be curious to see those rankings for all of the seasons Sutton has been here. 2016 was a good defense as far as getting turnovers, but what happens in a game when your defense isn't getting turnovers? Sure, they held the Steelers to 18 points, but the Steelers held the ball for quite a bit of time during that game and didn't allow our offense to get into much of a rhythm. And don't get me wrong, I still mostly blame Alex Smith for that shit show.
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Time of possession had largely been in the Chiefs' favor probably up until this season.
As for yardage, this defense has never really done a good job limiting yards. I think Reid and Sutton viewed it as a tradeoff between yardage and points allowed the past couple of years given some of the JAGs we've had to start throughout the unit, particularly in the secondary.
I think you can criticize it as being overly cautious, particularly when we got into the playoffs, but it's very possible that Sutton was actually maximizing the defense's contributions to winning games given some of the holes in the roster they had to endure.
I thought Sutton should have been fired, but I'm not irate that he was kept aboard, and for the moment I'm going to be pretty patient to see how they change things up and improve.
If RBs and WRs are still racking up career days against us, and if Sutton is continuing to hold players like Houston back from being aggressive, then I'll re-join the angry townspeople with torches and pitchforks.