FO and Coaching Staff Have Derailed This Season
 

https://zonecoverage.com/2021/chiefs...chiefs-season/

Well-written article. I was going to post that it was "a good read", but it won't make you feel any better :

Called Bolton a Hitchens clone.

Says letting Breeland go was a mistake.

What a dogshit article LMAO

Well, Bolton is getting exploited in coverage...and in the run...I can't tell if him or Hitchens is out there. Neither can stop anything. Hell, are our LBs allowed to tackle? They both disappear. DO WE ACTUALLY EVEN SEND THEM INTO THE FIELD?

After reading that I was pretty confident if I looked at his article history I would find something saying the exact opposite of this article and what do you know.

Let me present to you the article the same dude wrote September 9th going into the season without Willie Gay.

Its called "The Chiefs defense can survive without Willie Gay".

The entire premise is we are better at every level of the defense with more depth.

So sorry if I think Justin Wiggins writes like most of CP posts. His articles have no more depth or nuance than anyone here.


This dude is obviously just a watch and react emotionally writer, he is probably somewhere here on CP.

I have to disagree with the Breeland part, and part of the Nick Bolton part. Bolton isnt an athlete but has appeared more instinctive thus far. Breeland has been worse than sorenson for Minnesota. The Chiefs appear to have Bellichecked him, let a guy go that was about to fall off.

1-5

Justin Wiggins is a ****ing idiot.

Exactly… Sounds like a a lot of guys here… We got spoiled the last three years and now we have to go though some adversity just like the other teams… Poor us.. SFC…

This is 90% of the problem and the easiest to fix.

Sadly accurate article.

Brett Veach is running this franchise into the ground right in front of our eyes.

Bolton probably is a Hitchens clone. Maybe with a little more downhill aggression.

The issue I have is that it's not really the insult the guy thinks it is. Hitchens is a starting NFL linebacker. He may be past his sell by date at this point, but Hitchens has had a 7 year NFL career as a starting interior backer and has been typically solid (with a pretty rough year there in the mix when he first got to KC).

Bolton would be fortunate to have the kind of career Hitchens has had. And the Chiefs, if they can get Hitchens production on a minimum contract for 3 seasons after this one, will have used a 2nd rounder extremely well.

Don’t you know? We should have 3 Fred Warners by now along with 2 Ed Reeds and 4 Darrell Revis type CBs.

:facepalm:

I think the hardest thing to swallow about what is happening with the defense is that it is so mind boggling that they are this ****ing bad.

They are basically the same unit as last year. Who did we lose? Wilson? Tonah? That isn't changing much imo.

So that leaves Sorenson in a starting safety role and physically declining and moving CJ to the outside. Spags must have implemented something new that the defense is too confused because they are always lost constantly you can tell pre snap.

Still you would think the regression would not be 8 yards per play avg bad. Like historically bad.

Will they put CJ inside and give Thornhill majority snaps? That is the big question, I am not optimistic about that. Spags better figure it out quick because although there is still a lot of season left, but we can't really lose many more games at this point.

The offense minus the TO's are still really good and should be better with the Gordon addition and also I Think with CEH out it will be better not worse. There is still hope to turn it around.

A bit revisionist, don't you think? We all thought we were headed back to the Super Bowl until a couple of weeks ago. One would think that clear errors by the FO would be more obvious in the offseason.

When Veach traded for Clark….I’m sure he was aware that Clark’s play would fall off a cliff AND that the cap would tank because of COVID. Just like I’m sure when he signed Reed this off-season, a move that EVERY talking head ****ing loved, he knew that he would basically be invisible.

Now did the DE get ignored? Yes. And that can be put on Veach’s shoulders. But people can stop acting like the stars underperforming are somehow on Veach because he knew it would happen and paid them anyways.

Who knew Reed was going to bust THIS bad?

Or that Thornhill would languish on the bench in favor of the stuck in molasses coverage skills of Sorensen?

Or that Jones on end would be such an abject failure that no one will admit and then refuse to move him back inside?

No one. Which is why this article is dumb.

I have been saying this for a while. Thank you for re-highlighting these points

It's a great article for the doom and gloom chicken littles who are determined to find anything to justify their position.

I think Reed would be much better with CJ back inside next to him.

Aside from injuries to key players, fans that think personnel is a bigger factor than scheme or execution are falling for the simplistic answer.

The fact is that the teams have prepared well for what the Chiefs are trying to do on offense and defense.

Chiefs need to dial back on the creative innovative BS and play more basic and play more physical.

Chiefs need to run more basic plays from traditional formations and hit the other team and stand up to them. The Bills played much more physical than the Chiefs and it was because Chiefs are relying too much on design and not playing basic physical football.

Chiefs need to have defensive guys healthy and on the field, but the personnel available is more than good enough to win it all. Chiefs just need to play harder and hit the other team harder than they get hit. That starts with running plays that depend on effort moreso than tricking the other team.

Andy Reid used to have a dozen plays a game for special situations and the Chiefs would win those dozen offensive plays on design before effort. Now Chiefs are trying to win almost all the plays on design before effort. Get back to playing hard and tough and have a dozen special plays.

I typically prefer an inside/outside pairing if we can get it. Or an outside/outside.

It spreads the danger out a bit. If you have Jones/Reed out there, you can almost do a floating double where you have a C/G combo that will peel off if/when someone gets in trouble.

That's a lot harder to do when you've got someone on the edge and someone else in the middle or the other edge.

It's just a more varied way to attack.

This shit is gonna look so funny in a few months. LMAO

I cannot believe the ****ing clowns counting us out around here after 2015 and 2019.

This team is led by forces of nature that have been through ALL of this shit before. The year we won the SB we lost two HORRIBLE games at home, consecutively.

They are not done. Not by a long shot.

Hindsight is 20/20, this is a different situation than Green Bay for example where they largely have sat on their hands and chose not to give Rodgers weapons around him etc. Veach was aggressive and brought some players in and they haven't worked out (Jarran Reed) or they have regressed majorly (Clark). Pretty much the entirety of CP was praising Veach for his ability to overhaul the offensive line in one offseason.

I think the CEH draft pick looks particularly bad right now as CEH isn't as effective as we had hoped and it was a luxury pick at the time. Could really use another stud on defense with that selection. This is the first time the Chiefs have found themselves with some real adversity in regards to the overall talent on the roster. Seems like we got too many holes to fill right now particularly on the defensive side of the ball and I'm interested to see how the coaching staff and Veach respond.

I think it's effort related, too. Like, guys just are flopping around out there, not much passion, just...I don't know. That attitude the defense had in 2019 is gone.

It's just gone.

They would RAPE FACES.

This sounds accurate.

Attitude. Beat your man.

Jesus, non existent margin of error? What a bunch of chicken little shit.

We need more accountability from the front office and coaches. But the sky isn't falling.

We have an elite head coach and qb who have to figure some things out in terms of cover 2. Extremely confident they will.

A ton of our defensive problems are mental. Spags needs to figure it out. If he can't, find someone who can. And as veach has done many years before, find the gaps and band aid them. If our offense turns around, our defense only needs to be good enough.

Our overreaction to this thing is embarrassing. I get if we're disappointed but this "woe is me" we are doomed forever shit is so over the top. We have plenty of margin of error. We are just in a Murphys law stage right now where everything that can go wrong, has.

Things are going so well for Breeland in Minnesota... it's too bad the Chiefs didn't keep him. LMAO

Link: https://thevikingage.com/2021/10/11/...a-vikings-cut/

Here's the thing about using the CEH pick for a stud defender. These are the non-safety (we had to be set with Thornhill and Mathieu at the time) defenders chosen between CEH and Willie Gay Jr.:

DE - Yetur Akkub Gross-Matos: 14 solo tackles and 3 sacks in his career so far. PFF grade 55-58.

DT - Ross Blacklock: stats are hard to measure on DTs, but his PFF grade for 2020 was 30.2. Looks like he's doing better so far in 2021.

DE - Marlon Davidson: 7 tackles, 1 sack in career. PFF grade around 60.

DE - Darrell Taylor: zero production in 2020, but is kicking ass in 2021 - 4 sacks, PFF grade 71.5

CB - Jaylon Johnson: PFF grade of 55 last year, looking better this year at 74.

CB - Trevon Diggs: there's your diamond, 9 INTs in career so far, but lol PFF only has him at 62/67.

DT - Raekwon Davis: PFF 71 last year but 28 so far this year

OLB - Josh Uche: PFF 78/61

For comparison, Derek Nnadi had a grade of 75 last year, Ward had 65.

They probably didn't have an idea about Jones moving to DE yet. So they would probably have felt set at DT. Also if they liked Gay Jr. they might not go for LB. So it seems like DE and CB would be most likely.

Taylor was injured so that's a one year wait. The other two DEs have been kinda meh but would still be an upgrade to what we have now.

Trevon Diggs definitely looks like the guy we should have gone for.

and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around this because why would that happen? You have a team capable of going far again and your job is to play football so why would you not continue to give your best effort? Makes no sense to me because unless these guys all secretly want to just lose or retire this year then it doesn't make sense they would just lose the passion.

If it was i hate the team im on lol then you still play your best to catch on with another team.

idk that narrative just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Yeah, that kid is special. Watching him play you can tell he is a natural talent at his position. Dude has been absolutely dominant.

Still waiting for the "reunion" of Jarran Reed & Frank Clark.

He absolutely would. The CJ at DE experiment needs to come to an end.

I have to watch closer, but seems like Reed holds his ground okay, but does not make much effort to tackle the ballcarrier if nearby.

Then what?

Good notes for sure. Missing McKinney, Dugger, Winfield, and Delpit at S, most of which are looking like solid picks but we can agree the Chiefs didn't appear to have a major need at S and especially not in round 1.

The player they probably should have grabbed there was a WR. Tee Higgins, Michael Pittman Jr, Chase Claypool, take your pick. The writing was on the wall with Sammy and any of those was the absolute perfect fit as an X replacement. Higgins was particularly dubbed a 1st round prospect and would look pretty good here.

Veach is just a front man for Reid.

When they say Veach loved Mahomes early on, I’d bet the real story is Reid loved him and made it known and Veach jumped on it.

They pushed that narrative to give Veach some credibility.

Veach’s first 3 drafts were train wrecks, but I do like last year’s draft.

Hitchens was key in our defenses turnaround in the back half of 2019. Not an argument to hold onto him now, but an argument in favor of the utility in having someone like Bolton back there.

Our biggest cap hits are Jones, Matthieu and Clark.

Jones has been moved out of position where he no longer dominates and was injured for Buffalo when we needed him to pressure Allen.

Clark has been out and injured and a shell of the player we thought we signed.

Matthieu has looked pedestrian since being on the Covid list and is inexplicably also not being used as a weapon all over the field and near the line of scrimmage. Against Buffalo last year he was constantly at the line either blitzing or dropping into coverage or doubling someone. This year he is kept out of this role by Spags.

Spags and his Sorenson obsession at safety cost us against Buffalo. Allen has looked bad in 2.5 games against us. The one half he explodes two out of 3 big plays were Sorenson. The other was showing man and bringing no pressure.

The bringing no pressure part was the worst of it. Do that and many things improve.

Idk, probably has some to do with it. Maybe being so shitty itself has got them blaming others and not focused on being better. That reflects coaching though.

Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

Really?

How many times do we not seem ready to play? How many cutesy plays kills us? Can a coach be elite when they ignore 2/3rds of the team? This team lacks discipline, focus, intensity an awful lot for having an elite coach. A lot of issues.

Are you sure we don't just have an elite offensive coordinator?

Absolutely THIS! I could not agree more.

You don't win as he has without being Elite

That being said I think it's becoming clear that he is past his prime. There is no way this team should be on the bottom of the standings.

Also maybe we are seeing part of the reason EB hasn't landed a HC job yet

CB - Trevon Diggs: there's your diamond, 9 INTs in career so far, but lol PFF only has him at 62/67. Who woulda thunk? WOW!

Past his prime 5 games after being in the SB in back to back seasons and the AFCCG the previous 3.

There's not a single original thought in his article. Cookie cutter af.

You know what’s derailed the early part of the season?

Being -7 in the turnover battle.

If we stop shooting ourselves in the foot, things immediately turn around and we resume winning.

Mizzery fans are always in love
With shitty Tigers we draft, Bolton being the latest . It never fails

I dont like how the Chiefs ignored the DE and CB positions in the offseason.

The Chris Jones DE experiment is currently failing.

I mean....Mike "fucking" Dana leads this team in sacks.

Lots of resources spent on the DL and they can't get to the QB.

The sad and honest truth is....the Chiefs don't do anything well. It's one thing to maybe lean on something you do well and run with that but the Chiefs can't even do that.

Top poster

How many turnovers has our defense gotten? I agree with you to an extent but this is a historically bad defense. The offense goes into the game almost knowing 30 points might not be enough naturally they are going to press.

Veach needs to sit down with Tyrann and find a way to energize him. He’s the obvious leader of the defense and him not playing spirited football is hurting this defense both directly and indirectly.

We can all talk in circles about the reasons why the defense has taken a step back -and there are lots of reasons- but none more important than not having him breathing fire everywhere and constantly rallying the troops.

These guys are jogging through plays.

Our defense is so bad, it's the opposite of oatmeal, it's bad for our hearts. If our defense was a bowl of oatmeal it would be good for something, our defense is good for nothing. Different strokes for that which is brokes.

Tyrann is a money first guy. He's as much a leader as he is a social media deva. The only thing that will "energize' him will be the contract he wants. The difference with him, as opposed to a some other guys who were paid, is that Tyrann will play hard after he gets it. Having said that, I would still not pay the guy the kind of money he wants. Don't want tons of dollars tied up at Safety. In fact, this off season I'd look to get rid of all the big contract guys who are under performing and would also consider trading Jones. Not advocating that, but I'd see what I could get for him. If they do decide to keep him, then move him the **** back to DT where he has proven to be an elite talent. They need to completely overhaul the defense. That includes replacing Spags if he can't get this defense respectable. I would not saddle the new DC with big contracts guys who must play because of dollars. With our offense, the defense just needs to be average. That can be achieved in one off season.

For the remainder of this season, I'd move CJ back to DT and bench guys who are playing like shit. Spare nobody in that category. I'd try to generate a pass rush, in some way, and be very aggressive and see if I could create turnovers and make shit happen. I'd look at Spags like he is coaching to save his job. See if he can come up with something to change where the defense is now. The talent is not there to keep doing what he is doing by keeping the same players doing the same things.

A guy who doesn't prepare his team isn't going to win 75% of his games as consistently as Andy Reid does. Our record in September before this year is absurdly good. So is Reid's record after a bye week. You don't do these things unless you really understand preparation. Andy Reid is an offense genius but cmon, we've seen plenty of coaches just as smart as Reid be dogshit at running a team. Reid is a terrific motivator, he knows how to prepare for a week, and he's one of the most hands on coaches in terms of telling players how to do things better. He isn't just elite, he's one of the best of all time.

We are spoiled of we're going to gripe about Reid not being perfect on terms of preparing players.

That being said if we're talking about this season, I do wonder if he's pretty distracted with the whole Britt Reid thing and I couldn't blame him.

That's my concern too. I love the guy, but I don't think he's going to lead until he gets a contract. And I just hope it's not the opposite effect where he drags the locker room down with him. I don't know if this is fixable. I don't want to give up on the season but there just seems to be so many situations like this that will go away next season. A part of me feels like we just need to get through this season on one piece.

First of all, some dude from Plymouth MN that writes for a website that is "The Home of Minnesota Sports", probably isn't the most plugged in "expert". He might have some opinions, but so does every CP member. In Veach's 4 year reign as GM, he's had a total of one1st round pick and he used that #32 (essentially a 2nd rounder) for CEH. I wasn't wild about that, but our RB corps was pretty pedestrian.
After last year's SB fiasco most of us, along with the national press, deemed our most pressing need as protection for our half billion dollar man. So what does he do but go out and signs guard Thuney, trades out of the 1st round and picks up an additional 2nd rounder and a 2x Pro Bowl left tackle. End result in the 2nd was Humphrey and Bolton. It's too soon to tell about Bolton, but most of us agree Humphrey was a home run. Then he finds a diamond in the rough with Smith. Kaindoh was deemed a project and still may work out. Gray made the team and Powell is on the PS.
In the 2020 draft, he picks up CEH, Gay, Niang, Sneed, Danna, and Keyes. The jury is still out on Gay, but you have to admit Niang and Sneed were pretty good picks and Danna is a solid role player. So you miss on your 7th rounder Keyes, big deal.
The 2019 draft yielded Hardman, more of a protection pick rather than anything else, Thornhill who suffered an injury late and has not worked back to a starter, Saunders, another role player, Fenton (starter), 7th round Allegretti, and a miss on Thompson. You can't win them all.
The 2018 draft gave us Nnadi, Watts, and DOD with misses on Speaks, Smith, and McKenzie. Smith and Big Mc were 6th rounders, so what. Watts and DOD are still on the team.
I'm going to admit Clark turned out to be a bad choice and the Jones move has been dismal. The Reed signing may still produce some fruit. As far as Dirty Dan, asking him to be a Swiss Army knife player is too much. Either teach Thornhill to make a hit and replace Sorenson or GTFO. When you have a limited number of draft picks (18 over 4 years) and not a lot of money, you can't expect Veach to fix every hole.
End of rant.