The Tackling Is A Problem
This one drives me crazy. I don’t understand how you can have an entire unit of defenders who have made it to the highest level of their sport and are bad at the most fundamental part of their job, tackling. Obviously, there is more to playing defense than tackling, but it is the most basic part of the job that these men have been doing since they first started playing TACKLE football.
The Chiefs couldn’t wrap up Perine when he was running the ball. He picked up extra yards all day long. The Chiefs couldn’t tackle Ja’Marr Chase when he caught a crucial third-down pass short of the sticks and ran for the rest. The Chiefs couldn’t even tackle Joe Burrow (I’m looking at you Willie Gay). We aren’t talking about Lamar Jackson, Jalen Hurts, or Justin Fields here, it’s Joe freaking Burrow. We’ll get to the pass rush itself in a minute, but right now I’m just talking about the ability to wrap up and take someone to the ground.
The other problem with the tackling is that guys are out of position to make the tackle as well. Nick Bolton is a tackling machine when he’s headed downhill toward a ball carrier with no blockers in his way, but he got washed out of plays all day long or was too flat-footed and ended up tackling the ball carrier 5-10 yards past the line of scrimmage. Willie Gay is crazy athletic, but the Chiefs wouldn’t even keep him on the field all the time, presumedly because they don’t trust him to be assignment sound against the run. The safeties are a problem too. They get run over on one play and then are late or out of position on the next. It was especially bad on Sunday, but we’ve seen signs of this all season.
If there is good news here, it’s that these are things that could be improved, theoretically. The Chiefs can do a better job of wrapping up. Guys can do a better job of not getting washed out of plays and being in the proper position. It certainly isn’t something we can count on happening, but we’ve seen them do better than they did on Sunday. This team needs to focus and clean these things up. The rest of KC’s schedule is relatively easy, but if they just take these things for granted while facing inferior teams they could rear their ugly head again in the playoffs when the Chiefs face another great team. That just can’t happen if KC wants to be a serious Super Bowl contender.
While the tackling and reliability can be improved, let’s talk about the major problem that the Bengals exposed that may not be fixable this season because it has to do with talent.