David Bell Kansas City Chiefs

Chiefs Recent Afflictions: Their Negative Affect

David Bell December 19, 2018 No Comments

 

 

 

 

Chiefs Recent Afflictions:

Their Negative Affect

 

by David Bell | December 19, 2018

 

 

First? Defense

Recent focus on defense has been a thrust that I thoroughly believe is the reason for difficulty with playing other teams and winning. Those teams have had good defenses or at least a defense that can affect how well the Patrick Mahomes Show is “aired”.

 

In the Ravens game, which the Chiefs pulled out a miracle OT comeback finale, the Chiefs failed to score 30 points. The next week the Chiefs again failed to score 30 and lost the game to the cocky Philip Rivers of the San Diego bunch now playing at LA. What made this loss even worse was it took place on the Chief’s home turn in front of the Chief’s fans. This loss was as big disappointment as I feared would happen. A win would have secured things, depending on outcome of other games, the AFC top cede.  It would have ensured that KC won the west but they didn’t win. It might have solved the whole AFC picture altogether. But they didn’t win.

 

Even before this anyone who follows Stats, numbers and ratings and has any sort of knowledge of football and how well a component of a team performs would say, has said and will say the Chief’s Defense is Poor. This is true. Here is a tweet by Seth Keysor about the Chiefs defense and glaring errors (3 examples in this video): See it here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s true the defense is poor. But there is a “But” and it is…

 

…The Berry Effect

I have written about it and the importance of Eric Berry on the field of play. The improvement of the defense in the 1st half of the Chargers game, it was apparent that Berry’s return had an effect that was very strong and positive. The second half though, was an entirely different defense — lacking direction, confused at times an inept to boot. I am not going to cover defense here but I believe in the efficacy of Berry’s return and you know how I feel about what Bob Sutton is doing as defensive coordinator.

 

Let’s leave off the defense though and cover two more facets of the game that are negatively affecting the Chiefs — this time on the offensive side of the ball.

 

Struggles of the Offensive Line

Part of the problem though, can be attributed to an offense that has suddenly struggled to come near their early PPG average. I sat and wondered at this and of course have witnessed the problems of the offensive line — against teams with very good pass rush players. Seth Keyser of the Athletic wrote an article about the newcomer who suddenly was struggling, namely Andrew Wylie, who is standing in for LDT. At the same time, the other guard was knocked out of play and this meant that Jeff Allen took over his position while for 4 weeks the Chiefs were using a substitute center as Mitch Morse went through a lengthy concussion protocol. That’s 3 starters out over a 7 week period of time and the fact is that 2 of those players are still out: Cam Erving and LDT. Mitch Morse returned, which helps but Wylie is a second-year-rookie who was un-drafted and Jeff Allen is a new returnee to the Kingdom.

 

When your QB is hurried, hit or sacked it means the offense suddenly is not able to perform — at least as well as it had been when facing teams with lesser talent on defense.

 

Here is a tweet about Defensive Coordinator Bob Sutton:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can find Keyser’s work at the Athletic this week and he has had  tweets that demonstrate the problems faced by Patrick Mahomes due to the offensive line.  Since Keyser and other’s have covered the struggle of the offensive line, I am going to turn the page and address a different struggle.

 

Other Struggles – the Total Threat

of Kareem Hunt is Gone

Since his focus was the offensive line, I am going to focus instead on another loss of a starter and the affect this has had on the offense production, the ability to counter aerial plays with the ground game, or having a Running back who is a threat to score on the ground and in the air at any time he has his hands on the ball. That lost player is Kareem Hunt.

 

Hunt by the Numbers

In this season Hunt had 824 total yards, 7 TDs and 181 rushing yards. As you can see by the numbers, his import to the KC attack is 600 yards as a receiver. He was released after the a physical Denver game. His import as a runner was less influential than 2017 but this year, is a full year of Mahomes and an aerial attack that jogged back to the run game and Hunt showed that he could leap tough players in a single bound.

The loss of Hunt is not just numbers. It’s emotional and inspirational contribution that his play brought to the table.

On the other hand, it appears that knowledge of Hunt’s actions was the elephant in the room and he was released.

 

 

 

 

 

No matter what you think of Hunt now, his contribution to the Chiefs attack was huge. That’s now a big missing link.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bottom line with Hunt in 2018? He was a significant threat receiving the ball and appeared heading for a 1,000 yard receiving game in his own right. That is sorely missed.

 

Compound the loss of Hunt to the injury of Watkins and that is a dualistic problem. Add to it increased focus on defense — the lack of it on KC’s part and the strengthening of the import of defense after the Thanksgiving Day games that always seems to occur and those do occur the rest of the way. This is back to the “old NFL” now, where teams with good defense rise. We can see McVay and the Rams having a similar problem the last 3 weeks and they have added 2 losses. KC lost Hunt. Gurley was injured for LA. KC has remedies even with Ware injured in the Damien Williams/Darrell Williams Combo. McVay hired CJ Anderson to bolster their run game.

 

We’ll see how it plays out but for KC, Berry on the field will mean a lot. Having the Williams Combo may not make up for Hunt but I liked what I saw with their contribution in KC’s loss to the Chargers.

 

I predict both teams rebound against their foes this week. KC Beats the Seahawks on the road in a tough contest. Chiefs 31, Seahawks 27.

 

David Bell – ArrowheadOne

 

 

 

 

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