This doesn’t sound great
 

Not panicking but yeesh. Don’t like hearing this from Spags. CB feels a lot like WR this time last season.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Chiefs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Chiefs</a> DC Steve Spagnuolo says he doesn&#39;t think he&#39;s had their top 11 players on the field for a single play so far. He says it has made things really difficult to evaluate the CB room. Says there isn&#39;t really another &quot;starting&quot; corner opposite Trent McDuffie.</p>&mdash; Charles Goldman (@goldmctNFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/goldmctNFL/status/1825959361552023895?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 20, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

We'll be fine.

The one thing I don't worry about is Spags' secondary. Stopped worrying about that back in 2021 or so. Maybe there'll be some hiccups early, but Spags will get the secondary sorted out before Week 9-10. ISWT.

Gay.

Not at all worried about it.

Same group of guys we had last season minus Sneed. When McDuffie slid into the slot who lined up outside? Williams or Watson. And they did fine.

lol. This is purely to push guys. No way Spags says that to the media if he really meant it.

Chris Jones is like I don't do preseason. Not trying to be the best at fake football. I play real games.

I remember last year you guys thought he would forget how to play football.

Note to self:

Draft Mahomes in fantasy this year...

Honestly I am more worried about it no longer ever being a contract year.

Yes, I expect everything from him in the post season when it really counts. As he gets older, does he bring it game after game in the regular season?

I hope he proves my worries about his contract wrong.

I hope he does mail it in and play conservatively in the regular season. Save your 110% and injury risk for the post season.

Spags can scheme around Breeland and Money Badger but not THIS group? Ok.

It sounds exactly like last year when he said someone needed to step up and grab the number two corner job. THEN WE WON THE SUPER BOWL! LGF!!!

Sounds like something the board will freak out about up til winning the Super Bowl.

In fairness, we lost in the AFCCG the year of "Money Badger"

In no small part due to his business decision getting him knocked out of the game like a ****ing idiot because he wouldn't try to make an actual tackle. And of course when he ran alongside Chase for a spell instead of trying to get in his way.

Mathieu was absolutely dead to me after that game.

That's my point. Dude was making a LOT of business decisions, leaving us to often play 10 v 11.

We still won a lot of football.

Nut Hooks Man! C'mon I thought someone was inured.

RunKC feels a lot like BWillie

Spags will figure it out :ZZZ:

The other thing is this... outside of Mahomes, I'm not entirely sure there is another QB in the league who could take advantage of a weak link in the secondary the way Brady, Brees, Manning, Rapistburger and Rodgers could.

I think QB play is down so much across the league that there isn't that absolutely cutthroat guy who will find your third CB and shred him all game.

Sneed is a stud.

Big shoes to fill.

Greatness is not easy

Couldn't agree more. Absolute baller. I've gotta think the Chiefs let him go because they were genuinely worried about his knee

is Badger still in the league?

He's with the Saints i think. Doing perfectly fine all things considered.

I am in fact a Creed Humphrey fan so no you might be mixing me up with someone else who hates Creed Humphreys and is enthusiastic about it nearly every day

I wonder what would happen if we didn't have Creed Humphrey the last two years and instead had a NFL avg center. Oh yeah we still win the Bowls. He does not matter.

Overreaction (OP)lanet.

C’mon bruh, he’s in Cleveland now/

He's been saying this same thing throughout camp. They keep waiting for another corner to step up and no one has done it. But part of that is a function of injuries as well (Watson and Johnson).

We're going to take a step back on defense this year. Potentially more than a lot of people here might believe given how volatile defense can be from year to year. And Sneed was very possibly the most valuable corner in the league given what he was asked to do and how he performed.

Just have to hope someone can fill the role admirably and the offense makes up the lost ground.

Sneed is basically Deion Revis at this point, there is no replacing that

Of course the D will take a step back, but the offense is poised to pull up allllll of that slack... if any team can actually pull off a threepeat, its the 2024 Chiefs

Sure but he hasn't played a snap of preseason and won't because they are worried he will get hurt. I think he has even missed some camp time due to knee soreness.

Letting him go rather than signing him to big $ was the right call.

What year was it everyone melted down and wanted him fired 4 games into the season?

Good times.

It's amazing, isn't it? We're coming off back-to-back SB wins with one of the best secondaries in football - even without Sneed, whose game I loved - and people still wring their hands fretting over nothingburgers.

Not sure if it was 4 games into the 2019 season. But for certain the galactic brains of our prodigal son rabble, wanted him gonzo after the Titans game in Nashville. The game I will forever refer to it as “The Jump Pass Game”.

rubble referred to our DC as spaggot as I recall. He wasn’t alone tho. There were many, many others who pitched their tents in that special needs adult camp.

Williams and Watson have played a lot of good football in meaningful games. Not the least bit concerned.

Jaylen Watson hasn't played in either pre-season game?

I’m worried about two things, the fact that no clear #2 has stepped up at corner (in today’s league, that can be particularly damaging even to an otherwise great defense, ala Philip Gaines in the top Sutton years).

But an under the radar factor giving me concern is Bolton’s health. He was absolutely elite in the 22-23 playoffs and was involved everywhere on the field. He had a real argument for MVP against the Eagles. After rewatching the Bengals and Eagles games, I realized just how much his wrist injury impacted him in this year’s playoffs. He was still important as QB of the defense, but he clearly wasn’t the game changing impact player he was the year before.

The fact his wrist injury might now be a nagging one is something to keep an eye on, especially now that Gay is gone and our linebacking crew is the thinnest it’s been since 2020.

A nearly impossible task

replace the cornerback play of O.G. L'Jarius Sneed

Last year Sneed had one of the best seasons I have ever witnessed a CB having, not just on the Chiefs but on any team. Gonna take a committee to fill those cleats

Last year Spags could just put Sneed on WR1 and consider them wiped the **** out

hopefully one of these young bucks can step up and shut some WR's down

we'll be fine. Obviously they won't be able to play the same style of defense without a guy like Sneed locking everything down but Spags is the GOAT d-coordinator and there's still lots of good talent in the secondary. Including one of the best CB's in the entire NFL.

He’s on the Saints now bro

I think a good strategy with this secondary would be what Billicheck did when he had Revis.

Let McDuffie erase opposing #2 WRs and then bracket opposing #1s with the next best corner and a second defender.

Gonna need the offense to really get going well.

Instead of Top 2 defense we will be top 10 defense. Instead of 17th ranked offense or whatever, we will be a Top 7 offense.

Yeah, pretty much.

The biggest thing will be having fans understand that. Defensively, just get us a couple stops a game. Maybe a turnover.

The $ is on the offense. Score TD's, don't kick fgs.

We need to do better on short yardage and goal line this year. Hopefully Steele will help with that.

We'll just call this Spag's Senior Moment. The prescription of which is winning Super Bowls. Time to up the dosage.

We were actually still 6th in 3rd down conversion percentage last year despite being one of the worst teams on 3rd and short and being bad inside the 20. Really quite a feat.

The turnovers and such killed the offense last year. We're all so used to it being just a monster offense.

By the end of next season this secondary will be even better than it was with Sneed. We have an unbelievable amount of talent there.

I think McDuffie is at least as good as Sneed in coverage, with fewer penalties, and Hicks may rapidly become the best safety on the roster if he isn't already. We're fine.

Spags hella wants Lamar to throw that way, it’s just mind games lol.

Between Williams, Watson and Johnson, I have literally zero doubt that at least 2 of the 3 will step into their roles and be solid players at the very least. It's unlikely any of them will ever be at Sneed's level as far as playmaking ability, but McDuffie will be taking over that role anyway.

As the kids would say, I have 99 problems, however, a #2 cornerback on my favorite football team is not one of the problems that I currently have. Or something of that nature.

Trading him was the right move, but that doesn't mean he won't be missed.

Last year we had 2 of the 5 best corners in football and both of them were elite both outside and in the slot, which helped Spags significantly.

The interesting thing about this year is who is gonna play the slot? It wouldn’t be wise to put McDuffie in the slot against a team like the Bengals when Chase and Higgins are lining up outside. You always want to match your best with the offenses best.

Conner is gonna be really important playing the slot. He needs to do that at an effective level. He was good at tackling and covering TE’s, but it’s the shiftier fast guys with lateral agility that worry me a bit there. Williams and Watson are outside boundary corners who cannot play the slot. Hopefully Nazeeh Johnson can be that slot guy as well. Really high hopes for him.

There’s gonna be a decline in corner play after losing Sneed. No that’s not gonna wreck the offense, but I wonder if teams will pick on one of the guys who is replacing Sneed.

Also I don’t buy the Kelvin Joseph stuff. I don’t think he’s that good. I do like Nic Jones though.

Defense is so much about the group as a whole functioning together. They'll need some guys to step in and play well, but even then there's gonna be some fall off.

Defense is volatile year to year.

They're gonna need a lot more turnovers.

3rd down efficiency is insanely volatile. Year over year, it means very little. There's an excellent chance we regress quite a bit on 3rd downs. And that was how we got teams off the field last season.

Not really through sacks and definitely not through turnovers. But by coming up with big stops on 3rd downs to force punts.

We're gonna have fewer of those without Sneed and due to simple regression to the mean, IMO.

The team could really stand to damn near double their turnover output. League leaders had 31 last season, league average was about 24.

The Chiefs had 17 and were as close to last (11) as they were even league average. They were quietly really bad at forcing turnovers last season. 5th worst in the league.

So they need to add about 10 turnovers this season (and ideally subtract about 5 on the offensive side). And if they do BOTH those things, they'll get to about +4 in giveaway takeaway. There just aren't many teams that have won championships with a -11 turnover margin.

They'll need to fix that. I figure they probably will.

They won the Ravens game because they were +3 in turnover margin. They won the Super Bowl because they managed to stay even. And they put themselves in real trouble against Buffalo because they went -1.

That has to be (and, IMO, has been) a real area of emphasis for them this season. Turn the ball over on defense, be a little safer with it on offense. You're not gonna live on 3rd down stops alone again.

Yup but I think that the offense scoring so much is gonna put them in far more favorable positions. It wasn’t often that we had teams in a hole having to pass last year.

I think this offense can do what they did in prior years and get up on teams fast so the pas rushers can pin their ears back again.

Moreover, IF the offense is back, you'll see more aggressive 4th down decisions against us. So some of the 3rd down stops we do get are gonna be mere preludes to the money down to begin with.

Gonna need more splash plays on defense.

IMO, the issue (if you wanna call it an issue) with the turnovers is they play alot of man on the back end. You just don't get many turnovers doing that.

They've gotta blitz alot to get sacks, really need the front to show up and let them play some more coverage.

It's not just man - it's press man.

Off Man can get you picks BUT only if you're generating substantial pressure with your front 4 and thus forcing those quick passes that a CB can drive on.

Once the DB has to turn, the interception is mostly out the window unless it's a safety and our safeties aren't ball-hawks.

In press man, even the quick game interceptions are pretty rare.

I don't disagree (and made that point often last season) that our coverages impact our pick totals. That said, we just won't be able to run that as often as we did without Sneed. We're gonna need to do more matchup zone and off-man coverage this year.

I think the opportunities will increase by a fair bit - we just have to haul them in.