Mloe68

Exactly. If they think there’s a short term problem, they will find a short term solution.

Exactly right. Every game presents its own unique challenge and it’s never correct to make generalizations on what those are. For the Texans it’s keeping Watson in the pocket as much as possible. I’d use a James White type defensive philosophy on Duke Johnson. And get Ward help with Watkins. If other people beat you, so be it. Just keep your GAP responsibilities in the run game and finish plays and we will be fine vs Hyde. Last game we didn’t do that. if you are playing the Titans it’s a different plan. Focus 1,2,3 is on slowing down Derrick Henry.

Great running backs are not your ticket to the Super Bowl. That's for sure. Then again we had a huge red zone regression this year and its hard not to think losing Kareem Hunt wasn't a big part of that. Everything is situational. I mean I don't think the Ravens or Titans are focused first on the other teams passing game on Saturday. As for the Chiefs there was a point that this season could have gone horribly south really fast. Teams were running on us at will and now we had no Mahomes to overcome it. And then poof. Spags made some key changes (got Lee out of the game and Mathieu close to the LOS) and all of a sudden we were a competent run defense. That win over a great running back in Dalvin Cook with Matt Moore under center was something special in my opinion. This is the most complete Chiefs team of my lifetime IMO. We aren't bad anywhere now. Lets just hope losing Thornhill didn't disrupt that balance.

Thats really the point Xen. We weren't average there the first six weeks, we were REALLY bad. And lost 2 ugly games and almost lost a third to a horrible Lions team beacuse of it.

As Spags said, teams knew we couldn't stop the run and it made them run the ball more. Games 4-6 we had 35, 45 and 41 carries against us. Way more than their normal. Obviously those coaches felt like the best way to beat us was on the ground. And it worked. Once we stopped getting gashed there against Denver in week 7, nobody had even 30 carries against us again. You cannot be bad against the run and expect to win. It took a historically good offense last year to overcome it and even there it bit us in the end. Question as it pertains to this game is will the Texans alter their offensive plan where they ran the ball so much in October. If they don't, they will probably lose.

My point never changed. I was originally talking about our 5 worst rush defense games. The Jags game wasn't one of those. But on point with that horrific 5.2 YPC (31st in the NFL) we had the first six games, had that continued, we would not have been the 2 seed because our record showed run defense does indeed matter. It became even more important as the offense sputtered through October. The light came on after those six weeks and the scheme clearly started to take hold. And we won despite a clear regression by the offense.

On point again. As the Chiefs rush defense got better, so did the Chiefs record. We were awful through 6 weeks and you can go back and look at comments from Spags about how much that was killing the overall defense. If the offense overwhelms a team, the rush D is the least important. But our red zone regression this year made the run defense far more important. And our overall record in such games directly reflects that.

One thing also to watch is the reality Thornhill has been so reliable at free safety its let Spags use Mathieu near the LOS where he has completely wreaked havoc. Are we going to be able to to this without Thornhill?

First off the Jags are not one of the teams I was talking about as they only had 80 yards rushing on a paltry 16 carries. And by the way we gave up under 100 yards rushing 6 times and were 6-0 in those games. So the worst 5 rush defense games we went 2-3, the best 5 we went 5-0. You left out the Titans who rushed for 225 yards and an absurd 8.7 YPC. The Raiders were overwhelmed by a record setting 28 point 2nd quarter which completely mititaged the fact Jacobs was running all over us. He only got 19 carries though because of it. Indy just pounded the rock again and again and again to the tune of 45 carries as they played with a lead the entire second half. Truth be told penalties probably beat us there as much as the Colts running game. We knew what was coming and still couldn't get off the damn field and get the offense going. On point here the Chiefs have regressed badly in the red zone this year and haven't been able to simply overwhelm an opponent into making running game almost irrelevant. Then again we scored 31 against the Patriots in the AFC Title game but gave up almost 200 yards rushing and lost. Flash forward a year and we hold the Patriots to 90 yards rushing and win. Rush defense absolutely matters. Again we do not have to be great there. We just can't be awful.

There's no way Kirk Cousins can hold it together long enough to get them to Miami in my opinion. Their overall roster is as good as anyones in the league though. I'm still amazed we beat them with Matt Moore. Give Andy a ton of credit for that one. As well as Spags for coming up with a plan to really slow down a great running back in Dalvin Cook.

Very telling comments from Spags after losing to the Texans in another game where his defense couldn't get off the field largely because they were so bad vs the run. Bad vs run = managable third downs = lots of conversions = our best player on the bench. “That’s what’s frustrating,” Spagnuolo said. “We take a lot of pride as a group in our third-down package that we’ll put together every week because you need to get stops. But you got to get them into those third downs, and you want to get them into unmanageable third downs from their perspective. But we haven’t done that quite as good as we want to.” But how do the Chiefs fix the run defense woes? “You can’t live tackle (in practice), we’re not in pads, the whole thing,” Spagnuolo said. “But for what it is we can do, they’re doing it and more. They care about it. I can work with guys like that. They care, they’re passionate, they hurt as much as anybody, the want to get it fixed. Sometimes it takes a little while.” Spagnuolo expects the Broncos to emulate the game plan the Colts and Texans used to great success the past two weeks. The Broncos have averaged 120 yards rushing their past three games behind Phillip Lindsay and Royce Freeman. “It’s a short week, I’m sure Denver will look at the film and try to do the same thing,” Spagnuolo said. “So until we stop it, we’re going to see it.”

Stopping the run is much more important than being able to run it yourself. Through the first 6 weeks of the season we were giving up 5.3 YPC and had lost twice and were lucky to beat a bad Detroit team that ran all over us. Not coincidentally in our current six game winning streak we are giving up only 4.4 YPC. Not great, but we don’t have to be great. We just can’t be bad. I’d use the word functional to describe what’s necessary.

Injuries always matter but most of the games we are talking about came in the first six weeks when we clearly were still adjusting to Spags system. Really seems like we were much better in our Gap responsibility and overall tackling the second half of the season. We got flat beat up by Derrick Henry but he does that to a lot of people.

My bad.. 2-3 in our worst 5 rushing defense games. Obviously that makes us 10-1 in the others.

How is it cherry picking games to take our worst 5 rushing defensive games and point out we were 2-3 in those games? 11-1 in the other 12. You may not buy it, but those numbers speak volumes. And again its not about a team saying we have to get 180 yards rushing. Its about incompetent run defense that puts our opponents in great situations to make plays and maintain drives on offense. Notice however that only 1 such game came in the second half of the season. Our rush D isn't great by any means. Very mediocre. But I agree with you that's okay, we just cannot get gauged there with regularity and take our pass rushers out of the game and wear down the D. On point though I'm with you that I'm not focused on their run game but rather simply making sure players are where they need to be and then make tackles. Do that and Hyde isn't a concern to me. Letting Watson run around though is. And again Duke Johnson was a receiver out of the backfield is very concerning to me. Is OBrien smart enough to go that direction though? If I'm the Texans he's getting 5 plus balls thrown his way.

I hadn't watched much of the Bills until that game and came away very unimpressed with Allen. There's no way they would have beaten the Chiefs 180 yards rushing or not. LOL

We gave up 180 yards or more rushing five times this year and went 2-3 in those games. 10-1 in the other 11 games. And as you showed they weren’t running with a lead. You simply cannot gets gauged like that and expect to win. The outlier is Baltimore who runs far more than most teams and are going to get their rushing yards.

It’s over. The AFC is run by the young QBs now.

If we give up 200 yards rushing again we are probably going to lose. We are much more sound in gap responsibilities than we were three months ago. Hopefully that shows so we can focus on Watson and Hopkins. We’ve got to try and make him a pocket passer that has to look elsewhere than Hopkins in his progressions. If we let him run around he will wreck the game plan and this game will be a toss up. That said the player to really watch is Duke Johnson. If OBrien is smart at all he will watch that Browns Chiefs game from 2018 where Duke killed us as a receiver out of the backfield. Without Thornhill we seem susceptible there.

Never. This is simply another example of fans not understanding play calling and the options and audible ability QBs have within that. Look no further than the pass to Tyreek last week when Mahomes saw the Chargers in a very rare shallow cover two shell and attacked it deep.

FYI. The University of Kansas Center for Sports Medicine is located adjacent to the Chiefs practice facility in Missouri. Always welcome to tailgate with us if you do. Weather looks really good as of now.

Andy Reid gets a lot of what I believe is bad criticism for “turtleing up” with leads. But most of the time he’s absolutely doing the right thing and his winning percentage reflects that. In this case however he’s got to go in knowing the Texans are explosive and have proven they can rally. Whatever the game plan is, he needs to stick with it if it’s working and not go conservative. Same for Spags who’s proven throughout the year he’s not a big fan of the prevent D.

It’s a groin deal which isn’t going away overnight. He’s gonna have some limitations if he plays. Hopkins is elite so being able to get Ward some help with him seems like a good plan even as Charvarius has held up in solo coverage a lot.

I just don’t think Hyde is a guy you have to account for more than simply keeping gap responsibility and making the tackle. Something we were struggling with in October.

Hyde went over 100 yards only once in his last 8 games and added almost zero as a receiver. Only 3 TDs. He’s basically what we have in LeShon McCoy with more carries. If he gobbled is up again we are in trouble. Duke Johnson scares me more with Thornhill out. Who’s gonna cover him?