Can This Chiefs Defense Be A Championship Defense in Time?

Can This Chiefs Defense Be A Championship Defense in Time? – With the playoffs only 5½ weeks away, the Kansas City Chiefs Defense is trending in the wrong direction. This defense has given up 31, 31, and then 24 points in their last three games.

ToP  Opponent  Allowed Pts.

38:01   Panthers  31 Points

27:55  Raiders  31 Points

23:13  Tampa  24 Points

_______________________________________________

88:16  Totals  86 Points

While Chiefs opponents almost averaged one point per minute in the last three games, it’s the dependence upon the Chiefs offense that has turned these three game into victories. Plus (or is that, Minus), in the past two games the defense has allowed in excess of 1 point per minute.

In the Chiefs last 6 games of 2019, they allowed an average of 11.5 points per game. It’s well known that after the Chiefs lost in Nashville to the Titans last year in week 10, then the Chiefs went on a 9 game winning streak including the playoffs and Super Bowl. However, there was a marked difference in the way the defense played in those nine games. The question is: can this years unit make the same adjustments in time for the playoffs, whether the Chiefs have to play the AFC Championship game in Pittsburgh or in Arrowhead?

From a piece by  Charles Goldman for ChiefsWire USAToday called “5 Takeaways Kansas City Chiefs – Tampa Bay Buccaneers Week 12”

“They allowed some big plays in the air. Brady was able to throw for 345 yards and three touchdowns. Roughing the passer penalties on Frank Clark let the Buccaneers have a fresh set of downs and score to narrow the lead to just three points.”

Goldman also said,

“It was a definite improvement from the last two games…. Yet this was still viewed as an improvement because Clark was getting pressure.”

Yikes. Does anyone REALLY think this game was an improvement over the last two games? Those plays Goldman is referring to where Frank Clark gets pressure are also the same plays he was called for Roughing the Passer Penalties which helped sustain a drive that ultimately put the Bucs in position to be only 3 points behind. Calling that game an improvement seems a bit cray cray.

Goldman goes on to point out that the Chiefs defense will, “… get a struggling Broncos team” in their next game. However, remember that the 2019 Chiefs held the 2019 Broncos to just 3 points in week 15.

Now, is there anyone who thinks this defense has that kind of performance in them, this coming weekend? I have serious doubts, even though the Broncos are a shell of a team right now. Why? The optics have been really bad. IOW, what you see is what you get and over the past three weeks the defense ranks 27th in points allowed.

In the 6 games following week 10 of 2019, when the Chiefs lost to the Titans, they allowed just 69 points in those games. So, far, since week 10 in 2020, which means only two games, the Chiefs defense has already allowed 55 points. Unless DC Steve Spagnuolo or Brendan Daly have some unused tricks up their collective sleeves, it’s hard to see where the magic will be coming from.

Last week, here at ArrowheadOne, Alan Haupt wrote a great pice called, “Chiefs Defense is Better Than Advertised” and in the process of reading and editing it, he actually changed my (negative) point of view about the defense. So, why have I done a 180 again? Probably. Why? It’s patterns. You may recall that last year in the payoffs, the Chiefs Defense was at least partially responsible for the 24-to-0 lead the Texans created in a first round game at Arrowhead. Why mention that game? Because it was also the Chiefs Defense that allowed only 7 more points on the Chiefs way to a 51-to-31 victory. If you have forgotten, that happened a lot last year: the defense stepped up so that the offense could do their thing to secure a win. So, let consider this season’s defensive patterns:

• Game One: the D allowed 13 4th quarter points to the Texans to make the game closer than it needed to be: a 34-20 win.
• Game Two: the D allowed 479 total yards and a ToP domination, 39:27 to 28:38. A 23-20 OT win in L.A..
• Game Three: the D did well, limiting the Ravens to 10 second half points while the Offense was scoring 7. Still, a 34-20 win.
• Game Four: a 26-10 win over the Pats, but the D allowed 357 totals yards, more than K.C..
• Game Five: the Raiders won 40-to-34 largely because the defense couldn’t stop them, including 490 total yards, yes, more than K.C..
• Game Six: the D did a good job against the Bills including 5 drives of 4 plays or fewer.
• Game Seven: a good game against the hapless 4-7 Broncos.
• Game Eight: a good 35-to-9 win over the Jets, but they are arguably the worst team in the NFL at 0-11.
• Game Nine: a D that allowed 435 total yards to the 3-8 Panthers. a 33-31 win.
• Game Ten: a 35-31 win over the Raiders but only on hit on Derek Carr and zero sacks.
• Game Eleven: 2 late roughing the passer penalties were bad. The Offense produced 543 total yards and they needed all of that to maintain a win because the D allowed 417 total yards.

The point is, there are decidedly too many games in which the offense has carried this team to victory. While I appreciate Alan’s point that this league is now based upon high powered offenses, unless the defense can at least create a stop here and there, the offense can’t be expected to ALWAYS win the day. If a loss can happen against the Raiders… it can happen again, against a more formidable foe, which is what they’ll be facing in the playoffs.

Is anyone else as concerned about the Chiefs defense as I am? Let me know.

Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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