Anyone who thinks spags was going to turn this around because of scheme change alone wasn't watching our defense last year. I would love for Houston and Ford like players on our defense. But resigning them with no flexibility to add anyone else wasn't the answer.

We needed a defense overhaul. We'll probably have 7 or 8 new guys with significant roles once we spend the $15m and finish the draft. Speaks, kpass feel like new players because they're finally playing in a scheme that fits. Not as drastic but id say the same as well for odaniel. So basically we've got 10+ guys who aren't bottom of the roster guys. They may not be sexy but they are good bets to contribute right away. We are in year 1 of a rebuild. If we kept Houston and Ford around we'd be bandaiding the wrong defense instead of blowing it up. We have to crush it with the draft. But this is the right approach.
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:-):-):-)
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Excellent post is excellent.
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Except a 4-3 team traded for him with the plan to play him at WDE and immediately paid him 17m per. So there definitely is at least 1 GM in the NFL who believes Dee Ford can play in a 4-3 and I don’t believe John Lynch is stupid.
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It's 8:45am and Dee Ford is STILL gone. :-)
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:-)
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Right now, I like this signing. Would I have liked to keep Houston? Sure, but not for the cash he was going to eat up. I'm beginning to think pressure in the middle might be more effective than from the edge.
But our real flaw last year was not being able to stop the run. You can have a sack to create 3rd and long, but when the opponent continues to convert with 15-20 yard runs, you stay on the field forever. I don't care how good our offense is, if they can't get on the turf, we don't win.
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It can't be understated. Somebody said yesterday they weren't actually the 31st ranked D because they had so many attempts against them. That person was partially right. But I had no idea until I looked just how bad it actually was.

The Chiefs were 31st in yards. Useless stat.
They were 24th in points against. Definitely not 31st.
They were 32nd in pass attempts and 31st in pass yards. This was that person's point. They gave up a ton of yards because they gave up a ton of attempts.

But here's where things go south.

They were 17th in rushing attempts but 27th in yards. Obviously, that's a quality issue rather than a quantity issue. And their poor run defense REALLY shows in the following:

They were 30th in average time of drive, 32nd in plays per drive, 31st in yards per drive, and 28th in points per drive.

In summary, the defense simply couldn't get off the field. Part of the reason they gave up so many yards is because they faced so many attempts. That is true. However, it is not completely true they faced so many attempts because of the offense. They faced so many attempts because they couldn't get off the field.
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All I can add to this is that having a stable defense makes "scoring too quickly" a moot point.
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It also shows that teams are trying to frustrate mahomes by keeping him off rhythm by keeping him off the field. If we force teams to pass a few good things happen... Spags' emphasis on corners will hopefully lead to DB's not dropping easy INTs. If not, the other team attacks us vertically and scores quickly. I have a feeling our D will give up a decent amount of points and yards, but we'll significantly reduce opponent TOP and will force more turnovers.
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Crazy thing is, I think Veach foresaw this LAST offseason. He was focused on stopping the run last offseason for this very reason IMO. However, as has been well documented, it did not get fixed. I really think his approach last year (if the run D fix would have been successful) was to encourage shoot outs.
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And thus couldn't it also be stated that the reason we were able to have such a good pass rush (you know number of sacks) is because Ford, Houston, Jones and the rest of the crew simply had the most opportunities?

I'm all onboard taking a giant wrecking ball to last year's defense and starting over. Its the smart thing to do.
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That's my point. Keeping PMII off the field keeps the score lower and TOP becomes more important. My other point about pressure up the middle is that guys like Brady and Rivers don't like big uglies in their face.
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I like this signing if for no other reason than improving the run defense.

I don’t expect the pass rush to be as productive, but long, run-based, clock-chewing drives are the No. 1 threat to the Chiefs offense.

Those were relatively easy to achieve last year, and the Patriots and Ravens both exhibited that late in the year.

A 43 under combined with adding Okafor and Speaks as starters on the edges will drastically improve the run D.

Next area of improvement is to add playmaking in the secondary and add guys who can hone in on the short area of the field and improve performance against quick routes. I feel like they’re close on that... adding a Cb and a S who can play the deep middle are still key parts of that.
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I’m sure Mathieu is going to be moving around a lot, but I believe they want him to be the deep middle guy mainly. I can’t remember who exactly had the quote that said that but one of our beat writers had it.

Obviously, plans in March change, just throwing it out there.
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