The Kansas City Chiefs defense is playing much better than you think

Spagnuolo is big on rotation and changing personnel packages

If there is one thing that most remember about the Philadelphia Eagles defeating the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl a couple of years back, it’s the amount of talent the Eagles were able to deploy in their defensive line rotation without missing a beat. Spagnuolo has done the same in Kansas City these first few weeks. We have seen some impressive performances from not only the starters but even the rotational players as well.

Emmanuel Ogbah, Tanoh Kpassagnon, and Xavier Williams all got more than 40% of the defensive snap reps against Baltimore on Sunday. Kpassagnon has finally earned playing time after riding the bench as a healthy scratch under Bob Sutton the previous two seasons and has actually looked good showing signs of development. While the former second-round pick hasn’t been this unstoppable force that looks to be an elite edge, he has displayed some good qualities under Spagnuolo and acquired 4 hurries and a sack through the first three games.

Ogbah, on the other hand, looked like an untamable beast against Baltimore coming up with 9 pressures including two sacks and two hits on Lamar Jackson. Prior to Week 3, Jackson had been sacked a total of three times in his first two games and was sacked again three times against Kansas City. While the defensive line was not flashy very often, playing contain along with good coverage made Jackson extremely uncomfortable when his first couple of reads were covered. This led to him panicking and dropping his eyes expecting to get hit when he had a clean pocket.

Keeping the defensive line rotating helped as the Ravens were looking to wear down the Chiefs defense with extra personnel blocking and running the ball 32 times. By near the end of the third quarter, it was clear that players on the Chiefs defense were exhausted. Defensive tackle Chris Jones really struggled throughout that final quarter with his hands on his hips after every play.

Spagnuolo also deployed some interesting personnel packages to throw Jackson off including a play on 3rd and 5 where he had Jones and Clark as the edge rushers with Alex Okafor lined up over the center. The lone linebacker on the field was Ben Niemann for dime packages along with four safeties including Tyrann Mathieu and Daniel Sorensen lined up on the LOS between the tackles showing blitz with Juan Thornhill and Jordan Lucas playing the deeper areas.

Niemann, Mathieu, and Sorensen all backed off following the snap, dropping into the shallow zones, but it was enough to throw off left tackle Ronnie Stanley. He went to take Mathieu, who was responsible for getting the outside in case Jackson took the ball wide, which left Jones unblocked. That left the pulling TE confused as he avoids Jones to lead through the hole for the running back, and it’s an easy stop shy of the first down marker.

Sorensen ended up playing 21 snaps (15%) of the defensive snaps which gives you an indication of how often Spagnuolo elected to go with three safety sets while Niemann came in for dime situations playing 15 snaps.