Thoughts on state of the Defense

[Chris Meck]

So,

I stumbled on an interesting statistic- 2021 NFL pass rush win rate.

KC was 7th in the league, at 44%. Criteria being that the rusher beat his block within 2.5 seconds.

However, they were what, 29th in sacks? So clearly, not getting home.

We know that Veach had said that defensive line was a priority, and indeed, we added Karlaftis in the first round, but that so far appears to be the only addition. Reason for panic? OR...

Is it the opinion of the coaching staff and front office that a main reason for the lack of pass rush FINISH (meaning sack, batted pass, busted play incompletions, etc) is POOR coverage and poor athleticism in the back 7?

Kind of looks like it, doesn't it?

Mathieu (definitely a down year), Sorenson (good lord, how bad did the guy have to be), Watts, all gone. Ward (not bad, but a mismatch against #1's), Hughes (just too short) gone.

Add McDuffie (get a load of the kid's stats in college!), Williams at CB (excellent size and athletic ability) , bring back Baker, add Lonnie Johnson-and you're still got Sneed and Fenton. This should be considerably better.

Add Reid (bigger, faster, younger Mathieu), Cook (bigger, faster, younger Sorensen) This should be considerably better.

And with Gay in year 3, Bolton taking over at MLB in year two-we added Chenal, who looks to be a really great fit at SAM, with some pass rush juice to boot. And thank the gods, no more ****ing Niemann.

It seems to me that The Chiefs think the primary problem was poor coverage.

Either that, or they know something about Kaindoh and Herring that we don't.

[crispystl]

Originally Posted by RaidersOftheCellar

I think they believe that Clark was hampered by injury and is going to have a bounce-back year. If that happens, it'll be a good line. Could use more depth though.

They must feel that way about him and Jones both.

[TRR]

Originally Posted by dannybcaitlyn

I’m just not sure how long we can have this kind of patience year and year out. Last year we really thought they would really click after a lot of players being in the third year of Spags system. Instead they started out with a historic bad defense. So bad it derailed Pat and the offense. This year the AFC teams have really loaded up. Another slow start like last year puts us in a deep hole and tremendous amount of pressure on the offense that only has a Kelce and Hardman as the only guys who really know the offense.

Good post. The D is going to need to gel much more quickly than in years past. The first half of last season (if not more) was MISERABLE to watch. You listen to Spags press conferences, and you can tell he’s more worried about week 17 then he is week 1…but with how loaded the West is this year, every week is going to be crucial.

I’m confident in the offense coming together quickly. I think Kelce will be featured early, and the run game will be more prominently leaned on as Juju, MVS, and Moore find their rhythm with Mahomes. I also think the element of the unknown will keep opposing D’s guessing at least through the early part of the schedule.

[scho63]

Stats don't mean shit if you ain't getting to the QB with sacks.

[RaidersOftheCellar]

Originally Posted by TRR

Good post. The D is going to need to gel much more quickly than in years past. The first half of last season (if not more) was MISERABLE to watch. You listen to Spags press conferences, and you can tell he’s more worried about week 17 then he is week 1…but with how loaded the West is this year, every week is going to be crucial.

I’m confident in the offense coming together quickly. I think Kelce will be featured early, and the run game will be more prominently leaned on as Juju, MVS, and Moore find their rhythm with Mahomes. I also think the element of the unknown will keep opposing D’s guessing at least through the early part of the schedule.

I don't think gelling was the problem last year. I think the problem was Spags was trying some complicated coverages and schemes early on that they weren't executing well. Coupled with the bad decision to move Jones outside, playing Sorenson too much, etc. It was a much better defense overnight when they made those adjustments.

[O.city]

You need athletes on defense. We didn't have enough of those last year.

[Megatron96]

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.

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by O.city

You need athletes on defense. We didn't have enough of those last year.

It all fell to shit.

Clark is clearly a non-factor but Sorenson and Matheiu became non-factors and obviously there were limitations like Neimann and Okafor.

The secondary was in bad shape man. Especially safety. It’s no surprise why they got 2 got 2 starting replacement players for Matheiu and Sorenson.

Part of it was mental too. Clark’s off the field problem+laziness and Matheiu being lazy bc he didn’t get a new contract from us.

I think what we know about Spags is he’s a secondary guy through and through. He wants to blitz to get pressure and rely on excellent cover players so that makes sense.

I think the start of this year will be painful bc of so many new and young faces. It’s a 2 year rebuild IMO

[xztop123]

I hate that spags only wants huge ends. Bills and chargers qb put clown shoes on our ends due to lack of speed and agility.

[Megatron96]

Originally Posted by xztop123

I hate that spags only wants huge ends. Bills and chargers qb put clown shoes on our ends due to lack of speed and agility.

? Spags clearly wants 3-down DEs, not specialists. It's been a fundamental part of his defensive philosophy since his days as DC @NYG.

And for the record, Frank Clark isn't huge by any stretch of imagination.

[ToxSocks]

Originally Posted by The Franchise

I’d be interested to see what the average time the QB had getting the ball out when facing us.

This.

There's a key piece of information missing here when trying to have this conversation.

[Gary Cooper]

Defense is ALL about attitude. If you have talent but no attitude, your defense won't be great. You need guys who want to hit somebody in the mouth.

The last Chiefs defense with attitude were the 1997 Chiefs.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by O.city

You need athletes on defense. We didn't have enough of those last year.

I think this is particularly true recently on the DL.

Outside of Chris Jones, there aren't really any athletes. Clark, Danna, Nnadi, etc. Even at their peak none of them would be considered athletes.

Plus we've got guys who can either stop the run or rush the passer- none who can do both well.

It's also been true of the LB corps ever since we switched to the 4-3. I'm so glad we've got guys like Gay and Bolton to hopefully change the tune there.