Exactly. The Chiefs are on a glorious roll right now but it's foolish to think that relying on your QB to pull you from the fire every time is going to work in the long run.
The current state of defense in the NFL is a big ol' chili dog of shit through a straw, but it's up to the Chiefs and the D-Coord to find the best way and the players needed to suck that shit harder and faster than anyone else if we're going to field a complete team that can cover ground if Mahomes has a bad day or God-forbid goes down.
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Yep. Also, look around the league. A lot of playoff bound teams have good offenses. Chances are we'll see a couple in the playoffs. If so, the Chiefs _efense is going to have to step up at some point. I wish they could just stop the run consistently, and I'd take my chances with the pass defense, because KC is starting to get a pass rush - that was supposed to be the focus in the offseason as they made changes to the front 7. A team with a dynamic offense can go far in the playoffs if they also have a defense that is decent against the run.
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Bob and his monkeys bailed out Reid and his cute offense today...

This so easily could of been a classic Reid type loss if it wasnt for Bob.
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Yep.
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I've tried to watch that closer to see what I can see about this run defense - it doesn't make sense that it's this bad; the personnel is there to be an average run stopping team, IMO. And there's upside for more than that.

There's some youth issues that I didn't really expect on interior running. It doesn't look like Nnadi and Williams are physically losing, but they look confused on their assignments more than I realized.

Williams doesn't look to actually be trying to engage blockers. Generally speaking he's trying to find a gap to shoot and he can be taken out easily by a single player who's able to get to the LBs. Nnadi has the opposite problem - oftentimes not decisive either way and he doesn't get into his fit before the OL gets into him.

The ILBs are getting better at flowing and minding their responsibilities (again, to my admittedly largely ignorant eyes) but the opposing OL is getting more free runs at them than I realized. And while they're better at it, they're still not what I would call good at it so there are plenty of breakdowns by the ILBs as well.

Long way of saying that I've been overlooking the role that Williams and Nnadi have played in our porous run defense. I've been saying "Damn, these ILBs suck if they still can't stop the run even with good play from the DTs..." but the DTs haven't been quite as good as I had thought they were.

Two young guys out there lookin' like young guys quite a bit.
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You should have been listening to me 4 weeks ago. :-)

In all seriousness, the tackles have been letting too many guys run them out of plays. It's hard for ILB's to do anything with a lineman in their face as soon as the ball is snapped.
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I cut my teeth on Derrick Thomas.

I have NEVER seen a get-off that consistently dominant. It was fucking unreal. That's not to say it was the best pass rush - just the best first step.
He had that snap count lined up and he was just exploding off the ball. And the dude was getting nearly parallel to the ground when he was trying to get around the corner. His lean was remarkable.

That 4th quarter was a clinic by Ford. That poor bastard RT had no chance. Now that was only possible because of a mediocre at best RT and an obvious game situation, but he was just destroying him.
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And the reason the wheels came off in the 2nd half was EXACTLY the same reason they lost the Titans game.

The Cardinals came out there and took the air out of the football. They ate up half that 3rd quarter with the opening drive and scored. Suddenly one stop by their D and they had the ball with a chance to take the lead.

We got the big play against them that we didn't get against TN, but the problem with the run defense is real. It allows a team to simply stall the shit out of our momentum. We went into half on pace to beat the spread by double digits and when the Cardinals came out to start the 2nd half and just would not give the goddamn ball back, it took us out of rhythm.

That's the first time we didn't start the 2nd half with the football and it wasn't pretty. That silly coin toss streak may have been more important than we realized. We sure as shit looked flat that entire 2nd half when they came out with the ball first, kept it and rocked us on our heels.
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That game looked a lot to me like one of those "we know we should win this game, we don't really want to be here to have to do it" performances.

But fuck they can't stop the run.
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After that first TD drive, the offense seemed to be like "okay, we're done. Time to run out the clock".

Yesterday was just a weird game all the way around. The energy was just "different".
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See, I just don't agree. In the first half, it was 'same ol' Chiefs' in a lot of ways - they looked like a team just ready to kick another ass.

I really think it came down to that !@#$ing 12 play drive to start the half that took up half the 3rd and just took the Chiefs offense out of the game. It felt sooooo much like the Titans playoff game. All that energy coming out of the half and excitement from adjustments you know are going to work just {pfffft} vanishes like a fart in the wind.

I don't think the energy was different until the Cardinals MADE it different. The Chiefs just never got themselves geared back up and it may have been in part because the punt/interception/score happened fairly quickly and set the game back up for a 'kill the clock' mode.

It's one of those games that I'd like to simulate - what happens if Houston isn't in on that snap? Because that screen was set up to go 30 yards and there's no way Speaks feels that play coming. That's a huge play to Johnson and the Cardinals may well have taken the lead.

Maybe that would've been the spark to wake the offense the hell up and the Chiefs put up their usual 38-21 sort of day. Or maybe they just got lulled to sleep. I just feel like the Cardinals deserve some credit for that lack of spark in the 2nd half; that drive was huge for them and the kind of thing we absolutely cannot have happen to us with regularity.
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I imagine the third down, drive-extending penalties get pretty old pretty quickly.
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Give BS a contract extension?
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They said in the off season they were going bigger, younger, faster to fix the run defense, and I bought it. Results so far look like it's gotten worse. Duke Johnson was useless all season and had a coming out party against the Chiefs two weeks ago. David Johnson yesterday. It doesn't matter how elite the RB is. If the RB can run a wheel route or catch a pass in the flat he is going to absolutely torch the Chiefs because they don't have a guy that can go sideline to sideline quick enough.

If people want to chalk it up to "I'm fine if David Johnson gets his it's a passing league" that's fine. Don't complain when the Colts come into Arrowhead for the divisional playoffs and Marlon Mack runs all over them and makes the game way closer than it should be.
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Sacks- T 1st
INT- T 4th
Passer rating allowed- 5th
Forced Fumbles- T 6th
Points allowed- 16th

All with 2 new players in the secondary and no Eric Berry.
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