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.

[CoMoChief]

Originally Posted by RaidersOftheCellar

How does being near the top of the league in pressures, pressure %, hurries, hurry %, and pass rush win rate = “no pass rush?”

Did you watch the defense at all last yr?

All the analytics still doesn't pass the eye test.

Chiefs got schooled by every team that had a QB that was wortha shit. Thats a fact.

[Chris Meck]

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

Did you watch the defense at all last yr?

All the analytics still doesn't pass the eye test.

Chiefs got schooled by every team that had a QB that was wortha shit. Thats a fact.

Well, if you can't cover for 2.5 seconds (pass rush win rate criteria) then perhaps that's the biggest problem. That's the whole point of the OP.

[Wilson8]

Good Football/Chiefs Topic

Kind of chicken or the egg when it comes to secondary coverage vs pass-rush importance. They each perform so much better when the team has both.

I really think that the secondary will be pretty good, but a lot of young players so it will take time for them to develop.

CB (6) – Rashad Fenton, L'Jarius Sneed, Trent McDuffie, Joshua Williams, Lonnie Johnson, and maybe Deandre Baker. There will be a battle for the last two spots. Maybe Jaylen Watson, Dicaprio Bootle, Brandin Dandridge, or Nazeeh Johnson in those last slots.
S (4) - Juan Thornhill, Justin Reid, Bryan Cook, and Deon Bush.

Linebackers will be better.
LB (5) - Nick Bolton, Willie Gay Jr, Leo Chanel, Elijah Lee, and Jermaine Carter Jr

The D line is where I am most concerned.
DT (4 or 5) - Chris Jones, Khalen Saunders, Tershawn Wharton, Derrick Nnadi, and maybe Taylor Stallworth.
DE (4 or 5) - Frank Clark, George Karlaftis, Mike Danna, Joshua Kaindoh, and maybe Malik Herring
Chiefs could use a strong anchoring NT type.
Can Joshua Kaindoh or Malik Herring be a good DE? If not, we are hosed if anybody goes down.

Malik Herring played DE on a really good Georgia football team. In 4 years, he had 36 games, 70 tackles and 4 sacks. He tore his ACL in practice for the Senior Bowl.

Joshua Kaindoh played at Florida State. In 4 years, he had 31 games, 59 tackles, and 8 sacks. He also struggled with injuries his junior and senior year at Florida State and had a high ankle sprain last year with the Chiefs.

I agree that an improved secondary will help the pass-rush, but a young secondary will have to develop quickly.

[RaidersOftheCellar]

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

Did you watch the defense at all last yr?

All the analytics still doesn't pass the eye test.

Chiefs got schooled by every team that had a QB that was wortha shit. Thats a fact.

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.

[BossChief]

The DL is such an enigma.

If Frank Clark is the guy from the second half of the 2019 season and through the playoffs…you know a guy we paid 100m $ for? Yeah, that guy.
If George Karlaftis is the guy many of us think he is… JJ Watt lite
If Chris Jones comes out and has a career year…
If Kalen Saunders has a similar jump as other DTs have had in their 3rd or 4th year…
If Derrick Nnadi plays with a chip on his shoulder for how last year with Reed replacing him…
If Kaindoh, Hanna and Herring all make jumps….

This DL could be pretty good.


But, if a couple things go bad, this DL could derail the defense.

It will be interesting to how they respond to Joe Cullen.

[RaidersOftheCellar]

Originally Posted by BossChief

The DL is such an enigma.

If Frank Clark is the guy from the second half of the 2019 season and through the playoffs…you know a guy we paid 100m $ for? Yeah, that guy.
If George Karlaftis is the guy many of us think he is… JJ Watt lite
If Chris Jones comes out and has a career year…
If Kalen Saunders has a similar jump as other DTs have had in their 3rd or 4th year…
If Derrick Nnadi plays with a chip on his shoulder for how last year with Reed replacing him…
If Kaindoh, Hanna and Herring all make jumps….

This DL could be pretty good.


But, if a couple things go bad, this DL could derail the defense.

It will be interesting to how they respond to Joe Cullen.

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.

[Wilson8]

For the KC Defense, I loved what the Chiefs/Brett Veach did with re-signing DT Derrick Nnadi, adding free agents S Justin Reid, LB Jermaine Carter Jr, LB Elijah Lee, S Deon Bush, drafting CB Trent McDuffie, DE George Karlaftis, S Bryan Cook, LB Leo Chanel, and CB Joshua Williams.

But...I wanted more on the defensive line.

We drafted no DTs or a second DE. Possibly a DE Jeffrey Gunter (Coastal Carolina), DT Haskell Garrett (Ohio State) or DT Noah Ellis (Idaho) would have been nice additions.

We signed several UDFAs but no DTs or DEs.

Except for DT Taylor Stallworth (2021-16 games, 16 tackles, 3 sack, 12 QB Hits), we also seemed to pretty much ignore the NFL free agent market for the D Line.

We seem to have a secret weapon somewhere. Perhaps it is in the secondary.

[BossChief]

I think they are banking on Frank Clark and for Leo Chanel to also boost the pass rush on blitzes. He’s very effective in that capacity.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Isn't SUH available , he could give us some help ????

[JPH83]

On the statistic of pass rush win rate, how much of that is considering blitzes? Or is that taken out of the equation. I could imagine that a lot of our pressure was manufactured through blitzes, and so it's not just the issue of people not getting home to the QB, it's that we rhen don't have the numbers to cover when that happens.

[UChieffyBugger]

I like the rookies but as it pertains to the DL this is the facts.

Clark= Injury problems the last few years

Jones= Has missed games in recent years

Kaindoh= Missed most if the season through injury

Herring= Has a bad injury history

So that's four guys you're relying on throughout the season who could/will potentially miss games. Veach banged on and on about "fixing the D-line" and thus far all we've seen is Karlaftis for Ingram and Stallworth for Reed. One a rookie, the other a rotational guy.

If Clark and Jones both have to miss a game like they did last season against the Eagles the DL would potentially be..

....Danna...Nnadi...Stallworth...Karlaftis..

That would be the worst DL we've had in several years. I'm trying to be patient but if Veach contrives to leave the DL room as it is then it would be a HUGE mistake imo. Another two vets (Suh & Dunlap perhaps) should be the bear minimum he should be aiming for i believe. Anything less then he's seriously neglecting that group despite having the cap space to add talent.

[Wilson8]

There are still some free agents available for the DL, but because of age, I really doubt that we go there.

DE Trey Flowers, Age 29
DE Justin Houston, Age 33
DT Sheldon Richardson, Age 31
DT Ndamukong Suh, Age 35
DT Larry Ogunjobi, Age 28

Maybe a trade is in the works.

[Wisconsin_Chief]

At this point, I have accepted the direction they're going and I understand it.

There's no way a bunch of young, athletic and hungry dudes are going to perform any worse than what we saw last year. Clark and Mathieu completely phoned it in all season and were both making gobs of cash. I have always been a big believer in staying young on defense because history shows players on that side of the ball are much more likely to fall off a cliff once they get paid. We saw perfect proof of that last year.

I fully believe that even without anymore additions, this defense will be far better by the end of the season than the one we saw last year. No question about it.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

Did you watch the defense at all last yr?

All the analytics still doesn't pass the eye test.

Chiefs got schooled by every team that had a QB that was wortha shit. Thats a fact.

Good Qb's shred average defenses. Hell, most good defenses get shredded too.

[TEX]

Originally Posted by Wisconsin_Chief

At this point, I have accepted the direction they're going and I understand it.

There's no way a bunch of young, athletic and hungry dudes are going to perform any worse than what we saw last year. Clark and Mathieu completely phoned it in all season and were both making gobs of cash. I have always been a big believer in staying young on defense because history shows players on that side of the ball are much more likely to fall off a cliff once they get paid. We saw perfect proof of that last year.

I fully believe that even without anymore additions, this defense will be far better by the end of the season than the one we saw last year. No question about it.

Pass rush is the key. Its the #1 thing that can improve or sink the defense. If it's good, it will make the other two levels better. If it's bad, the LB's and especially the DB's jobs gets a lot harder, especially with all the new faces.