Chiefs Coach Todd Haley Talks About Defending The Denver Broncos
The Kansas City Chiefs will look to get their season back on track this Sunday when Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos come to town. As much as the Broncos have struggled this season they have, like the Chiefs, pulled themselves back into the division race.
Kansas City got carved up a week ago by Matt Moore so they shouldn’t be taking any NFL offense lightly these days, particularly one as unpredictable as Denver’s. Chiefs coach Todd Haley told reporters today that KC’s defense always starts with a focus on stopping the run.
“Our defensive philosophy regardless of who we are playing, is we’ve got to stop the run first. If we don’t stop the run then we’ll probably have a problem against anybody we play and Denver’s no different, and they happen to be running the ball really well right now so defensively we must do a good job against the run. They’ve got a number of guys including the quarter back that run it well, and at the same time we’ve got to be able to defend that pass but that doesn’t change week in and week out.”
More after the jump.
Despite Kansas City’s focus on stopping the run and Denver’s tendency to run a lot, Haley would not tell reporters if he was planning to stack the box on Sunday. He did say, however, that it is crucial the the Chiefs’ defenders stick to their assignments.
“For us, in a two-gap defense, it’s very critical every single week, as far as everybody understanding their fit and what they have to do and everybody doing their job because if one guy gets out of sorts, then that creates a weakness,” said Haley. “When you talk about a team that is running the ball real well, that is very, very critical because again, when you’ve got a quarterback that can run, they’re gaining an offensive player essentially. So, that means our defense, we have to make sure that everybody is fitting correctly, but I wouldn’t say that it’s more important one week or another unless we were playing a team that was throwing the ball every down.”
Tim Tebow has not had a lot of success throwing the football so if the Chiefs can stop the run, their corners should be able to have pretty decent success defending the pass.
Then again, I thought the same thing last week about Matt Moore.
What do you think Addicts? Will the Broncos come out and keep trying to pound the rock or will they try to surprise the Chiefs with a pass heavy attack like the Dolphins did last week?