Brett Veach’s focus for Chiefs defense is to “affect the quarterback”
By Matt Conner
Breeland Speaks and the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs acquisitions this offseason should help them disrupt opposing offenses.
Let this sink in: the Kansas City Chiefs allowed more first downs than any other team in football last year. Three hundred and fifty two of them to be exact.
This is disturbing on a number of levels, but the eye test should have told you this already. The pent-up frustration with the supposed bend-but-don’t-break defense had much of Chiefs Kingdom calling for Bob Sutton to be fired for this reason: because it felt like every time you watched the Chiefs, the opposing offense could seemingly march at will down the field. And they did, to the tune of 352 first downs.
It hasn’t always been this way for the Chiefs, even under Sutton. The first three years under Sutton’s leadership, the Chiefs were never atop the rankings but they were always hovering around No. 10, among the better NFL teams in stopping their opponents from moving the chains. The last two years, however, the Chiefs have been bad and then atrocious, ranking No. 8 in 2016 and No. 1 this year in first downs allowed.
Now that is just one metric on defense and the Chiefs fared better in other categories, so we’re not attempting to paint the team with the worst defense in 2017. It also hurt that Eric Berry was lost for the year, Dee Ford for much of the year, Tamba Hali never came back and Derrick Johnson didn’t look the same. Reggie Ragland was acclimating, Steven Nelson was out for one half and needed the second half to return to form. A lot that could have gone wrong went wrong. Such is life in the NFL, though.
Brett Veach made it clear this offseason that he was disgusted by the last two years. Check out this quote from immediately after the draft explaining the team’s approach and the move to get Breeland Speaks.
"You have to affect the quarterback. You can’t go out there and play 7‐on‐7 and we looked at it as the last opportunity to get a guy that can affect the quarterback. That’s why we did what we did and went up and got him."
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The phrase “play 7-on-7” describes perfectly the kind of football we watched last year, and unfortunately for the Chiefs, we kept seeing the opposition create mismatches or simply get the best of Chiefs players. Opposing quarterbacks had way too much time. Even games in which the Chiefs were favored by a country mile turned into losses—horrible, embarrassing losses that included three straight defeats to some of the worst teams in the league, namely the New York Jets, New York Giants and Buffalo Bills.
Essentially, opposing teams were allowed to execute their game plans without much in the way of interference from the team’s defense. The Chiefs always felt like they were back on their heels, waiting to see what plan would unfold before them, versus forcing the offense to adjust or abandon that plan entirely.
“You have to affect the quarterback.” It all starts there. If the plan never has to change, then even average quarterbacks can look great in the NFL. Josh McCown and the Jets put up a season-high 38 points against the Chiefs. Tyrod Taylor had a 94.5 passer rating in Buffalo’s win over the Chiefs. Deshaun Watson had 5 touchdown passes in one game and Derek Carr had 417 yards in another. Yards, yards, yards given up, time and again, and we’re not even discussing the team’s horrible run defense (as in league-worst).
Even the run defense begins with the quarterback, however, because it’s all a set-up, accoutrements if you will, to what the quarterback wants to do with the ball. That’s why Veach has radically changed the look of this defense because something had to change and it begins with getting after the passer. It’s why you trade up for Breeland Speaks when you know pass rushers won’t be there if you sit and wait. It’s why you get super-athletic in the middle by paying Anthony Hitchens. It’s grabbing hybrid players and specialists like Dorian O’Daniel and Derrick Nnadi and Xavier Williams who can enter in key situations to stop an offense from moving the chains. (Gasp!)
For the first time in a couple years, the Chiefs look ready to once again get after the passer, to disrupt the offense and to force them to Plan B or even worse. It had to be done.