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

The Chiefs run defense lacked fundamentals against Baltimore

It’s no easy task to stop a running attack that comes with an extremely athletic and mobile quarterback like Lamar Jackson. The Ravens have done an excellent job of scheming around his strengths to build this offense. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his mobility that really hurt the defense but more poor tackling by the defense.

The Ravens ran the ball down Kansas City’s throat and pounded the defense with extra offensive linemen and tight ends on a consistent basis imposing their will on the Chiefs defenders with blow after blow. They executed very good run blocking technique using combo blocks, playing tight hip to hip with one another and then climbing to the second level.

While the Chiefs did a good job of filling gaps to stuff the runs up the middle and usings their defensive ends and secondary players to contain the edges, it was poor tackling at the end of the day that allowed for the Ravens’ ball carriers to gain extra yards on a consistent basis. While it’s still early in the season and players are still getting back into shape in order to execute for an entire game, this was something that went on from the beginning and is unacceptable. It’s also far from what we saw the first two weeks where the Chiefs corraled the ball in attack mode.

One thing that is troubling that I’ve seen is the ability for offensive lines to take Alex Okafor out of plays with a simple block by a tight end, sometimes two. It allows for the right tackle to help elsewhere which works its way down the line and allows for teams to get extra attention on guys like Jones, Derrick Nnadi, and Clark. In a system without fast linebackers that can reach the boundary to defend against outside runs putting more pressure on the defensive ends to set the edge, it’s absolutely concerning and something to keep an eye on going forward.

Another thing that has been consistent but has been an issue in years past is Jones’ ability to handle double teams in the middle often getting pushed out of his gap instead of anchoring down allowing for a big hole in the middle and for offensive linemen to climb to the second level and get to the linebackers. Jones, more than anyone else, also looked to be the most tired player on the field in the second half. The only player that has demonstrated a consistent ability to stuff the middle of the defensive line is Nnadi.

Luckily, the Chiefs won’t face another team anytime soon with the amount of talent to run the ball effectively like the Baltimore offense. The defense as a whole has looked better than years past, which isn’t that much of a climb considering how bad it’s been, but it will have to improve going forward if we don’t want to see this kind of thing in the playoffs once again. The good news is that poor tackling can absolutely improve.