Pos- Nothing worse than a team that can’t put pressure on the quarterback

[C-Mac]

Nothing worse than a team that can’t put pressure on the quarterback
By JOE POSNANSKI


So, what’s the most frustrating experience in sports? It could be playing pool against a guy who doesn’t miss a shot. It could be watching a hometown pitcher who cannot throw a strike. It’s remarkably frustrating when your basketball team has open looks at the basket but can’t make shots, and remarkably frustrating when you’re hitting the golf ball beautifully but you can’t drop any putts.

But I don’t think any frustration in sports touches the frustration of a hometown football team that cannot rush the passer. That is sheer agony. Watching a quarterback just stand there and stand there and then move a little to the right and then elude a tackler and stand and move back to the left and stand there and stand there … ugh. It’s like watching a nurse get ready to give you a shot — only the preparation lasts three hours. It’s horrifying, really.

And no team in the NFL — maybe no team in football history — has put less pressure on the quarterback than these Kansas City Chiefs. You already know that the Chiefs had only 10 sacks last year — fewest ever for a team over a 16-game season. Well, that was a horror show. Everyone had to go. Carl Peterson — gone. Herm Edwards — gone. Gunther Cunningham — gone. The old 4-3 defense — gone.

And last week, against Baltimore, the new Chiefs with their new defense and new attitude came out and … nothing changed. They did not get anywhere near Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco. They didn’t get close enough to send Flacco a text message. Yes, absolutely, you have to give players time to adjust to new defensive coordinator Clancy Pendergast and new defensive schemes and the variety of blitzes that come with the 3-4 defense. But this was agony. I know at one point the TV announcer pulled out the old cliché about Flacco having enough time to balance his checkbook back there. But even that didn’t quite get to the point. Flacco had enough time to balance his checkbook and draft a new health care bill … something that before the game Joe Flacco seemed as likely to do as throw for 307 yards and three touchdowns.

(Flacco in his rookie year did not pull off either of those feats — he had not thrown for 300 yards or three touchdowns in a game.)

Rich Gannon — who was color commentator and remains perhaps the most frustrating quarterback the Chiefs ever faced — said this: “You just can’t give Joe Flacco that much time to throw or he will carve you up.” NFL color commentators, by law, are required to say this exact line: “You just can’t give (insert any quarterback — any quarterback) that much time. They will carve you up.”

Thing is: The announcers are right. It’s true. There are not many formulas that work for the NFL, but one that does work pretty well is this one: “Quarterback success equals talent plus time.” This works both ways. Tom Brady was the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL in 2007, but when the Giants pressured and bullied him in the Super Bowl, he turned ordinary.

And when you give any quarterback in the NFL a lot of time –— any quarterback — they have enough talent to put up huge fantasy football numbers. Last year, the Chiefs’ lack of pass rush turned Trent Edwards into a Pro Bowler for a day, made Chad Pennington look five years younger, made Jeff Garcia look 10 years younger and perhaps most damning, made Jake Delhomme throw only one interception. I have no doubt that sitting up in the booth, Chiefs announcer and NFL Hall of Famer Len Dawson has to think: “If I could face this defense every week, I wouldn’t have retired.”

This is the scary part of today’s game. When you look at the Chiefs’ schedule, it’s pretty clear that they have to beat the Raiders today. They’re not likely to go into Philadelphia and beat the Eagles next week, and they’ll be pretty substantial underdogs against the Giants and Cowboys even at home the next two weeks. They might win at Washington, but it’s doubtful. They could beat the Chargers at home, but it will be tough. Then it’s off to Jacksonville, out to Oakland and back home to face the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers. The point is, the Chiefs are not likely to be favored again for a long time after today.

So today’s game is huge. Win today, and maybe the Chiefs can build on that momentum and pull off a couple of upsets and make this season a stepping stone to future success. Lose today, and they could be 0-8 before coach Todd Haley even has time to fire somebody else.

And it seems pretty clear that to win today, the Chiefs must pressure Oakland quarterback JaMarcus Russell. When he’s pressured, Russell simply has no idea what to do. He’s hitting only 53 percent of his passes for his career, and last week against San Diego he completed just 12 of 30 passes, and he threw two picks, and he mostly looked lost out there. If they can find a way to pressure Russell — and the Chiefs’ defensive line has two of JaMarcus’ old LSU teammates in Tyson Jackson and Glenn Dorsey — then the Chiefs should win this game the way they won so many games in the 1990s, when the crowd was loud and the opposing offensive line was jumpy and the visiting quarterback would make the big mistakes with the game on the line.

But if the Chiefs can’t get to Russell, well, let’s not kid anybody. Russell was the No. 1 pick in the draft. And the Chiefs have made less talented quarterbacks look like Joe Montana. It got to be silly after a while. I remember being in Buffalo a few years back when J.P. Losman led the Bills to victory, and the morning talk show guys were talking about how Losman might be the quarterback the Bills had been looking for. I remember being in Denver when Jay Cutler threw four touchdown passes against the Chiefs and the papers the next day were ready to induct him into the Hall of Fame. I remember once years ago, the Chiefs beat the Jets, but Chad Pennington was so good that the line in New York was, “The Jets may have lost the game, but they found themselves a quarterback.”

Yes, the Chiefs have proven they can make any quarterback look awfully good if they don’t create pressure. Sure, it’s very early in the season and very early in the Scott Pioli-Todd Haley era, but we should learn something about the Chiefs today. If they get after Russell, the Chiefs could show some of the promise football fans in town are dying to see. If not, there could be headlines all over America about how JaMarcus Russell finally started living up to his potential. That would be frustrating.