Kansas City Chiefs season in review 2017: Defensive line analysis
By Ellen Mathis
We’re breaking down the Kansas City Chiefs season with a positional review. Today we start our look at the defense by focusing on the line.
We’ve now made our way through the entire offense in our season-in-review looking back at the Kansas City Chiefs performance in 2017. Today we turn our attention to the defense for the first time with an analysis of what went right and wrong in the trenches.
The Expectations
Coming into 2017, there was a lot of hope that the defensive line would take a step forward. While the Chiefs lost Dontari Poe in free agency to the Atlanta Falcons, the Chiefs did add Bennie Logan to replace him along the line. Additionally, Chiefs fans were looking for rising star Chris Jones to push himself to an even better season. Rakeem Nunez-Roches was also looking like a promising talent, while Allen Bailey and Jarvis Jenkins were both great talents. If the Chiefs could put this together, the defensive line was going to contribute to a great season.
While no one thought that this defensive line would be the absolute best, the belief is that it would be a very good unit. The defensive line combined with a secondary that contained Marcus Peters and Eric Berry as well as a fully healthy Justin Houston made fans optimistic that with the offense taking a step forward, the defense would maintain a high level of play to provide support. This would lead to the Chiefs taking a step forward in 2017 as a team.
The Reality
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The reality of 2017 is that the defensive line fell far short of expectations. Chris Jones had only a few notable games where he showed flashes of the player he could become. Bennie Logan was not an upgrade to Dontari Poe. We saw the defensive line fail time and time again to provide pressure to opposing quarterbacks. Allen Bailey played fine and Jarvis Jenkins was okay. Rakeem Nunez-Roches also only showed flashes of playing well.
After the loss of Eric Berry, which exposed Daniel Sorensen, combined with the loss of Dee Ford, the lack of consistent play opposite Marcus Peters and a slowed down Derrick Johnson and Tamba Hali, the defensive line needed to be great. They needed to provide pressure consistently in order to cover the weaknesses of the secondary, and they didn’t.
They also failed to consistently stop the run. The Chiefs defense was regularly gashed for too many yards. This meant that when the Chiefs were behind, they couldn’t get off the field to let the offense have a chance. It also allowed the Titans to seal the win in the playoff loss.
The reality of the 2017 season for the defensive line was, in a word, disappointing.
Lessons Learned
If the Chiefs want the defense to move forward and really support their explosive offense, the line has to take steps forward. Jones needs to consistently play like he did in the game against the Eagles in Week 2. That game cannot be an anomaly. Jones is a unique talent, but if he wants to become a leader and really push this team to the next level, he needs to provide consistent play.
Nunez-Roches also needs to provide consistent play. Consistency is something that was lacking overall in 2017. The Chiefs also need to re-sign Bennie Logan or bring in a similar nose tackle. (Maybe the Chiefs could bring back Dontari Poe if Atlanta doesn’t offer him a deal?)
It is also clear that the Chiefs need to put some of their draft energy into the defensive line. Brett Veach has shown he has an eye for talent, so hopefully he can find a young player that can provide reinforcements along the defensive line and develop into a strong player. I think most fans would say that the draft should focus on the defense since several players are aging, and I agree.
Ultimately, the lesson learned is that consistency is a real issue for this line. If the Chiefs want to be competitive in 2018, they will need to provide consistent defensive line play that provides pressure on the opposing quarterback as well as a tough front against the run. That will help the Chiefs move forward in 2018 as the Chiefs enter what looks to be a rebuild around the new, young, and dynamic quarterback.