The Kansas City Chiefs aren’t doing much in the way of developing their pass-rushing talent given a lack of playing time recently.
After this season, the Kansas City Chiefs pass rush might look very different.
For now, Dee Ford and Justin Houston are making opposing quarterbacks feel significant pressure each week. The pass rushing duo of outside linebackers is enjoying the presence of one another as well as the interior push provided by Chris Jones and Allen Bailey. Together, the Chiefs had 42 sacks on the year, good for second overall in the NFL behind the Pittsburgh Steelers with three games to play in the regular season.
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The Chiefs had major question marks around the pass rush entering the year without a single player they could count on 100 percent. However, Dee Ford has stayed healthy and turned a corner in a contract year. Justin Houston has also performed well when healthy and the interior pass rushers have helped significantly when Houston missed four games. Both of those players staying healthy and productive have gone a long way to silencing the questions that still remain—largely about the future.
A quick note about that future: it’s completely unknown. The Chiefs have a number of directions they could choose to go this offseason, but it’s all shrouded in the same questions that plagued this offseason.
- Justin Houston remains incredibly expensive. While he single-handedly shut down Lamar Jackson at game’s end on Sunday, the reality is that it’s time for the Chiefs to at least consider a restructured deal of some kind. A semi-healthy $20 million defender who is going to be on the wrong side of 30 starting in January is a worrisome situation for any team.
- Dee Ford is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent this fall. Despite being among the NFL’s leaders in sacks, Ford has also been a slower prospect to produce overall and serious back pain is a part of his recent past. Do the Chiefs pony up a significant amount of money to the franchise tag based on contact year performance?
There is a decent possibility that one or even both players could be gone after the season is over. The reason is that the Chiefs have made heavy, heavy draft investments in the position over the last two years. At some point, the Chiefs have to let the kids play.
- Two offseasons ago, John Dorsey traded up to grab a developmental talent at pass rusher in Tanoh Kpassagnon—a prospect taken in the second round between Patrick Mahomes and Kareem Hunt. Kpassagnon was a freak of an athlete with incredible length out of Villanova who was going to need to learn a new position and adjust to NFL competition.
- In the 2018 NFL Draft, Brett Veach traded up in the second round to take Breeland Speaks as his first ever draft pick. The defensive lineman was said to be a long-term answer at outside linebacker after he learned the position, a heavy end who was going to bring a non-stop motor and strength to the edge who was expected to contribute immediately.
At this point, it’s impossible to tell what the Chiefs have in either player. Speaks has flashed potential at times, but he also plays like a man out of position—a heavier player often tasked with jobs for which he’s a bit too slow. Even then, it’s been a long time since we’ve really seen a body of work from him. On Sunday, he played in five total snaps—tied for the lowest total on the season (Week 2).
Kpassagnon didn’t play that much more, with only 8 snaps to his credit on Sunday against the Ravens. However, before that, Kpassagnon never played a single down on defense for the previous two games. He also disappeared for another two-game stretch in Weeks 6-7. His sum total of snaps on the season is a scant 115. That’s not good for a second-year, second round pick. Speaks has nearly four times that total at 441 defensive snaps. (All numbers per Pro Football Focus.)
More than anything else, this might be why the Chiefs end up franchising Dee Ford in the offseason. It would be pricey and a bit of a risk, but Ford would have to produce yet again for his big extension on the open market (or from the Chiefs) and K.C. would have another year to produce some homegrown talent on the cheap at a position where those who perform get paid handsomely.
The book is certainly not yet written on Speaks or Kpassagnon, and anyone who says otherwise is a fool. But the variables in play at this point are disconcerting and the Chiefs clearly feel that neither player is ready to really contribute down the stretch in any meaningful way—at least not when they have the current options that they do.