Kansas City Chiefs: Five steps to a Super Bowl

The Chiefs need to be more aggressive on defense.

The Kansas City Chiefs had been making defensive progress heading into the Rams game. Early in the season, they were statistically one of the worst defenses in the NFL but after some recent success, they began to make their way to the middle of the pack. With an elite offense, an average defense would be good enough. Unfortunately, the Rams exposed the Chiefs just like some of their early-season opponents did.

When facing lesser quarterbacks in recent weeks the Kansas City secondary began to look much more capable but against the Rams high powered passing attack their coverage was exposed once again. It is becoming more and more clear that the Chiefs defensive success is directly tied to their pass rush which is the one area of their defense where they excel. Both Dee Ford and Chris Jones are amongst the best at their positions at getting after the quarterback and with Justin Houston returning to form it gives them as good of trio of pass rushers as you’ll find in the NFL.

Despite that fact, or perhaps because of it, the Chiefs are one of the most conservative teams in the NFL when it comes to blitzing. I couldn’t find up to date numbers but on November 13th ESPN’s NFL Matchup account tweeted out the following.

So after their first ten games, the Chiefs had the second lowest percentage of blitzes in all the NFL. They are relying on the individual pass rush skills of guys like Dee Ford, Chris Jones, and Justin Houston to apply pressure. Now, based on the number of pressures and sacks that they have you could argue that it’s working. If you can get pressure with a four-man rush then it seems logical that you might as well drop as many guys as possible to try and help the coverage and prevent big plays.

The thing is, it’s not working.

Check out this second tweet from NFL Matchup:

Despite the Chiefs plan to get pressure with their front four and drop the other seven guys into coverage the Chiefs had given up more explosive plays than any other team through 11 weeks of the season. What the good offenses have done to the Chiefs is pick on their secondary any time the front four doesn’t get pressure on them. Yes, Dee Ford and Chris Jones have put up impressive sack numbers. Yes, the Chiefs are one of the league leaders in sacks with 36.

The problem is that opposing teams have attempted 468 pass attempts against the Chiefs. So the Chiefs have sacked the quarterback on roughly 7% of their opponents’ dropbacks. Yes, they’ve applied pressure on several more but you get the idea that the majority of the snaps the opposing quarterback is able to get the ball away.

Again, I’m not saying that the Chiefs should start blitzing on every passing down for the rest of the season. In fact, if they can beat the teams left on their schedule without much blitzing that may be all the better come playoff time. But in those big games against the elite passing attacks I 100% believe that Bob Sutton needs to get more aggressive and blitz more often. The evidence at this point is clear. A good quarterback can pick apart our secondary. Period. Philip Rivers did. Ben Roethlisberger did. Tom Brady did. Jared Goff did.

The Chiefs are giving up the biggest plays in the NFL despite playing it safe in that they blitz less than almost any other NFL team. So what is there to lose? If blitzing more leads to a few more sacks or a few more forced turnovers that could be the difference in winning a game like those against the Patriots or the Rams. Teams are already gashing the Chiefs with more explosive plays than any other team so let’s turn the pressure up and try to get a few more big plays on the defensive end.

Have corners like Steven Nelson, Kendall Fuller, and Orlando Scandrick been solid overall this season? Sure, but guys like Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Jared Goff, and Drew Brees that K.C. could face on their way to trying to win a Super Bowl are going to be able to expose them. I don’t see how anyone can argue otherwise. So KC needs to be proactive in trying to throw those quarterbacks out of rhythm and hope they don’t have time to find the weak link in KC’s secondary. If they give up a few big plays in the process, that’s fine. They were doing that already when they weren’t blitzing.

Step four isn’t actually something they need to change, but it is vitally important.