Why Brendan Daly could put the Kansas City Chiefs on top of the AFC

ArmchairAddict1 /

The Kansas City Chiefs have signed former New England Patriots defensive line coach Brendan Daly. Here’s why this move could put KC on top of the AFC in 2019.

On Saturday, news reports started surfacing that the Kansas City Chiefs were bringing on New England Patriots defensive line coach Brendan Daly for a position on new defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s staff. As I am writing this, the Chiefs have still not officially announced this move and, as we learned from the Matt House situation, nothing is official until the team announces the deal. However, news outlets for both teams are confirming the move.

Just on face value this is a good hire but when you look at the big picture this could be a move that helps the Chiefs leapfrog the Patriots for the top spot in the AFC next season.

More from Arrowhead Addict

First off, Brendan Daly would be a good hire for almost any team in the NFL. The Patriots are known for getting the most out of their players and designing game plans that maximize the abilities that their players have. Daly has been the Patriots defensive line coach for the past four seasons and has learned under coaching genius Bill Belichick. Most of us saw first hand how disruptive New England’s defensive line was both in the AFC Championship Game against the Chiefs and in the Super Bowl against the Los Angeles Rams.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the Super Bowl performance is that you can argue that New England had the more dominant defensive line in that game despite the Rams having all the “big name” players on their defensive line. While you can certainly make a case for some of the Patriots players being underrated, it also clearly points to good coaching and game planning when you get a dominant performance like that out of guys like Malcolm Brown and Lawrence Guy—far from household names.

One of the biggest complaints about the Chiefs defense this past season is that there seemed to be very little adjustments made both game to game and within a game. Bringing in new defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, who is known for more aggressive blitz packages, was a good start. Bringing in a defensive line coach who has experience working with arguably the best defensive mind in the NFL when it comes to game plans and adjustments (and has already worked with Spagnuolo before) should definitely help the Chiefs do a better job of keeping teams off balance.

Those reasons alone make this a great hire. However, I really think there is another reason that this hire is huge for the Chiefs. The one team in the AFC last season that beat the Chiefs twice, the team that kept them from the Super Bowl, was the New England Patriots. Taking one of their well thought of position coaches is nice, but giving the Chiefs defense a coach that knows New England inside and out is huge. Not only can Daly give Andy Reid insight into what the Patriots did to slow down Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense in the first halves of both their games last season, but perhaps even more important, he can help design defensive game plans to throw off Tom Brady.

Stay with me here. The Patriots had three games last season where their offense really struggled and only scored ten points. One was against the Pittsburgh Steelers and the other two were against two teams you might not have expected to throw off Tom Brady and the Patriots offense, the Detroit Lions and the Tennessee Titans. The common thread with both teams is that they’re coached by guys with strong ties to the New England Patriots. Lions head coach Matt Patricia was formerly New England’s defensive coordinator and Titans head coach Mike Vrabel was a long time player for the Patriots under Belichick and then coached under former Patriots defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel.

Last season against the Lions, Brady completed just 14 of 26 passes for 133 yards with one touchdown and one interception. Against the Titans, he completed 21 of 41 throws for 254 yards and no touchdowns or interceptions. These two teams coached by former Patriots held Tom Brady to a combined completion rate of only 52.2% for 193.5 yards per game and 5.8 yards per attempt.

A big part of making Brady uncomfortable is getting pressure up the middle and making him move out of the pocket. That is typically accomplished with blitzes and by getting pressure from your defensive line. The Chiefs now have a defensive line coach that should be able to help design a game plan to get that done. Needless to say, if the Chiefs could have kept Brady to anywhere near those numbers above they would have been in the Super Bowl this last season.

Now to be fair, the Lions and the Titans did have all around better defenses than Kansas City last season (as did most NFL teams) so the Chiefs certainly need to upgrade their personnel some as well, but with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback the defense doesn’t have to be elite to win a Super Bowl. They just need to be able to slow the opposing team down. It appears that the Chiefs may have landed themselves a key defensive coach that may be able to help get that done.

The Chiefs were this close to surpassing the New England Patriots as the best team in the AFC last season. The Patriots still own that title until the Chiefs can take it from them. Here’s to hoping that the addition of Brendan Daly may be one of the moves that helps that happen and get the Chiefs to their first Super Bowl in a very long time.

Home/Kansas City Chiefs News