Five bold predictions for the Kansas City Chiefs in 2019
Frank Clark will get plenty of sacks
There’s no question that arguably the best player on the Chiefs’ defense in 2019 will be Chris Jones. He had an incredible 2018 campaign after posting a personal best with 15.5 sacks. The fact that he wasn’t named to the Pro Bowl, even though he implied he didn’t care, was pretty crazy considering Pro Football Focus graded him as the number five defensive lineman in the league.
Either way, Jones had an incredible season and only appears to be getting better. Unfortunately, from a statistical standpoint, this may actually cause him to regress. Similarly to how teams focused their entire offensive scheme on stopping Aaron Donald in 2018, it’s reasonable to assume that Jones will receive the same treatment in 2019.
Consequently, Jones can expect to see even more double teams than he saw in 2018. What this does, however, is leave the door open for other players on the defensive line to have much more favorable one-on-one matchups with their opponent.
Enter Frank Clark, likely the Chiefs most notable offseason acquisition. The last three years following his rookie campaign, he has averaged double digit sacks. Specifically, in 2018 he posted a career best of 13. He’ll now be playing alongside the best defensive tackle that he has played with, which should open the door for him to potentially best that mark in 2019. While Jones had 15.5 in 2018, it might be tough to duplicate that given the circumstances.
If you still think there’s no way that Jones has less sacks than Clark, consider this. In the nine seasons that Spagnuolo has either been a defensive coordinator or a head coach, only one time was the team leader in sacks not a defensive end. This one instance was Cameron Jordan in 2012 with the Saints, who actually split time between defensive end and defensive tackle. So, you could actually argue every season that Spagnuolo has been a head coach or defensive coordinator a defensive end has led the team in sacks.
Are you still not convinced? The final reason to believe this is possible is that out of the three seasons Brendan Daly was the head defensive line coach for the New England Patriots, two of them had a defensive end for their sack leader. Based on past history, there’s an 83 percent chance that the team leader in sacks next season is a defensive end. It would be hard to believe that would be anyone other than Frank Clark.