Chiefs Loss: Who’s More At Fault, the OL or the DL. A Debate

Chiefs Loss: Who’s More At Fault, the OL or the DL. A Debate

David Bell and Laddie Morse

I was talking with David Bell on the phone after the Kansas City Chiefs loss to the Buffalo Bills and lo and behold, we disagreed on something. Why is that noteworthy? Because we almost always agree on all things Chiefs. So, we decided we’d do an email debate with me starting out with the Offensive Line being most at fault for this loss, then David will speak to the Defensive Line taking the lion’s share of responsibility. We might also both speak to both lines, if that’s okay with ya’ll.

The Offensive Line: Laddie

It’s hard to ignore the shortcomings of Right Tackle Andrew Wylie, especially against Von Miller. Yes, Miller made a great move — a spin move — to beat Wylie, and I heard that Mitchell Schwartz would agree that anyone, no matter who you’re talking about, would not have a chance against Miller. when he goes into his spin. That may be, but the fact remains that the offensive line as a whole, was less than advertised and they, as a whole, gave up 3 sacks, 4 Tackles for a Loss (TFLs) and 9 (nine) QB Hits. It’s those QB Hits which are especially damaging.  

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Do I wish Lucas Niang was ready to roll? Sure, but we have had no word on where his progress is even at. Back to this game. The reality is, the Chiefs OL did a poor job of protecting the Chiefs most valuable asset: Patrick Mahomes. It won’t surprise me at all if he gets a bit gun shy in the pocket in the coming weeks. I’m sure his wife agrees with me.

The Defensive Line: David 

While I agree that the OL play has been abysmal, Sunday’s game against the Bills pointed me in a different direction. First off, I want to acknowledge Laddie’s point about the offensive line –> Andrew Wylie has been a detriment in the face of his failures to properly block pass rushers.

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For me, though? The defensive line is completely suspect. With so many rookies playing in the secondary, it is necessary to pressure the opposing quarterback. What we are not seeing happen is pressure on the QB from the front four. Carlos Dunlap made a play. So did Chris Jones. What we are not seeing is constant pressure from the four down linemen. I am not saying George Karlaftis is playing bad football. Nor am I stating that Frank Clark is playing bad football.  As a group, the pressures, hits, and sacks are not happening. The Chiefs DL only got 4 QB Hits on Josh Allen. That’s no where near enough.

The Offensive Line: Laddie

While I don’t disagree that the defensive line is nowhere near the dominating DL that we’d like to see, it’s the OL that has me concerned at this point. If you take Josh Allen’s 32 yards rushing off the 125 total rushing yards the Bills had, they’d only have 93 yards. However, if you take the 21 yards rushing (Mahomes rushing yards) off the Chiefs 68 yards total rushing, the Chiefs OL was partly responsible for only paving the way for 47 yards total rushing. 

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Both teams threw the ball 40 times, but the Bills had 31 rushing attempts and the Chiefs had only 18. That means the Chiefs couldn’t trust their OL to make the proper blocks to spring their backs free. Yes, our DL couldn’t get enough pressure on Josh Allen, but the pressure Patrick Mahomes felt was overboard.

The OL & the DL: David 

In the first half of the game, I did not see evidence of a breakdown in pass protection. I did find specific cases, such as Von Miller’s sack of Mahomes breaking by Andrew Wylie. That was the most glaring case in the first half. Here you have a specific case of an average NFL OT being conquered by a future HoF Edge Rusher. No surprise there.

Rather, I saw that the run-game blocking was not effective up and down the offensive line. I haven’t had time to get to the second half of the game. If the offense stuttered, it was due to mistakes by various players or improperly run routes. Or just plain good defense by the Bills.

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What happened in the first half is that the team went toe-to-toe and tied at the half. The Biggest breakdown on defense in the first half was when they had the Bills pinned at the 1-yard line, and they escaped to go the full length of the field and score a TD and PAT to go into the lead, 10-7.

Conversely, Mahomes passed to RB Jerick McKinnon for a big gain, and then a pass to TE Travis Kelce positioned the ball at Bill’s 44-yard line. Butker then made the record 62-yard FG to knot the score 10-10.

Mahomes was under pressure, but, as per usual with Patrick Mahomes, he avoided a sack and made a pass. He often stayed in the pocket and fled after about 3-3.5 seconds, so the pressure was getting through, but after the 3 seconds. Mahomes extended the play each time or threw the ball away.

At least in the first half, I didn’t see a constant breakdown by the Chiefs OTs. The OL was not fired up like they were in the game against the Bucs.

Two Top Level Offenses went against good defenses in the first half and ended the half tied 10-10. I grant you that the Bills Defense is at the best of all Defenses in the NFL. Allen’s TD pass to Davis was obtained because Gabe Davis pushed back against Josh Williams to get separation. That should have been flagged and wasn’t. As far as the Chiefs defense is concerned, they held a powerful Bills offense to 10 points. Despite the Bills last drive, the defense played very well.

The OL & DL: Laddie

Early in the game, David was right, the OL played well and the DL did not play… as well. While re-watching the game film I came up with a method of judging the OL and the DL. Since they each perform as a unit, I graded them based upon:

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1) applied QB pressure?

2) stopping the run?

3) keeping containment?

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That last one was more important in this game because Josh Allen uses his legs for getting around the edge more than most other QBs. The same list works for the OL. In fact, as I was saying, David was correct about the OL… early in the game. They kept pressure off of Patrick Mahomes on the first drive, and opened holes for Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who had his longest run of 9 yards (actually, he also had an 11 yard run), plus kept the Bills DL off Mahomes so he could roam when needed. That lasted until Mahomes threw his first INT in the end zone. The DL played well early too, stopping the Bills first two drives: one because of Allen’s fumbled toss to his RB and the second stop ended in a FG for Buffalo.

As the game progressed (not sure that’s the right word), the Chiefs OL became sloppier and their DL followed suit, plus neither produced the Pressure, the Run Stopping nor applied the necessary Containment, as much as the team needed it to, to eke out a win.

Summary

Laddie: After taking a longer look at both the OL and the DL on game tape, David Bell may be right, but the reality is, the Chiefs lost, and neither of the team’s lines looked very good in the process. On the other hand, it was a close game and the Chiefs were missing a Safety, a starting LB, and two starting Corners. K.C. will be much better the next time they meet… in the playoffs!

David: Overall, this game was the DL versus the Bills offensive front. They held sway most of the game, but gave up glaring ground game yardage gains. Of course, that was partially the Linebackers too.

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The pass rush was, man-to-man, but inconsistent. Chris Jones had the most effective rush, but I noted that Clark had a very quick first step. The Bills Offensive line did a good job of stopping the Chiefs.

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David Bell and Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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