Quote:
Originally Posted by RaidersOftheCellar
They seemed to pass the eye test when analysts and fans were talking about a transformation to a dominant unit midseason. They held teams to 9 pts in three straight games, including Prescott and Carr. The points allowed total over the second half was elite, even with the debacles vs Buffalo and at Cincinnati.
I’m not disagreeing that there were issues. Sorenson, Nieman and Hughes were horrible, Mathieu had a down year, etc. Some awful blown coverages at times.
But I was talking specifically about the pass rush. You’re not top 5ish in all those categories if you have no pass rush. And the numbers were probably even much better than that after they made adjustments midseason. They just didn’t get a ton of sacks.
|
Much of CP has forgotten that at least half the defensive starters weren't available at the beginning of the 2021 season.
Frank Clark was out for 3 weeks to start the season, Tyrann missed a couple, CJ missed a couple, Hitch missed several games, Kaindoh was on IR for several weeks, Ward missed four, and Gay took a one month hiatus for mental health reasons.
Think about that: the Chiefs' best DE, best CB, best S, play-calling LB, CB1, best DT, and most athletic LB were all in some combination unavailable for most of the first 8 weeks.
For those that are having trouble analyzing that, remember when the Chiefs went into the SB vs. TB with just one starter on OL? Remember how that went? Kind of similar situation.
Our front-7 play-caller was Niemann and the secondary's was Thornhill, a player essentially playing just his second season fully healthy. Also, our DL rotation was so thin that Spags experimented with CJ at DE, which wasn't the worst idea ever, but our CBs were rooks and 2nd tier guys and the results were predictable. Teams with athletic, improvisational QBs and top-tier/big receivers took our depleted secondary to school.
When Clark, Mathieu, Hitch and Jones all got back on the field healthy around Week 8 the defense immediately improved across the board giving up 17 points or less over that span except twice and averaged less than 20 given up for the remainder of the season. In fact they only gave up more than that three times over those ten weeks.
In spite of all that success, the D also showed that they had real flaws that needed to be addressed in the secondary and at LB. But when healthy the DL proved that they could create pressure consistently and affect the QB, even get hits on him, but the secondary more often than not couldn't hold up their end and allowed far too many easy completions, many for series-saving 1st downs or TDs.
Personally I'd be happier if we signed Dunlap (probably the best of the remaining options), but I'm not blind to what Spags seems to be thinking based on our drafts of Chenal and Cook, both very capable pass rushers, as well as above average run stoppers. Given Spags' preference for multi-role players these guys are near-perfect fits.
They only thing left to do is simply wait for these guys to get comfortable in the system. Probably about 8-10 weeks.
in the meantime the DL won't see a lot of turnover, but I expect the Greek to be a 75% starter by mid-season, as he's simply better in all aspects than the other DEs we have on the roster. So they should kind of pick up where they left off, creating a lot of pressure and forcing QBs off their spots regularly.
But secondary will probably struggle some at first until they gel with all these new pieces. Based on the past, that's about 8-10 weeks.