Seven Reasons To Believe In The Kansas City Chiefs
Nov 9, 2014; Orchard Park, NY, USA; Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid yells to a player during the second half against the Buffalo Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium. Chiefs beat the Bills 17-13. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports
Reason 6: The Chiefs Have A Great Coaching Staff
While fans will always find individual plays of decisions to take issue with, the overall job the KC coaching staff has done this season is top-notch. While there are quality coaches up and down this staff, the bulk of the credit for the Chiefs success this season goes to head coach Andy Reid and defensive coordinator Bob Sutton.
On offense, Reid has done a great job of using the weapons he has and designing a game plan that fits his players. As was already discussed, Alex Smith possesses a particular skill set for completing shorter passes, and Reid has designed his offense to put Smith in a position to do just that. The Chiefs don’t run many routes designed to stretch the field vertically. Instead, the Chiefs rely on their running game to make third downs short and manageable, then they use multiple targets to stretch the field from sideline to sideline and trust Smith to find a target in one of the holes or seams in the defense. Reid has mixed in enough different looks and play calls to keep defenses guessing, even though everyone basically knows what KC is trying to do. Another sign of Reid’s successful play-calling is how efficient KC has been in the red zone where their TD percentage is also one of the NFL’s best.
On defense, Bob Sutton has done as good of job as Reid, if not even better. I will admit that I had serious questions about Sutton coming off of KC’s late season drop-off on defense last year. However, the job Sutton has done with a defense that has been hampered by numerous injuries — including the loss of arguably KC’s most important defender, Derrick Johnson — has been nothing short of spectacular. As has been discussed, Sutton has implemented a bend-but-don’t-break defense this season where KC has allowed teams to get short runs and passes on first and second down but doesn’t allow the deep pass and does a good job of getting stops on third down. This would be impressive enough if he had all his best players healthy, but when you look and see that KC’s three top tacklers are Josh Muaga, Ron Parker and Hussain Abdullah, it’s simply amazing. Bob Sutton deserves major kudos and the job this entire coaching staff has done is definitely a major reason to believe in KC going forward.
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