Originally Posted by staylor26:
Why? Clark and Jones are two great rushers and it’s not like Okafor is useless as a pass rusher. Saunders possibly gives us an extra interior pass rusher that we didn’t have last year. Daly has way more talent than he had in NE to work with.
Agreed. I don't remember the Chiefs using many stunts up front. Just guys lining up across from the OL and trying to win individual battles.
The handful of times we did stunt it worked - at least in my memory. I think this DL has quickly become a position of real strength and depth. Makes sense, considering we traded out 3-4 OLB in favor of a 4-3 DE, but still. [Reply]
Originally Posted by saphojunkie:
Agreed. I don't remember the Chiefs using many stunts up front. Just guys lining up across from the OL and trying to win individual battles.
The handful of times we did stunt it worked - at least in my memory. I think this DL has quickly become a position of real strength and depth. Makes sense, considering we traded out 3-4 OLB in favor of a 4-3 DE, but still.
That was with Okafor coming off an Achilles tear and clearly not 100%. He could get 6-8 sacks 2 years removed form that injury playing on this DL with Daly coaching them up. [Reply]
Originally Posted by saphojunkie:
Agreed. I don't remember the Chiefs using many stunts up front. Just guys lining up across from the OL and trying to win individual battles.
The handful of times we did stunt it worked - at least in my memory. I think this DL has quickly become a position of real strength and depth. Makes sense, considering we traded out 3-4 OLB in favor of a 4-3 DE, but still.
Then you don't remember that well.
The Chiefs stunted/twisted quite a bit. Jones found a lot of his pressures by simply being unblocked when teams didn't read the twist well or focused on Ford/Houston instead.
Complain about the secondary or coverage approach if you want to, but the Chiefs weren't vanilla on the DL or in how they used their LBs. [Reply]
Justin Houston wasn’t motivated and sandbagged a lot last year
Chris Jones was abandoning a lot of run defense responsibilities so he could get sacks for a bigger contract.
Dee Ford just fucking sucks in run defense
Allen Bailey fucking sucks in run defense
Reggie Ragland was also slow as shit and couldn’t get to the open hole many times to stop free rushers.
Ron Parker was just absolute ass coming up to stop the run.
The additions this offseason were to fix this shit and on paper it looks much improved. [Reply]
I'm so excited about this defense. I went back and watched some games from last year, and these were my takeaways:
Houston and Ford looked great -- but Ford's sacks almost exclusively came off the speed rush. He never got one on a second move that wasn't a coverage sack. Maybe his speed is so good he doesn't need one, but the fact remains... he is a one-dimensional pass rusher. However, he added the DT58 strip motion to his pass rush, and man oh man did he use that effectively. I'm no Dee Ford fan, because I think his liability as a run stopper grossly outweighed his pass rushing, but this forced fumble aspect was super hawt.
2. Speaking of run stopping, it was DISGUSTING going back and watching this team try to stop the run. I mean, offensively bad. I was so distracted by the eight mile boner I had for Mahomes, and just enjoying his magic so much, that I didn't really process how bad the defense was. It's astounding. Watch the Denver game and try to count how many times the runner just casually picked up 8 yards. I expected to see William Bartee and Kawika Mitchell out there.
3. Speaking of running the ball, we are going to miss Kareem Hunt. I know Damien Williams had equal production. I know Andy Reid gets insane results from virtually any running back. And I know that I openly advocated for not re-signing Hunt as a free agent long before the hotel tape, because of the Andy Reid results factor. But watching Hunt, his ability to take a hit, rebalance, and then get downhill again is just so damn impressive. I think Darwin has a lot of that, but Hunt is Damien Williams' body with Thompson's balance. He's a really fucking good running back. I don't think we will miss his production, but I do think we will miss his style. Such an entertaining running back.
4. Lastly, back to the defense... it's really incredible how many starters are just GONE from this defense. Anyone trying to do the math and project how it's going to turn out is engaging in pure, speculative bullshit. Houston, Ford, Berry, Bailey, Nelson, Scandrick, Parker. That's so much turnover, I can't imagine how different this defense will look. Not to mention every turd coach being replaced by guys there was legitimate consideration for as the DC. This is gonna be fun. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Mecca:
Run D isn't really that important now...really on NE lined up big and tried to run, no one does that anymore.
The biggest thing will just be the front 4 doing their jobs, our run D was bad because we had guys who had no desire to play it properly.
Yep.
Houston lost interest in setting the edge and Ford just didn't have the core strength. And while Ford could be an asset in pursuit, Houston lost the speed to do that. Bailey was just so easy to handle because he was a 'hulk smash' sort of player and Jones was just an indifferent run defender. Williams was a huge disappointment inside as well.
Nnadi and Hamilton were the only ones who actually did their !@#$ing jobs against the run.
If Daly and Spags can re-emphasize accountability there and Veach acquired players with enough 'buy in' that will be a bigger difference than any pure talent infusion. That team just absolutely did not operate as a unit against the run and it was so apparent when you started looking for it.
That's where there's room for hope with Hitchens and maybe even Ragland. The 'team defense' concept was just gone last year. Those guys were just operating with no concept (or concern) over how what they did impacted what everyone else was able to do. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Then you don't remember that well.
The Chiefs stunted/twisted quite a bit. Jones found a lot of his pressures by simply being unblocked when teams didn't read the twist well or focused on Ford/Houston instead.
Complain about the secondary or coverage approach if you want to, but the Chiefs weren't vanilla on the DL or in how they used their LBs.
That is every sack for Jones last season. There is one at minute 2:35 where he lines up as the 3 tech, then stunts around the right tackle with Dee Ford going to.... I don't know... Russia? WTF is he doing?
There is a delayed stunt at minute 3:25. Same thing - lines up at DT and stunts with Houston around the RT.
Every other sack he got it was from penetrating the gap he originally lined up in.
Additionally, I'm watching Dee Ford's sacks -- zero stunts.
However, at 1:11 of this video, Breeland Speaks drops into coverage. He races back to recover the fumble. Actually pretty impressive.
