Defense

[AFCWEST 1,238]

3 problems the Chiefs’ defense needs to address before the NFL playoffs

1. Lack of middle-of-the-field pass defense

2. Lack of pass rush around Chris Jones

3. Poor linebacker play

Their games aren't the same, but both of their tapes are littered with the same issues: they can't get off blocks and struggle to read anything in coverage and make tackles in space. Bolton, in particular, struggles with making any play in space, which reared its ugly head multiple times on Sunday.

Gay's bigger problem has been his coverage recently. Whether it's his man coverage reps or trying to find routes in play action, Gay's recently been a liability in coverage. This has led Spagnuolo to even put Darius Harris on the field — albeit, he's not playing well either.

The Chiefs put a lot of investment in Gay and Bolton as cornerstones of their defense, but neither has justified that return on investment yet. They both have moments of excellent splash plays, but the overall tape hasn't been good enough, and it's hurting the defense.

https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2022/12/20/23515697/3-problems-the-chiefs-defense-needs-to-address-before-the-nfl-playoffs

 

[AFCWEST 1,238]

The bottom line

I'm not going to discuss Steve Spagnuolo's long-term standing as defensive coordinator while the season is going. There's no point in it currently. He's the Chiefs' defensive coordinator this season, and nothing will change that.

For me, it's only worth discussing this season.

In terms of this defense, the film is just bad now. The stats don't look terrible, but the Chiefs have been lucky to face Malik Willis, Bryce Perkins, Davis Mills and the corpse of Matt Ryan to help their stats. The film and process haven't been good, and it's been getting worse recently.

To answer my original question, I think the Chiefs can still win the Super Bowl, even with their defense. Patrick Mahomes and this offense are good enough to do that. Still, the margin of error feels incredibly thin. When the offense commits turnovers or Harrison Butker misses kicks, it feels way more consequential than any other point in the Spagnuolo era.

The margin of error is a massive thing in the playoffs. You can't play perfectly on any side of the ball in the playoffs. The Chiefs almost have to play perfectly on offense to compete weekly. That's just not going to work in the playoffs.

 

[West 6,713]

The biggest "margin of error" for me is our placekicker.....

It's hard for me to complain when I see a defense with 15 players getting meaningful snaps  in their 3rd year or less. ( 11 0f them are rookies or in year #2) This is unbelievable....

Spags and the coaching staff have done wonders with the massive turnover of personnel.

I think Bolton and Gay are doing great, although Bolton is banged up right now.

 

[artsy 1,137]

A good solid pass rush would "ease" a lot of the passing defenses woes. I have noticed that Gay struggles in zone defense..He never seems to get enough depth for whatever reason. Bolton was never really known to be a great/good cover guy.

Nonetheless, things get very hard for the coverage when the qb and wrs have too much time. It is what it is now. 

Spags and the defense will have to live and die by the blitz for the rest of the season. There's no other way to get pressure on the qb. 

This will be PM15s hardest playoff season thus far. Him and the offense will have to be damn near perfect in order for KC to advance.

[Fmbl2187 2,279]

5 hours ago, West said:

The biggest "margin of error" for me is our placekicker.....

It's hard for me to complain when I see a defense with 15 players getting meaningful snaps  in their 3rd year or less. ( 11 0f them are rookies or in year #2) This is unbelievable....

Spags and the coaching staff have done wonders with the massive turnover of personnel.

I think Bolton and Gay are doing great, although Bolton is banged up right now.

 

According to Dustin Colquitt, who has looked at all the film, the problem with Butker is not Butker.  It is the holder, Townsend.  He is not getting the ball down in the right spot consistently, and the angle of tilt and the laces are not oriented consistently.  Butker has kept his mouth shut about it. He is being the good teammate, at least publicly. He is taking the rap.

[mex 65,581]

On 12/19/2022 at 9:18 AM, kkuenn said:

also giving away picks for a guy that is unproven can be destructive too for the future. Chiefs have many guys now on rookie deals. Pay the majority of the contract out front and roll with it for a few years. We are in great position having cap space and many picks and not having mortgage any of those in the future picks too. We are in great position to sign away and we lose Clarks high priced contract this off season. If he is replaced with a much better DE at his price he had, we will be even better come draft time.

Do we know of any DE free agents next year or is it too early

[kkuenn 3,597]

4 minutes ago, mex said:

Do we know of any DE free agents next year or is it too early

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/all/edge//

[kkuenn 3,597]

I still would approach OBJ about moving back to RT in the off season. If we can fill one or two of these positions, I causing DE with FA it will go a long way, imo, of us front loading the contracts and using the draft for the future/development along with getting a few starters.

OT FA.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/all/tackle//

 

DT FA

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/all/defensive-tackle//

[West 6,713]

I saw that Fums....Townsend kinda dismissed it...

No matter, they need to get it fixed.

 

 

[mex 65,581]

On 12/19/2022 at 10:22 AM, oldtimer said:

Yikes  even if the Chiefs cut Machinegun Clark next year it'd be $9M in dead cap space

Hurts for sure, but how much does losing the salary reap? My guess is the 9 mil is worth it to dump his worthless ass.

[AFCWEST 1,238]

5 minutes ago, mex said:

Hurts for sure, but how much does losing the salary reap? My guess is the 9 mil is worth it to dump his worthless ass.

I think he agreed to reduce his salary to the 2022 dead money amount so KC kept him. My guess is he will play for the 9 million dead money next year and KC will keep him at 9 million. They have to pay the 9 mill so may as well keep him at that price. Clark is a little above average but not worth all the money KC gave him not to mention the draft picks. 

[mex 65,581]

24 minutes ago, kkuenn said:

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/free-agents/all/edge//

Thanks... kinda like Ngakoue... averaging about 10 sacks per season... Mahomes' age... not outrageous salary... might want a ring.

[mex 65,581]

7 minutes ago, AFCWEST said:

and KC will keep him

[AFCWEST 1,238]

1 minute ago, mex said:

So even though they owe him  9 million you would let him walk rather than play at that 9 million?  

[mex 65,581]

11 minutes ago, AFCWEST said:

So even though they owe him  9 million you would let him walk rather than play at that 9 million?  

He's been overpaid for the last two years. I don't want that fucker on the team.  Lucky I'm not in charge.

[kkuenn 3,597]

19 minutes ago, AFCWEST said:

So even though they owe him  9 million you would let him walk rather than play at that 9 million?  

9 million is the dead money. We save 21 mil or something like that with cutting him. To keep him would be a cap hit of 30 mil.

 

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/frank-clark-16787/

[AFCWEST 1,238]

4 minutes ago, kkuenn said:

9 million is the dead money. We save 21 mil or something like that with cutting him. To keep him would be a cap hit of 30 mil.

 

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/frank-clark-16787/

Unless he agrees to play for the 9 million. I think he took a pay cut this season and will do so again unless he thinks he can get much more somewhere else.

[Fmbl2187 2,279]

On 12/19/2022 at 10:18 AM, kkuenn said:

giving away picks for a guy that is unproven can be destructive too for the future.

Risk vs. Reward   Age old problem.  I feel like we should stay the course, hope for more development from Karloftis to make Clark more effective on the opposite side and rely on another great year from Jones.  That is a risk of no improvement in exchange for the reward of being able to give up Frank Clark in a year for MUCH less cap hit. I am glad I am not Veach.  Watching why, or if, we fail in the playoffs against a great QB will make that decision easier.  Another thing to remember is that all the rookies in our secondary will have another camp and coaching and will be much better next season, giving our current pass rush more time to get to the QB.  We will likely cover better. We can't ever expect to have an effective pass rush if opposing QB's can always find a guy open quickly. In most cases, we have been less than a half second from getting to the QB, and that would be remedied by having CB's who know where to be.

[kkuenn 3,597]

3 hours ago, AFCWEST said:

Unless he agrees to play for the 9 million. I think he took a pay cut this season and will do so again unless he thinks he can get much more somewhere else.

He gets cut and then we get the hit. He won't play for free the 9 mil is his, no matter what. Why would the nflpa even let him play for free? Might as well go sign a 8 mil prove it deal and make 17 mil for the year.

[AFCWEST 1,238]

9 hours ago, kkuenn said:

He gets cut and then we get the hit. He won't play for free the 9 mil is his, no matter what. Why would the nflpa even let him play for free? Might as well go sign a 8 mil prove it deal and make 17 mil for the year.

We shall see. 

[Calichief 3,016]

 

[AFCWEST 1,238]

https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2022/12/22/23520216/chiefs-defensive-line-performing-above-expectation

Pressures and sacks by defensive linemen in 2022

Because Kansas City blitzes a lot, I wanted to isolate defensive line pressures and sacks from overall team pressures and sacks. For example, cornerback L’Jarius Sneed has 10 pressures and 3.5 sacks on the season, which would affect some of those totals. In this way, I could get a true understanding of how the defensive line is performing when compared to the rest of the league. Here’s how that looks across the whole league.

 

Team	Press	Rnk	Sacks	Rnk
Patriots	125	1	31.5	7
Cowboys	124	2	52.0	1
Eagles	123	3	51.0	2
Titans	122	4	35.0	3
Bills	117	5	32.0	6
Jets	115	6	35.0	3
Jaguars	114	7	23.5	21
Dolphins	111	8	23.0	24
Chiefs	108	9	30.5	9

[AFCWEST 1,238]

When considering only the production of defensive linemen, the Chiefs rank ninth in both in total pressures and sacks. Being in the top 10 in either pressures and sacks is a strong indicator of good performance — and the Kansas City’s defensive line meets both of those qualifications.

Resources spent on defensive linemen in 2022

With this information in hand — but considering the Chiefs rank first in 2022 cap spending and fourth in 2022 cash spending on the defensive line — is it fair to say that the team’s defensive line is underperforming when compared to the resources used there? Using only those metrics, you can easily conclude that this might be true.

But is that a fair way of judging the resources used on a position group?

For example, defensive tackle Chris Jones’ 2022 cap dollars are at $29.4 million, compared to Cleveland Browns’ defensive end Myles Garrett at $12.9 million — even though Garret’s annual salary is $5 million more. So it makes more sense to judge the salary resources used for a player by their APY (average per year) value. So I acquired these figures for all of the league’s defensive linemen. Every $1 million in APY was given a value of one point.

[AFCWEST 1,238]

The bottom line

This certainly isn’t a perfect measure for defensive line performance. Not all sacks and pressures are made equally. Factors like injuries — or how much is spent on the defensive line — can swing some of these statistics. The eye test — as always — still matters with these results, too. By that standard, I generally agree that the pass rush from the Chiefs’ defensive line hasn’t been consistent.

Still, what this analysis shows is that Kansas City’s defensive line is actually performing well above the expectation set by the investment made into it. Even though the Chiefs rank first in cap spending on the defensive line this year, taking a fairer long-term perspective shows their overall resources spent are much closer to the bottom of the league. Some of that is because the team only pays two pass rushers — Frank Clark and Chris Jones — significant money. But it’s also true that Kansas City is not spending on the defensive line at a level consistent with most other contenders.

Even without the larger investments made by other clubs, the Chiefs are getting good performance from their defensive line. Being top 10 in total pressures, sacks, pressures/resources, and sacks/resources are all indicators that a defensive line is giving a good return on the investment made in it.

One could argue that Kansas City needs to spend more on the defensive line. That’s a fair point — but in terms of the team’s investment in the defensive line, it’s performing above reasonable expectations.

[Fmbl2187 2,279]

4 hours ago, AFCWEST said:

The bottom line

This certainly isn’t a perfect measure for defensive line performance. Not all sacks and pressures are made equally. Factors like injuries — or how much is spent on the defensive line — can swing some of these statistics. The eye test — as always — still matters with these results, too. By that standard, I generally agree that the pass rush from the Chiefs’ defensive line hasn’t been consistent.

Still, what this analysis shows is that Kansas City’s defensive line is actually performing well above the expectation set by the investment made into it. Even though the Chiefs rank first in cap spending on the defensive line this year, taking a fairer long-term perspective shows their overall resources spent are much closer to the bottom of the league. Some of that is because the team only pays two pass rushers — Frank Clark and Chris Jones — significant money. But it’s also true that Kansas City is not spending on the defensive line at a level consistent with most other contenders.

Even without the larger investments made by other clubs, the Chiefs are getting good performance from their defensive line. Being top 10 in total pressures, sacks, pressures/resources, and sacks/resources are all indicators that a defensive line is giving a good return on the investment made in it.

 

Again, I think the inexperience of the secondary allows receivers to get open quicker, allowing the QB to get rid of it quicker, lowering sack numbers. Also, our secondary guys are used more often on blitzes, opening up faster releases by the QB, lowering sack numbers even more. Even a slight improvement in the secondary and the use of them by Spags could end up making our rush suddenly shoot up in the rankings. When the secondary guys get better and more well known in the league, QB's will become more cautious and hold the ball even longer.  All of these aspects are synergistic, not additive.