Originally Posted by :
While the NFL trade deadline is still a few weeks away, that didn’t keep us from musing about some trades that we would like to see for each team last week. Feasibility is always an issue when discussing swapping resources this time of year, but with news from Arizona that former first-round picks Deone Bucannon and Haason Reddick are available, there is a first-place team that might have the requisite motivation to allow the Cardinals to move on from these players.
The Kansas City Chiefs’ defense has been maligned for the better part of the last two years, and for good reason. Even after a solid performance against Blake Bortles and the Jacksonville Jaguars this past Sunday, Chiefs are allowing success in the passing game on 53.70% of early downs, which has been the third-worst mark in the AFC. This is despite the fact that outside linebacker Dee Ford is playing the best football of his career (30 total pressures so far), and the trio of Kendall Fuller, Steven Nelson and Orlando Scandrick has A) been healthy all five games and B) played better than expected.
Their run defense, allowing the 54.55% early-down success rate (worst in the NFL), hasn’t fared much better, however.
This gets to where Bucannon and/or Reddick fit in. The Chiefs signed Anthony Hitchens to a five-year, $45-million deal this offseason to replace Derrick Johnson as their every-down inside linebacker. Hitchens has struggled in that role, allowing 33-of-35 targets into his coverage to be completed, for 1.72 yards per coverage snap (fifth-worst among inside linebackers through Sunday). He’s always been a better run defender than a coverage player throughout his career, but he’s just 47th there this season, with 11 total stops and four missed tackles.
Reggie Ragland, acquired in a trade from Buffalo last preseason, has been very productive in run defense (14th in run-stop percentage) but has (predictably) struggled in pass coverage himself, allowing 1.66 yards per coverage snap and a touchdown this week against T.J. Yeldon in coverage.
While Bucannon has failed to adapt to Steve Wilks’ new scheme this season, Bucannon graded well as a coverage linebacker in 2015 and 2016 and would represent the dime linebacker/safety hybrid the Chiefs have been missing since Tyvon Branch and Hussain Abdullah left after the 2015 season. Whether it has been injuries to safeties Eric Berry and Daniel Sorensen, or feeling the need to play Hitchens and Ragland due to their investment in them, the Chiefs have played six or more defensive backs on fewer than 15% of their defensive snaps this season, down from over 40% the last two years under Bob Sutton. Playing fewer defensive backs has not helped their run defense no matter how you look at it statistically, and while in general more defensive backs does allow more efficiency in the running game, opposing offense’s expected points added against six defensive backs or more when passing the ball is still higher (-0.05 per early-down play since 2013) than when running the ball (-0.07).
When it comes to Reddick, it’s important to point out that, in our preparation for the draft, we found that players that play the same position in the NFL than they did in college were easier to predict than those (like Reddick) that changed positions. The Chiefs are currently working with two players in Breeland Speaks and Tanoh Kpassagnon that were interior players at the college level, but are playing outside linebacker in Sutton’s 3-4 defense. The results have been predictable, with the two combining for just 22 pressures and eight stops in 350 career snaps to this point. Even before Justin Houston left Sunday’s game with an injury, the Chiefs have been in search of a healthy and solid third edge player for as long as Sutton has run the defense. Having Reddick (who had 44 pressures and 46 stops as an edge his final season at Temple) in that role could help revive his career and give the Chiefs options in the future – with Ford facing a contract year and Houston carrying roughly $31 million in potential salary savings the next two years.
With the highest projected win total in the NFL after five weeks, a bright young quarterback on a rookie deal and a head coaching spinning plates with the best of the NFL’s offensive minds, it will be interesting to see the Chiefs’ appetite for improving the personnel of their defense moving forward. While Bucannon or Reddick will likely not be stars, they could contribute in small ways towards making the Chiefs a top-20 defense, which would likely be enough in an offensive-heavy season like this.
In trading for Ragland (a former second-round pick) and starting guard Cameron Erving (a former first-round pick) in his tenure, GM Brett Veach has shown that he’s willing to take a chance on another team’s failed investments. In jettisoning Johnson, star cornerback Marcus Peters and the final three picks of the John Dorsey era after just one year, he’s also shown the ability to cut bait on projects that have produced little fruit.
Originally Posted by htismaqe:
He's also surrounded by crap like Smith, Ragland, and Murray.
Yea that certainly doesn’t help.
I think he’s done fine though. It hasn’t been all bad or good, just needs to be more consistent and play a little faster. I think the defense took a big step forward this past week with tackling and playing fast. Hopefully we continue to see that. [Reply]
Originally Posted by staylor26:
Hitchens is terrible?
He hasn’t quite lived up to his contract, but he’s playing better than DJ did last year and he’s probably still learning the defense.
This is much different than the defense he played in Dallas and we’re 5 games in. You don’t get to learn on the field in TC these days given how short they are. Not to mention he missed a significant portion due to injury. Some of you guys have no patience man.
He's not a 5th round draft pick. He doesn't get a free pass or time in year 1 to develop. He is a big ticket FA acquisition. He's paid a premium and I am sure they expecting a lot more from him than what they have gotten on their return so far. His coverage skills are terrible. Teams are converting on him at a very high rate. He can't stop a turtle from catching a pass. He's currently the 7th highest paid inside LBer in the entire NFL and he's certainly not playing like it. He's not Breeland Speaks he doesn't get a 1 season pass in a 45 million dollar deal to hope he figures it out in year 2. [Reply]
Originally Posted by mcaj22:
He's not a 5th round draft pick. He doesn't get a free pass or time in year 1 to develop. He is a big ticket FA acquisition. He's paid a premium and I am sure they expecting a lot more from him than what they have gotten on their return so far. His coverage skills are terrible. Teams are converting on him at a very high rate. He can't stop a turtle from catching a pass. He's currently the 7th highest paid inside LBer in the entire NFL and he's certainly not playing like it. He's not Breeland Speaks he doesn't get a 1 season pass in a 45 million dollar deal to hope he figures it out in year 2.
Nobody is giving him a free pass but there are legitimate reasons he's now playing well right not, not the least of which is that he's in a completely different system and didn't play at all in preseason.
There's a reason he was a $45M free agent and it's because he doesn't suck. [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
Points to he’s probably not good in the system
Which isn’t ideal
That's one possible situation but there are others. You can't really infer the cause simply from that. All we really know is that he was good in Dallas and hasn't really been here. [Reply]
Hitchens has flashed several times at least with big plays. He should only get more consistent with each week that he acclimated to this defense. [Reply]
He doesn't look like a 3 down LBer at all in this defense and he's being paid like a fringe pro bowl/all pro. If you have a chance to get a coverage backer like Bucannon, they should do it. [Reply]
Some broke dick on Twitter is saying were working on a deal for Reddick. One of the best cover backers in the league played safety at Temple if I recall. [Reply]
I think the future of defense with all of the passing and then teams running against small sets to take advantage of it is basically this.
You're going to line up in what basically looks like a 4-3. However it's going to be a specialized style of 4-3 with some really big fuckers that can stop the run. Basically a type of 4-3 where Chris Jones plays strong side end there are 2 massive DT's and you have a guy like Dee Ford as a moveable versatile rusher. This way you can play the run and get pressure out of your front.
I think that will then move to the 3 LB's that play behind that being smaller more athletic guys because they are only there to cleanup the run but mainly deal with all of the passing routes.
Secondary will depend on scheme but I think playing a lot of man is going to become something no one does so I think you'll see a ton of zone and teams looking for safeties that have corner speed and cover abilities.
That's my thought I could be wrong but that to me seems to be where defense might be able to play with the way the rules are now. [Reply]
