The Chiefs have been utilizing the wrong defensive scheme for years. I've said since the 2009 season that they should be an attacking one gap defense instead of Pendergast and Crennel's read and react two gap.

This defense has an enormous amount of athleticism and speed. It's nice to see Sutton devising a defense that takes full advantage of those athletes.

It's unlikely that they'll repeat today's performance of holding an offense scoreless but they should play well enough to keep the Chiefs competitive each week.

Yeah that D looked solid up front, should keep you in a lot of games.

The truly crazy thing is the lack of perspective from Pioli to recognize the players required for the scheme his coaches were executing. He drafted the wrong players for the wrong scheme: a true disaster.

And with Smith being reliable yet unspectacular in not turning over the ball, damn near every game will be watchable, and dare I say...winnable.

(Please dont let this simple post turn this tread into a QB debate....maybe I should delete this post.)

I would totally expect our D to still look like shit if were still 2 gapping.

Like I said, I think our talent is trending upward. But let's be real here, past a great performance against a horrible offense.

Our D-line is stout. But Jackson and DeVito aren't going to do anything for us in the pass rush. We need Catapano to come along to do that. On Kendrick Lewis, I'm not going to believe that one solid game against a horrible defense that can't pass to save their life has changed anything. Given how aggressive our defense is, he has potential to be a liability. And our CB depth is seriously terrible.

I think these things get fixed if we can get more consistent push from our DEs in the passing game, and once we address our horrible secondary depth. But to say we're top 5 because we dominated a horrible defense is jumping the gun way too soon. We have terrific talent, but we also have some gaps.

A lot of what we do is 2 gap. It's one of the reasons why Reid's hire of Sutton is so brilliant. Our D-linemen do play a few 4-3 alignments, but the big difference isn't necessarily in 2 gap vs. 1 gap, it's moreso that our back 7 plays a lot different. Especially in terms of mixing up how we pressure.

The defense is way ahead of the offense and special teams at this point. They SHOULD be way ahead due to the sheer number of high round talent and athletes.

The offense needs quite a bit of work. I expect there to be better holes on the inside once Asamoah returns. I hope that Jeff Allen improves but it certainly appears to me that Stephenson is a better player, so I don't understand why he isn't the left guard with Allen as the swing tackle. I have a feeling we'll see some experimenting if the interior doesn't improve soon.

Fair enough.

I wish they would give Allens spot to schwartz..
My true hope was a new C and Hudson moving to G, where I think he would do well, but dont have anything to back that up other than his play in college.

Poe has obviously been turned loose. Of course we will play SOME 2 gap, but Crennel was running that shit 90+% of the time and it KILLED us.

Kush improved during the course of the preseason but I don't know if he'll be ready to start later this season. If so, Hudson at left guard makes some sense.

I'm not a fan of Schwartz, so I'd just as soon see Allen continue to get reps in the hope of improving. But as I mentioned earlier, from what I've seen, Stephenson shouldn't be on the bench.

Honestly, it could just be time to develop to NFL speed that is making Poe what he is. He was a diamond in the rough last year, but started to turn it on towards the end of the season. He then went on this diet and put forward max effort into becoming what we saw tonight. I really can't say that scheme is the complete reason why Poe is the way he is.

It's a big reason. The Chiefs scheme since Pioli was hired was crappy and antiquated.

Well, the beauty of the Ryan scheme is that he mixes up a lot of the looks. Big difference being that we'll run a lot more 4-3 and 46 looks than other defenses do, and we can do it with pretty much the same personnel. But the base defense relies a lot on 2-gap principles. Again, that's why hiring Sutton was pretty brilliant. I don't think it's a matter of Poe being let loose or the D-line playing a completely different scheme, as much as it is being a hell of a lot more creative in how we use the back 7. Romeo's defense was often solid when he turned up the heat, which he didn't do enough of for some weird reason.