Kansas City Chiefs fans are placing unfair expectations on young defenders

The Kansas City Chiefs have struggled tremendously on defense in 2018. Fans are placing high expectations that aren’t fair on young players to be the hero.

The Kansas City Chiefs have struggled for the past two seasons on defense. As big-name Chiefs players have surpassed their prime or gotten injured, the defense has taken a significant step backward which is causing frustration for many Chiefs fans. Most of the blame lands on defensive coordinator Bob Sutton who has earned his fair share of the struggles, but as the Chiefs continue to struggle on defense, fans are desperate to find a hero to solve the problems.

GM Brett Veach spent the entire offseason bringing in players that would help solve the issues specifically in the front seven. He signed linebacker Anthony Hitchens to a lucrative deal to be a three-down linebacker, but that hasn’t panned out as of yet. The entire 2018 NFL Draft class was for the defensive side of the ball aside from one pick.

On paper, the defense looked to be much improved before the season started with a plethora of new names. Unfortunately, Kansas City’s defense has continued to struggle despite all of the work done to it in the offseason. Part of the struggles comes from a large number of injuries that we couldn’t have seen coming.

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Safeties Eric Berry and Daniel Sorensen were supposed to be the starting duo in 2018, but both have yet to play a single snap in the Chiefs defense through eight weeks. Sorensen suffered a broken tibia during the preseason which led to him being placed on Injured Reserve. Berry has been struggling with a Haglund’s deformity, a bone spur that digs into the heel.

The Chiefs organization has been saying Berry is “literally day to day” for coming up on three months. There is nothing new to that story, and it seems that the team doesn’t even have an understanding of what to expect. Head coach Andy Reid and Veach have made it clear that they do believe he will play this season, but I will continue to stay in the “I will believe it when I see it” column and focus on life without Berry.

Even if Berry were to come back all of a sudden, he hasn’t played a single snap since Week 1 of the 2017 season. While he’s an All-Pro athlete that I have a great deal of faith in, I’m not expecting him to pick up where he left off. He won’t be the same playmaking safety that changes the entire defense beginning with his first snap. Not to mention the amount of pain that he will be playing within his heel.

Sorensen has come back from Injured Reserve and is practicing with the team. Here is another player that will likely take a few weeks to get back into game form. This situation is funny to me because I’m not that confident in Sorensen before his injury. Most of Kansas City wanted this guy off of the team this offseason, and now they are expecting him to be some kind of impact that will solve the Chiefs problems on defense?

It’s similar to the situation of when Kansas City brought back safety Ron Parker following the preseason when the Atlanta Falcons cut him. Parker was terrible last season without Eric Berry on the field and fans were excited to have him back. “He knows the defense and is an upgrade over what we have at the moment,” is typically what I was told when I argued this signing.

Parker has made a couple of splash plays like the interception in Week 1 and the interception he took to the house against the Bengals. He’s also been exactly what we saw last season which is terrible most of the time. Against the Broncos this past weekend he allowed multiple big plays for touchdowns because he blew the coverage.

Daniel Sorensen will not be a blessing coming back from an injury that solves much of anything in the Chiefs defense. Ron Parker has proven to be a disaster as he gets starting time over younger talents. I would rather watch young players with little experience blow coverages and make mistakes over him. Eric Berry might come back eventually but has let down hope for fans and will not be an immediate solution.

Which leads me to my next group of players that fans are so desperate to call the hero of the defense in some cases. When a defense is this bad, fans tend to hold on to flash plays from younger players. That new name that gives you a bit of hope. Unfortunately, I think Chiefs Kingdom is putting too high of expectations on some of these players and forgetting that given their little experience, they still make plenty of mistakes or have weaknesses of their own.

I’m all for these guys getting playing time. The first one I want to start with is safety Jordan Lucas. He was acquired following the preseason from Miami where he played primarily special teams. He’s looked like a gem in the rubble as Kansas City has gotten some flashes out of him while he fills in for injuries. I like Lucas and think that he needs to be on the field as a starter.

He reminds me a lot of rookie safety Armani Watts. I was on the train of start Watts from the beginning and let him make his rookie mistakes instead of forcing me to watch Ron Parker make the same mistakes as an experienced veteran. Watts showed some flashes in the preseason and continued some of that into the regular season. He also showed his rookie mistakes as well.

We have to remember that Lucas had yet to play any significant snaps on the defense in Miami and that Watts was a fourth-round pick this season. Are we really setting expectations of either of these two players being the hero to the defense?

Moving down to inside linebacker, Hitchens and Reggie Ragland have definitely been a problem throughout the season. I think I speak for most of the fanbase when I say that I had much higher expectations for this duo coming into the season. Ragland often flashed last season when given more playing time and the ability to attack instead of reacting. Hitchens was a similar style of player in Dallas which is why he has the nickname “Hitman”.

Some of the struggles for these two players I draw up to Bob Sutton and his scheme. I think Sutton is asking too much of both these players which is causing them to spend too much time thinking instead of attacking. Both players have shown that they can be a dominant force against the run game yet both have looked hesitant and slow. Is this due to Sutton’s scheme being soft and waiting for the play to develop instead of attacking it from the second the ball is snapped?

One thing that we knew going into the season was that neither of these players is good in coverage. Hitchens showed the ability to be acceptable in some zone concepts in Dallas, but when it came to man coverage, he wasn’t going to shine. Sutton’s solution has been to deploy Terrance Smith until he went down with an injury of his own placing him on Injured Reserve.

Chiefs fans finally got what they’ve been asking for which is rookie linebacker Dorian O’Daniel. I was one of the fans calling for O’Daniel to get playing time. It seemed all too simple. Kansas City’s defense couldn’t cover running backs coming out of the backfield in the passing game. New England stomped all over the Chiefs defense with this very concept. One of the primary reasons that you brought O’Daniel in here was for that very reason.

I get it; he’s a hybrid player that needs time to get ahold of the defense. At the same time, since Terrance Smith got hurt and O’Daniel got more playing time, we haven’t seen a running back be a weapon out of the backfield. We watched O’Daniel completely shut down Joe Mixon in the passing game on Sunday Night Football. We saw it against this past week against the Broncos when O’Daniel once again looked good in coverage.

I’m incredibly excited to see what O’Daniel specifically can do for this defense in the next half of the season. However, fans are setting the bar way too high for the rookie and seem to be blind to his weaknesses. O’Daniel struggled against the running game with Denver. The offensive linemen were able to get their hands on him and push him entirely out of the play numerous times.

There is still work to be done with O’Daniel, but I could absolutely see him being a stud for Kansas City. With his struggles against the run, we got to see the preseason darling get some snaps. Undrafted free agent linebacker Ben Niemann got some snaps against the Broncos on obvious running plays as well this past week.

What do all of these players have in common? None of these players are going to make the defense great or be the hero of the defense. You have Eric Berry who hasn’t played football in over a year coming back from a significant injury and still in significant pain. Sorensen is coming back from injury and wasn’t that good last season without Berry along with Parker who continues to look awful.

Then you have the young and inexperienced talents like Lucas, Niemann, and O’Daniel. None of these players are going to be the sole hero for the defense. I don’t see any of them being an elite talent this season either. Before you sit here and think that I’m just being negative, here is some positive. The defense is getting healthier and more experience at the right time.

We are heading into the easier half of the season starting with the Cleveland Browns this coming week. There’s no reason to rush players like Eric Berry, Daniel Sorensen, or Justin Houston back right now. We are seeing the rookie class, and other young talented prospects get playing time in the defense while the team faces some weaker opponents.

If Kansas City can develop some of these players in the defense and get some of these players back from injury, we are looking at a decent defense again. We will have some playmakers which are what Sutton’s defense relies so heavily upon, and the defense will be better not only later this season, but next season as well. These defensive snaps that rookies and first-year Chiefs players are getting is extremely valuable.

Next. Patrick Mahomes absolutely owns the Denver Broncos. dark

All I’m saying is that fans should lower some of their expectations on these players. We continue to see fans only looking at the positive plays from these young men and then throw them off of a cliff when they play poorly for a game. Let’s not set the bar so high, understand that these guys have little to no experience, and agree that the defense is getting better but not because of any one player alone.

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