Kansas City Chiefs loss to Steelers happened in the trenches
The Chiefs had done an excellent job up until this game of being effective on offense despite a slew of injuries to their offensive line. This was the first game where those injuries finally caught up to them. The Chiefs thought that their interior line this season would be made up of Parker Ehinger, Mitch Morse, and Laurent Duvernay-Tardif. On Sunday the interior of K.C.’s line was manned by Bryan Witzmann, Zach Fulton, and Cam Erving.
More from Arrowhead Addict
- Former Chiefs cornerback in legal trouble in Las Vegas
- Chiefs Kingdom: Get ready to break contract news
- Chiefs news: Travis Kelce wants to host fan ‘chug-off’ in Germany
- Podcast: Breaking down the Chiefs biggest roster battles
- KC Chiefs send Dave Merritt to NFL coaching accelerator
While Pittsburgh definitely was able to get some pressure off the edge against the Chiefs starting tackles, it is the pressure up the middle and lack of a clean pocket to step up into that seems to give quarterback Alex Smith happy feet. We all know who Alex Smith is at this point in his career. He had been lights out prior to this game as he consistently kept his eyes up and was willing to take chances down the field. In this game you could tell the constant pressure up the middle got into Smith’s head as he panicked on more than one occasion and missed several open targets down the field. The Steelers Stephon Tuitt was particularly disruptive on Sunday.
It didn’t help that he had almost no running game to keep the defense honest. The Chiefs came into the game boasting the league’s best rushing attack as rookie Kareem Hunt had been flat out dominant through five games. While Hunt still managed to get 100 yards from scrimmage for a record sixth straight game to open the season it was mostly through the air. Hunt managed only 21 yards rushing on nine carries. The entire Chiefs team only managed 28 yards on 15 carries. Hunt didn’t suddenly stop being a great runner. The Steelers just dominated the line of scrimmage and Hunt had to break multiple tackles just to get back to the original line of scrimmage.
While not every defense will have the speed to cause that many problems at the point of attack, the Chiefs still must be better up front if they want to get their offense back on track. The lack of a running game and pressure up the middle are a recipe for “Bad Alex,” and the Chiefs need to avoid that going forward after this loss. Hopefully they can get some guys back healthy on the offensive line sooner rather than later.
Now let’s talk about the defensive front.