Kansas City Chiefs season-in-review 2017: A look at the safety position
By Kody Latham
The Chiefs felt like they had a very solid safety group with Eric Berry leading them coming into the season. Let’s see how they performed this season.
Looking back at 2017, it was a year that really showed what areas the Chiefs were strong and which ones were not. Most fans would have looked at this defense and thought there was a good chance to at least be average. This was a reasonable expectation since the Chiefs had finished fifth, second, third, and seventh in points allowed per game coming into the year. A big thing that hamstrung the Chiefs this year was injuries to players like Eric Berry and lack of execution at the safety position.
The Expectations
Coming into the year, the Chiefs had just paid Eric Berry a huge six-year contract worth a total of $78 million with $40 million guaranteed and a $20 million dollar signing bonus. Regardless of how fans felt paying a safety that much money, Eric Berry had played out of his mind on the franchise tag in 2016. Berry’s running mate Ron Parker had also played well in 2016, helping to form one of the better safety duos in 2016. Add in Daniel Sorensen, who had made a big impression on fans when he rotated in, and it seemed like the Chiefs maybe had one of the best all-around safety groups in the NFL.
The Reality
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Eric Berry is important, and he may be the most important player on the defense. Berry tore his Achilles in the first game of the year and the whole defense fell apart. Sorensen was exposed as nothing more than a third safety that can play well in a limited role. If you expand his responsibilities though, like they did by having him fill in Eric Berry’s spot, he is just not up to the task. Ron Parker as well had a bad year, as his tackling was some of the worst we have seen from him since he came to Kansas City.
Along with his bad tackling, Parker’s overall coverage was bad, now whether that was because he was trying to cover up other issues on the defense no one knows. Ron Parker earned a 40.1 overall grade from Pro Football Focus this season, while Daniel Sorenson earned a 40.7 overall. Our best safety this season surprisingly was Eric Murray who graded out as a 44.4, but he played less snaps overall which may have helped this grade.
Lessons Learned
Eric Berry is the linchpin to this secondary. It would be hard to dispute otherwise at this point after seeing what happened this season. Hopefully when Berry returns we will see a return to form for this group, but there is no excuse for this position to fall apart the way it did. I would expect Brett Veach to attack this problem like he did with the inside linebacker position when he was first appointed general manager and add more talent to the position in either free agency or the draft this off season if not both.