Six Positives From The Chiefs’ Loss To The Steelers

The Kansas City Chiefs put up a heck of a fight Sunday Night against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

While the end result was yet another loss, there were some good things that happened in this game that should give Chiefs fans confidence for the rest of the season and for 2012.

I will get into more of a breakdown of the game once the Pro Football Focus grades come out but for now, here are some good things I saw in last night’s game.

-Justin Houston 

By my eye, Justin Houston is leaps and bounds better than he was early on in the season. At the beginning of the year, Houston was really struggling to set the edge and was often getting blown backwards by blockers. He was eventually yanked in favor of Andy Studebaker.

In recent weeks, however, Houston has been slowly improving. He seems to be holding the edge much better, giving his defensive mates more time to help him in run support.

Last night Houston had four tackles, one of which went for a loss and defended a pass. He also seems to be getting better in the pass rush department. I saw a few instances where he appeared to apply pressure to the QB last night.

Houston is definitely a player to keep an eye on down the stretch.

-Rodney Hudson 

Rodney Hudson made his first start in place of injured guard Ryan Lilja. Hudson seemed to hang in pretty well. The KC line gave up only one sack, thought Palko was hit five times. We’ll be able to more properly gauge Hudson’s play when the PFF grades come out but for now, it seemed like he did alright.

-Tamba Hali

Tamba was fantastic, drawing multiple holding penalties and hitting Ben Roethlisberger twice.

-Derrick Johnson

DJ continued his awesome year, once again leading the team in tackles with nine.

–Kicker Ryan Succop continued to play well after a rocky start to the season. He was three of three on his FG attempts. All his kicks were from beyond 40 yards. His long was 49.

-Jonathan Baldwin

Baldwin caught both of his targets for 26 yards.

-The Defense

The overall defensive effort was fantastic. Despite multiple turnovers, the Chiefs defense held strong and kept their team in the game. It is certainly a performance for this unit to build on.

There are no consolation prizes in the NFL, but it is good to know that not everything is going back for the Chiefs these days.

What positives did you take from the game?