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It's no secret that the Chiefs have had serious problems stopping the run since before Spagnuolo arrived. Mahomes has been so good that teams have quickly abandoned the run to play catch up (even Baltimore has done this at inexplicable moments in the past). He certainly hasn't fixed the run defense, and moving Jones more to an exclusive DE role may have reduced his effectiveness in a manner not unlike how Gunther once limited Derrick Thomas.
The defense does not lack for talent in back half. This isn't a 2002 type situation where you look across the roster and see very few players who would start on an even average defense.
While I've never been a fan of Spagnuolo, who I felt succeeded because he had three Pro Bowl pass rushers and another good one all at once, he's also faced likely two of the three best run offenses in the league so far. I think that they may be better off playing a less aggressive style of defense where the lineman work on maintaining better gap discipline so that they force teams to face the strength of the defense-the secondary.
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"When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”--Abraham Lincoln
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