The Colts match up well with the Chiefs’ Achilles heel
All that said, this is a running football team. Out of 204 total offensive plays, they’ve run the ball 114 times for an average of 4.6 yards per carry. Marlon Mack, their starting running back, is one of the top-five rushers so far this season. He’ll present a similar challenge to that of Leonard Fournette and Josh Jacobs.
Through the first quarter of the season, Mack has run the ball 72 times for 338 yards and 4.7 yards per carry. He has been a little inconsistent, rushing well in some games and not in others, but the game that sticks out to me as a concern is his production against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Against a defense that is far better than the Chiefs defense, allowing only 4.2 yards per carry compared to the Chiefs allowing 5.9 yards per carry, Mack ran the ball 25 times for 174 yards and an average of seven yards per carry.
He tweaked his ankle in Sunday’s game and is questionable, but if he plays the Chiefs will need to score early and often to make the Colts offense one dimensional. If they don’t, we may see another tough game like the one we saw last Sunday against the Detroit Lions.
The Colts defense has struggled to bring pressure
A lot has been made about this Colts team. There’s obviously the fact that Andrew Luck retired, but I’m actually referring to their overall talent. The sentiment isn’t that they have stars at several positions but that that they have quality talent at nearly every position. They were considered, before Andrew Luck’s retirement, to be one of the few teams without any major holes and also one of the few who could challenge the Patriots and the Chiefs for this year’s AFC crown.
It looks like actually they do have some deficiencies, and one in particular is the pass rush. Through four games the Colts defense has only generated 9 sacks. What’s even more interesting is where those sacks are and aren’t coming from. Only one of those sacks was created by a non-defensive lineman in outside linebacker Darius Leonard.
This might not seem like a big deal, and it is still very early in the year. However, what this tells me is that so far the Colts aren’t trying to be too creative or aren’t being successful at being creative with their pass rush. Given our line has historically struggled against exotic blitzes, and given blitzes from the second and third level can be more challenging for the line to pick up in general, this might be an easier game for the offensive line to protect Mahomes. In the end, that’s all that matters.
Justin Houston’s production continues to decline
The Chiefs will get to see a familiar face on Sunday in former outside linebacker turned defensive end Justin Houston. For eight seasons Houston was one of the best defenders and all-around players on the Chiefs. He even had a stretch of time where he was one of the two or three best defenders in the entire league.
Taking a step back in time, most fans will remember Houston’s 2014 season as one of the best ever for a defender. During that season Houston broke the Chiefs all-time sack record, previously held by fan favorite Derrick Thomas, and nearly broke the NFL sack record held by Michael Strahan. It was an incredible season only marred by the fact that the Chiefs missed the playoffs for the first and only time during the Andy Reid regime.
Houston never seemed to recapture the glory of 2014. After that season he signed a very lucrative deal with the team and, believe it or not, never cracked double digits in sacks the rest of his career in Kansas City. Along with the fact that he struggled with injuries, this was likely the biggest reason the Chiefs decided to move on from him. His production the last few seasons wasn’t worth the premium expenditure.
No disrespect to Houston, but it’s beginning to look like the Chiefs made the right decision. Through four games Houston has 11 tackles, and while he does have 14 quarterback pressures he only has one tackle for loss and one sack. Those last two are the bread and butter for a defensive lineman. If you extrapolate this out for the entire year, keeping in mind Houston hasn’t completed a full 16-game schedule in four years, these numbers will all rank near the bottom of his career production.
He’s still a quality player, but he’s no longer the game wrecker that he used to be. That said, with his familiarity with both offensive tackles Mitchell Schwartz and Cameron Erving, I’d expect there to be a battle wherever he lines up. There’s also likely some extra motivation given the Chiefs let him walk.