Reader Feature Winner!Draft Blog: Offense Improved. Defense Hasn’t

Source: yardbarker.com

Another passionate plea for the Chiefs brass to do something about the team’s dreadful defense. I hope you will join me in congratulating out firs ever Reader Feature contest winner, Ross Knipfel. Ross makes simple what we sometimes make so difficult around here. It starts and ends with defense and if the Chiefs can’t stop the other team from scoring it won’t matter how many offensive weapons we have. Even the offensively powerful New Orleans Saitns won the Super Bowl because of a key defensive play. I invite you to sit back and enjoy Ross’s take on things. Congratulations Ross and thanks to everyone else who entered. We really enjoyed reading your work and I wish we could have posted them all.I hope you enjoyed reading these as much as I did.

-Paddy

Unlike most in Chiefs Nation I am almost content with the current offense that KC will field this upcoming season. A lot of people speculate that the Chiefs will select an OT at #5 overall, but I will beg and plead with Scott Pioli to do no such thing and I’m not alone out there. Yes, I know that the Chiefs o-line gave up way too many sacks (45 for 6^th highest in the league) and quarterback hits (85 for 12^th highest in the league) last season. That has to get lower for them to improve. I also realize they need receivers to catch the ball since KC was ranked 25^th in overall passing yards during the season and quite possibly led the league in dropped passes. Matt Cassel’s 5.9 yards per attempt didn’t help either. All of that led to the Chiefs gaining 4.8 yards per play.

In spite of all of the statistics saying how abysmal their offense was over the course of the whole season, they did have some positives. The two most notable examples would be the emergence of Jamaal Charles and the signing of Chris Chambers midseason. The Chiefs were able to have the 11^th ranked rushing attack in the NFL even though Larry Johnson (with his 2.9 YPC) was the feature back for the first half of the season. After Chambers arrival in week 9 he amassed 608 receiving yards to lead Chiefs receivers in that category on 36 catches.

The way I see it, the Chiefs offense overcame firing their offensive coordinator right before the season, scrapping their entire playbook before the season, half a season of Larry Johnson, and a majority of the season with only one decent wide receiver (remember Chambers came in at week 9 and Bowe was suspended for 4 games late in the season) to still see offensive improvement. Without the likes of Larry Johnson and Mike Goff and with a full season from Bowe, Chambers, Charles, and Thomas Jones I think the Chiefs offense can get by. I can live with Leonard Pope as our starting tight end this season and if the Chiefs were to sign Ryan Lilja, I could live with a line of Albert, Waters, Niswanger, Lilja, and O’Callaghan.

What I can’t live with is the state of our defense. With all of the changes and all the turnover that the Chiefs offense had last year, they still improved. The defense did not. The offense now has playmakers.  The defense does not. The Chiefs offense ranked in the top half of the league in one statistical category (total rushing yards – 11^th). The only plus for the defense was the team’s +1 turnover differential.

My suggestion to fix the defensive woes, you ask? Draft defense early and often. Under no circumstances do I approve drafting another d-lineman early. It hasn’t exactly paid off for us lately and it hasn’t helped the Ram’s either. Pioli likes to build from the trenches and I agree that it is important. Right now, though, the Chiefs defense needs playmakers. It needs sex appeal. It needs people at linebacker to stuff the run and rush the passer and it absolutely, positively needs upgrades at safety. At this point, I don’t have a specific set of draft picks that I think the Chiefs must have. I would love for them to draft Eric Berry but I wouldn’t mind if they traded back for picks because they need all of the help they can get.

Whatever way the Chiefs decide to go come draft day, I won’t be satisfied if its not heavy defense. Whether we sign Ryan Lilja or not, the only two offensive players I would be OK with taking early are Golden Tate and Mike Iupati. The defense needs help in the form of playmakers and if they can’t fix the defense expect more losses like the heartbreaking one against Dallas, the aggravating one in Jacksonville, and the pathetic one against Cleveland. I don’t know about the rest of Chiefs Nation, but personally, I can’t watch another season with our sub-par performing team losing games it could have and probably should have won because the defense couldn’t make a stop. I’ve watched it all decade long and I’m sick of it.