Thoughts on state of the Defense
 

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.

Sapho had an almost exact same post about a month ago and I think I saw it elsewhere too. It definitely is interesting. Guys like Page and Danna it’s very possible that the Chiefs believe in them way more than fans

I posted something similar awhile back:

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

We let the Qb slip though our hands more than any team I've seen.. Need better tackling from the first guy on the Qb.. Lot of missed sacks due to that..

This is also true.

Is there a stat for this somewhere? There has to be I would think.

I’d be shocked if we weren’t near the top of the league.

We need to be patient. Spags defense takes a really long time and even veterans were confused by it. We need our offense to carry a lot of water early on. Like so many of spags seasons I expect a tough first half followed by a decent second half. Id like to be optimistic that it will all eventually click but I think this defense is much more of a multi year project than we would like it to be.

Whether pressure gets converted to sacks has as much to do with the QB as it does with the pass rushers.

Karlaftis is attending Von Millers pass rushing academy camp

good post and info

I definitely don’t think the staff viewed the pass rush in the same way as many fans. They don’t think it was TURRIBLE or in need of an overhaul. And they shouldn’t. Sacks are a volatile stat and will fluctuate wildly year to year. But the the rest of the numbers were good and would look much better still if you took out the early-season games from before they made adjustments.

I’d like to see more depth at edge rusher, but I think the starting DL will be pretty solid.

Danna showed flashes last year, he had some really good reps. Was just inconsistent, hopefully another year of training and practice he'll make a leap.

I hope Doug Flutie does his stretches

I'm not comfortable with our ends at all, we need at least one more proven producer... but the backfield looks absolutely loaded with young talent, and this is the most exciting group of linebackers we've had in FOREVER