Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Derrick Nnadi spoke to Mitch Holthus about how the team was so successful in slowing Dalvin Cook.
Derrick Nnadi knew a thing or two about Minnesota Vikings running back Dalvin Cook. As his former teammate at Florida State University, he primarily knew just how dynamic of a weapon he can be.
After a rookie season largely lost to injury, Cook is just now, in his third NFL season, turning into the sort of elite offensive player envisioned by the Vikings when they selected him in the second round of the 2017 NFL Draft.
Through 9 games so far this season, Cook has 5 games with 100 rushing yards or more (and another with 98). He currently leads all running backs with 177 carries and 894 rushing yards—an incredible 5.1 yards/carry average despite such a heavy workload. Cook has also already caught 33 passes for 338 yards through the air, giving him an incredible total of 1,232 yards with 7 games to play.
Fortunately for the Kansas City Chiefs, having a defensive tackle like Nnadi allowed the team to have a bit of insight into what Cook can do and how to handle him. From there, the defensive line did their job and held Cook to a much more manageable 3.4 yards/carry average.
“I knew what he would bring to the table, being his former teammate,” said Nnadi after Sunday’s win over the Vikings. “I was like, ‘This guy’s going to be a problem so we really gotta tune in.’ Everybody knew what type of attributes he brings to the table, so I didn’t have to say much. Still, he’s an athlete running back, an elite player. We had to bring all we had to the table and I felt like we did that today.”
As he spoke with Chiefs announcer Mitch Holthus, Nnadi said it was really simple in terms of the goal to beat back the offensive line. As long as every man does his assigned job and closes the gaps in front of him, Cook simply had nowhere to run.
“It really just goes down to it: if you beat the offensive line, you can get the running back,” said Nnadi. “He can’t run anywhere. I felt like that’s what we really did. We were relentless to the ball, all of us, we did a phenomenal job today. And we gotta keep improving from this. We’ll get better and better and that will make us an elite defense.”
Nnadi himself has been a beast in the middle for the Chiefs as a second-year run stopper who has showed more and more of an ability to be disruptive even on passing downs. Nnadi’s goal is to get better with each game, yet he wasn’t thrilled with his performance in the loss to the Green Bay Packers. Thus he took it personally to turn things around against the Vikings.
“I came in this week with a big chip on my shoulder saying I felt like I did below average last week, so I had a chip on my shoulder to really improve,” he said. “With the offensive line we played this week, I felt like we could really get the upper hand.
“So as an interior lineman also, we could really make a difference in this game. With Chris back, he said the same thing, that we could really change the culture of this game and make things a lot different. That’s what we pretty much did today.”
The Chiefs defense continues to look like a much-improved unit in 2019 and Nnadi is a big part of it. He’s setting an example for passion, work ethic, and execution and it’s paying dividends for the entire team.