Chiefs at Dolphins, Game Preview: OPEN THREAD

Chiefs at Dolphins, Game Preview: OPEN THREAD – Price Carter – Are the Chiefs better than their last trip to Miami? 315 Days ago the Kansas City Chiefs played a game at Hardrock Stadium in Miami. They walked off the field as World Champions, today when they step back on that field their title defense will continue. A lot has changed since then. There’s a pandemic dominating our lives now, we’ve changed how we work, socialize and even do holidays. While it seems change is the only constant in our lives now this isn’t the case for the Chiefs. With the addition of Stefen Wisniewski the Chiefs now have 19/22 starters that took the field in February. While not much has changed, another question could be asked as well: What’s gotten better? 

Are the Chiefs a better team since they walked off as World Champions? I’m inclined to say yes. While the regular season record doesn’t mean everything, really, we can look at their 11-1 record and say they are in a much better place than the team that was 6-4 after falling in Nashville in 2019. The most obvious place the Chiefs have improved is Quarterback: Mahomes is having the best season of his career. He continues to be an elite playmaker at the position while also being better than any other QB at not generating turnovers. Likewise, the running back room has improved this season: CEH, Le’Veon Bell, Darrel Williams and Darwin Thompson, provide more upside than Damien Williams, with LeSean McCoy and Darwin Thompson coming off the bench. 

Travis Kelce is having the best season of his career and Nick Keizer — this year — and Blake Bell — from last year — are the equal to one another. The receiving core returned all of it’s personnel and the production for this group has been very lopsided this season. Tyreek Hill is also having a career year, but the rest of the group has been fairly quiet. We’ve yet to see a big game for Sammy Watkins or Mecole Hardman. The one spot where the offense has definitively regressed is along the offensive line. No doubt losing 3 starters for the majority of the season can have that sort of impact. With the recent addition of Wisniewski and the hopeful healing of All-Pro Mitchell Schwartz, there is hope on the horizon for the line. Overall, the Chiefs offense is better. 

The most recent whipping boy of Chiefs fans has been the pass rush and rightfully so. This is a clear place where the roster has regressed. The loss of Emmanuel Ogbah and his replacement, Taco Charlton, have definitely impacted this season. The highlight has been the development of Tershawn Wharton as an undrafted rookie who continues to play strong against the run. The stalled, or lack of development from Mike Danna and Tanoh Kpassagnon, have also impacted the pass rush. More than anything, the Chiefs need Frank Clark to pretend it’s January already. The change in his play has been well documented. 

The linebacking core is more or less a push. Reggie Ragland did give the linebacking core a different element than it has now, but Anthony Hitchens is having his best season as a Chief and the upside of Willie Gay still gives the group room to grow. The secondary has been the biggest surprise, a group once thought to be the weakness on the roster might actually be a strength. Bashaud Breeland continues to back up his play from last season. Ward has increasingly improved with the healing of his hand, Rashad Fenton and L’Jarius Sneed continue to grow into true diamonds in the rough. The safety play may have regressed slightly due to the questions about Juan Thornhill’s injury, but Mathieu and Sorenson continue to provide much of what they did in 2019. The defense might be a push though, if the pass rush continues to be missing there could be a regression here. 

Special teams have taken a step back in the return game mainly. Besides the big return from Byron Pringle in Denver, the team has not poised a big threat in this element of the game. There have also been some questions about who is returning punts and kicks. We’ve seen Mecole Hardman be more and more limited in this role lately including Fenton returning kicks. Harrison Butker certainly had his woes in the middle of the season but has seemed to have corrected some of his issues since the Bye Week. The change at Punter has not made a dramatic impact on the roster simply because the Chiefs don’t punt much. Special teams have regressed some, overall.

While there is some definite regression as whole, the roster seems to have a frequent theme: High ceiling if achieved. The Chiefs are the type of team that I’m not sure we’ve ever seen their best game for four quarters. We’ve seen it in spurts:

• The 2nd quarter in the divisional round against the Texans…
• The 4th Quarter against the 49’ers…
• 1st quarter against the Bucs…

However, have we ever seen the Chiefs truly best game? This idea can be frustrating for fans and terrifying for the rest of the league.

Game Breakdown: Chiefs at Dolphins

1st down-Share the load

This year more than any other of the Mahomes era, has been dominated by Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce. They are insane this season. Which has propelled the Chiefs offense to being the best in football, once again, and has Patrick Mahomes in the MVP conversation yet… again. However, this season just seems dependent on them. Last year we saw Watkins, Hardman, Robinson and Damien Williams all have games that they had a huge impact on. Besides the Texans and Bills, games Clyde Edwards-Helaire hasn’t had a huge game. There will be defenses in the playoffs that can take away Hill and Kelce, and the 2018 AFC Championship game is a prime example of this. Of course, the defensive coordinator for the Patriots defense was Brian Flores… who is now the head coach of the Dolphins Flores who will have another crack at the Chiefs dynamic duo today.

This feels like a game where the Chiefs offense could get challenged by one of the best cornerback combos in the league: Byron Jones and PFF’s top rated corner Xavien Howard. K.C. needs some of their other role players to step up and be the difference in this game. Much like the playoff run Sammy Watkins was the difference is several games hopefully he can continue to pick up the workload as the team gets closer to January. Another focus would be targeting the running backs as pass catchers which feels like something we haven’t seen much this season. Look for Clyde and Le’Veon to get mixed into the passing game as well.

2nd Down- Control the Turnovers

The Chiefs have already been one of the best teams in the NFL here… ranking dead last in the NFL with 8 turnovers lost. The Dolphins are one of the best teams in the NFL at creating turnovers and scoring off of them. The Dolphins are 2nd in the League in scoring defense which is even more important for a team that struggles to score. The Dolphins have not played a single game this season without a turnover gained by their defense. This has been crucial to their success as a team. The Defense thrives off this because they are fairly average against the pass (14th) and the rush (20th). If the Chiefs can hold onto the ball they should be able to take advantage of a young defense.

3rd Down – Score 31 points

Whenever I think about if a team can beat the Chiefs the first question I always ask is “can they score 31 points?” Without a defensive score this seems out of reach for the Miami offense. While the offense isn’t incompetent, they are limited and tend to take long methodical drives to score. They are not a big play offense especially with Tua at the helm. He is averaging 6.6 yards per attempt and less than 180 yards passing a game. He also is not a threat to run with the ball with only 37 rushing yards on the year (in 5 games). 

The Dolphins offense does have some weapons that can pose a threat to the Chiefs defense. Myles Gaskin is a good young back who has taken over the RB job for Miami, DeVante Parker is an elite receiver, and Mike Gesicki is becoming one of the better pass catching tight ends in the league. The Dolphins also have their own version of a Tyreek Hill style player in Jakeem Grant whose 4.38 speed pops off in any play he is a part of. While all of these are solid pieces, it’s hard to see them scoring 31 points on the Chiefs defense and it’s also hard to see the Dolphins defense holding the Chiefs to 31.

4th Down- Win in the Trenches

The Chiefs really need to sack the quarterback (copy and pasted from last 4 articles). Seriously, this would be a great time to get Frank Clark and Chris Jones going against an offensive line that doesn’t have a single guard or tackle ranked above 40th in the league and will be without a starter in Ereck Flowers. Likewise, Tua, as a young quarterback is likely to struggle against the blitz and with puss rush in his face, especially from Chris Jones.

The defensive line of the Dolphins is not doubt one of their greatest strengths they have several role players who are versatile and can stunt and blitz. Remember back to the 2018 AFC Championship Game (I’m sorry to bring that up) the Patriots had virtually no big time pass rusher and yet they fooled the Chiefs offensive line almost the whole game using the “amoeba defense.” The amoeba concept consists of having rushers standing and moving at the line of scrimmage not showing who is going to rush and who is going to drop back into coverage. This is especially confusing for the offensive line when the defense has players who can cover, engage at the point of attack, and rush the passer. This is another game the Chiefs interior offensive line needs to step up and keep Mahomes clean in the pocket and communicate effectively.

Prediction- Chiefs 31, Dolphins 20

This feels like the type of game that the Chiefs come out and use their “A” stuff on offense and jump out to a substantial lead. Then the Dolphins will slowly start to creep back into the game as the offense starts to relax a little bit against a formidable opponent. By the 4th quarter we will probably be asking ourselves how this is even a game? Then the Chiefs will break away in the end. Unfortunately, this has been a trend lately. Hopefully, Kansas City can just have a nice comfortable win for once.

Price Carter — ArrowheadOne

If you are viewing this in Apple News and would like to join the Discussion, [GO HERE.](http://arrowheadone.com/chiefs-at-dolphins-game-preview-open-thread/#disqus_thread)