ESPN: NFL's best and worst offensive arsenals: 32-1 weapons ranking

[jaa1025]

Originally Posted by Eleazar

Really?

Because in the world where I live the defense was #29 against the pass, #25 against the run, and lost their best player in the offseason.

1) Peters wasn't their best player on defense. He played like crap at times last year. Even at top form, he's behind Houston, Berry and potentially Jones. One could argue that some of the defensive issues was because Peters refused to tackle citing a career choice, IE, he didnt want to get hurt before a potential big contract.

2) The Chiefs overhauled their defense. Berry will be back. OLB, opposite of Houston will be better, whether that comes from a healed Dee Ford, Speaks or Kpassagnon.

3) Ragland started looking pretty damn good at ILB last year. The Chiefs also got Anthony Hitchens, who will be a large upgrade to Derrick Johnson who looked like he was running in quick sand last year.

4) As a group, the CB position will be better. Peters is gone, but he was also the only CB on the roster worth a spot. Fuller's potential is Peters but even if he's not as good, Amerson is a large upgrade over what we had. Plus, Veach apparently thinks he's found two hidden gems in his stable of young CB's.

5) Safety will be a LOT better as well. They will be adding an All Pro back in Berry. They also added Golden, who is under the radar for depth. I'm very high on Watts to take the FS position sometime during the year.

6) Upgraded the NT position with Xavier Williams and Derrick Nnadi, who has elite run stopping potential.

Now, this defense is not likely top 10 but they could end up top 15-20.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by jaa1025

1) Peters wasn't their best player on defense. He played like crap at times last year. Even at top form, he's behind Houston, Berry and potentially Jones. One could argue that some of the defensive issues was because Peters refused to tackle citing a career choice, IE, he didnt want to get hurt before a potential big contract.

You can't claim the defense is going to be better because it's returning players who also played on the defense over the last 3 years, when it's been terrible. Those are not upgrades. That's the #28 (or whatever) defense just treading water.

They lost their MVP in Marcus Peters, one of the NFL's best corners.

Houston hasn't been an elite player for 3-4 years now even when he gets on the field.

Berry, while an impact player when healthy, will be turning turn 30 this season, and he was not able to will bad defenses into the middle third in the previous two years he was able to play. He's a nice player to have but his return isn't going to turn the defense around. That only gets us back to the (also awful) 2016 defense.

Claiming that the defense will be better because it will return some of its better players, now a few more years older, from years past when the unit was embarrassingly bad is a circular argument.

2) The Chiefs overhauled their defense. Berry will be back. OLB, opposite of Houston will be better, whether that comes from a healed Dee Ford, Speaks or Kpassagnon.

This argument rests on untested players and never-weres panning out, which the odds are always against in the NFL.

3) Ragland started looking pretty damn good at ILB last year. The Chiefs also got Anthony Hitchens, who will be a large upgrade to Derrick Johnson who looked like he was running in quick sand last year.

Ragland was on the defense last year when it was terrible.

Hitchens got over $20 million fully guaranteed on a speculative deal. While it will help if it can reduce Sorensen's snaps or those going to the other empty jerseys that played in dime packages last year, he was still a veteran player who wasn't good enough to hold off emerging rookies in Dallas.

4) As a group, the CB position will be better. Peters is gone, but he was also the only CB on the roster worth a spot. Fuller's potential is Peters but even if he's not as good, Amerson is a large upgrade over what we had. Plus, Veach apparently thinks he's found two hidden gems in his stable of young CB's.

Fuller's potential is not Peters, and shuffling JAGs in the secondary is not going to take the defense out of the doldrums.

Veach may have found two undiscovered elite players, but the odds are always against any young player panning out.

This whole argument that the defense is massively upgraded and anyone can see it all relies on a string of unlikely things playing out, aging veterans all returning to their elite form of years past, and everyone staying healthy this time, which never happens.

5) Safety will be a LOT better as well. They will be adding an All Pro back in Berry. They also added Golden, who is under the radar for depth. I'm very high on Watts to take the FS position sometime during the year.

Nobodies/depth players are not on the field on key downs. Sure, it will be nice to have a warm body this time if Berry gets injured again, but in reality if that happens we're hosed at the position anyway.

6) Upgraded the NT position with Xavier Williams and Derrick Nnadi, who has elite run stopping potential.

Now, this defense is not likely top 10 but they could end up top 15-20.

Hooray, we're aspiring to improve from #28 to #20. Print 'em

[Halfcan]

Originally Posted by Eleazar

You can't claim the defense is going to be better because it's returning players who also played on the defense over the last 3 years, when it's been terrible. Those are not upgrades. That's the #28 (or whatever) defense just treading water.

They lost their MVP in Marcus Peters, one of the NFL's best corners.

Houston hasn't been an elite player for 3-4 years now even when he gets on the field.

Berry, while an impact player when healthy, will be turning turn 30 this season, and he was not able to will bad defenses into the middle third in the previous two years he was able to play. He's a nice player to have but his return isn't going to turn the defense around. That only gets us back to the (also awful) 2016 defense.

Claiming that the defense will be better because it will return some of its better players, now a few more years older, from years past when the unit was embarrassingly bad is a circular argument.



This argument rests on untested players and never-weres panning out, which the odds are always against in the NFL.



Ragland was on the defense last year when it was terrible.

Hitchens got over $20 million fully guaranteed on a speculative deal. While it will help if it can reduce Sorensen's snaps or those going to the other empty jerseys that played in dime packages last year, he was still a veteran player who wasn't good enough to hold off emerging rookies in Dallas.



Fuller's potential is not Peters, and shuffling JAGs in the secondary is not going to take the defense out of the doldrums.

Veach may have found two undiscovered elite players, but the odds are always against any young player panning out.

This whole argument that the defense is massively upgraded and anyone can see it all relies on a string of unlikely things playing out, aging veterans all returning to their elite form of years past, and everyone staying healthy this time, which never happens.



Nobodies/depth players are not on the field on key downs. Sure, it will be nice to have a warm body this time if Berry gets injured again, but in reality if that happens we're hosed at the position anyway.



Hooray, we're aspiring to improve from #28 to #20. Print 'em

So basically every move Veech made is a reach at best- we are doomed to suck on defense?

We did not LOSE Peters- we shipped him out of here. Your assessment of Peters being our MVP is complete hyperbole and does not even come close to what Andy, Sutton, and the front office thought about this locker room cancer.

Most of what you said- could also apply to Every team in the NFL. Vets are a year older with no guarantee they will play the same or stay healthy. Defenses are loaded with "unproven players" - (It is called the NFL draft) that they hope will step in. You are right about the Chiefs defense being terrible and needing a complete overhaul.

To completely assume it will suck again is just looking at it with a jaded point of view. We got younger, faster and more aggressive on defense and dumped our non-tackling CB and replaced him one that is a Team Player. All great moves in the right direction.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by Halfcan

So basically every move Veech made is a reach at best- we are doomed to suck on defense?

Didn't say that. I said that on defense we subtracted our best player and the personnel adds we've made are speculative.

Saying the defense has the potential to take a step forward after lying dead on the bottom of the sea for about 3 years now would be reasonable. Saying it's definitely better and only an idiot doesn't think it's a top unit now is not reasonable.

We did not LOSE Peters- we shipped him out of here. Your assessment of Peters being our MVP is complete hyperbole and does not even come close to what Andy, Sutton, and the front office thought about this locker room cancer.

Peters was on the team and now he's not. The defense's best player is gone. That's what a loss is.

Your idea that he wasn't the defense's MVP is homeristic nonsense. Peters is one the league's best cover corners. Peters accounted for 11 of the team's 26 takeaways last year - he had 5 interceptions, 4 forced fumbles, and 2 fumble recoveries. No one else was even close in production, and that's just on turnovers. It doesn't even count what Peters brought by causing QBs not to throw his way or by dictating to the offense in ways Fuller is not going to be able to do right away, if ever.

No argument can be made for anyone else being the defensive MVP last year.

Peters had more turnovers than Houston had sacks. Jones had fewer sacks than Houston, and had exactly one multi-sack game.

You can call him a locker room cancer and he definitely was one, but no one can argue that he wasn't the highest performer on the defense last year or that we have done anything that will replace that production.

Most of what you said- could also apply to Every team in the NFL. Vets are a year older with no guarantee they will play the same or stay healthy. Defenses are loaded with "unproven players" - (It is called the NFL draft) that they hope will step in. You are right about the Chiefs defense being terrible and needing a complete overhaul.

To completely assume it will suck again is just looking at it with a jaded point of view. We got younger, faster and more aggressive on defense and dumped our non-tackling CB and replaced him one that is a Team Player. All great moves in the right direction.

I'm not making any assumptions. What I said is true of every team. The odds are against ALL rookies. They are also against all veteran players who are over 30 maintaining their form, against those who are recovering from major injuries later in their career, against journeyman players suddenly becoming difference makers, or rookies in the secondary becoming impact players immediately.

All those things apply to every team. The hopes and dreams of Chiefs fans that this is a great unit are all hung on 6 or 7 guys who are coin flips at best all coming up heads.

And even then, this was a bottom of the league defense last year. Even if Veach can see the future and had a perfect draft and a perfect score in free agency, it's going to take more than one year to overhaul this mess.

I am optimistic on the whole, but expressing any reservation that this team became an instant contender by shipping Peters out and adding some rookies causes your head to be bitten off by the more ardent homers.

It's still Reid, Sutton, and most of the same personnel, minus their MVP. They are going to have to go out there and prove it if they are going to be some kind of worst to first unit as the homers suggest.