Why the Chiefs ugly win over the Chargers was a thing of beauty

The Chiefs Have Pass Coverage Issues

Look, I don’t know how much I even need to say about this today. We’ve known (or at least strongly suspected) that the Chiefs had coverage issues since the first preseason game. Those concerns were made official on Sunday. There was no blaming it on guys that weren’t going to make the team. No blaming it on “vanilla schemes” that would be gone once the regular season rolls around. The Chiefs were flat out shredded in the secondary to the tune of 424 yards and three passing touchdowns.

The sad part is that it actually could have been much, MUCH worse. The Chargers pass catchers didn’t help Phillip Rivers at all with a ton of drops on plays that could have easily been touchdowns or at the very least field position changing big plays. The Chargers had guys open all day long. Philip Rivers completed 67% of his passes despite all the drops.

The only small excuse you can make for the numbers that the Chiefs allowed is that late in the game with a double digit lead they were leaving the underneath routes open to protect against huge chunk plays down the field. That led to some easy completions and stat padding for Rivers. However, if anyone wants to argue that the coverage looked good prior to those drives they might want to get their eyes checked.

Orlando Scandrick was especially bad as he looks poised to be just as bad as David Amerson and Phillip Gaines before him. Kendall Fuller was fine and other than one horrific lapse in coverage (which the Chargers wideout wasted with a drop) Steven Nelson was okay as well. It just appears that in a league where you have to regularly play three corners the Chiefs only have two that are worthy of seeing the field on game day.

If the Chiefs think Bashuad Breeland is healthy and can play they should pay him. If not, I would be in favor of cutting Scandrick and elevating Arrion Springs from the practice squad who was the second best corner in coverage (behind Fuller) in the preseason.

This is definitely a concern going forward.