Chiefs Saturday: Notes and Observations
David Bell
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The Indianapolis Colts
Andy Reid’s team has had plenty of time — a 10-day prep period — to recover from minor aches, pains, and small nagging injuries. We all are aware of how well the Chiefs play with a mini-bye. It comes at the right time to get a W in the book for week three. Offensively, the Chiefs have had great success vs. the Colts. Patrick Mahomes leads all NFL QBs in a couple important categories: YPP and TD-Int ratio. Plus, against Indianapolis, Mahomes faces former Seattle and Raider DC, Gus Bradley, who will try to figure a way to stop him.
The Colts rebound and play better football in week three, so I am not counting this as an easy win. Without Willie Gay, the edge will be a dangerous spot to defend. Gay’s sideline-to-sideline speed was a tremendous asset. Nick Bolton discussed defending against RB Jonathan Taylor being a key to getting the win. I cannot conceive that an Andy Reid team will fail to be prepared for the Colts ground game, and I don’t think their aerial game will be effective against the Chiefs.
I anticipate the Chiefs getting out to an early lead forcing the Colts into come-from-behind mode and thus an aerial attack. That bodes well for the Chiefs.
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CB Jaylen Watson
In the offseason, before the draft, I had added Jaylen Watson on my list of “to-be-drafted” players, but not before round five, for sure. However, if the opportunity arose and he was at the top of the list for the late rounds, I felt the Chiefs should select him for the secondary, for the future. Fortune looked down on GM Brett Veach, Jaylen Watson and the Chiefs all. Veach selected Watson in round seven this year with pick 243 overall. This was an excellent move by the Chiefs and for Watson.
We all know that Watson had a 99-yard Pick-Six — and that interception was crucial to the game. That score was needed in the light of the final score. Watson moved up to a starting role due to the unfortunate loss of fellow CB, Trent McDuffie, who was playing top-tier football before going down with a hamstring injury in Week One after just 32 snaps. Review the INT and the score by Watson here. However, observe at the same time the blitz by LB Willie Gay, which forced Herbert to rush his pass to the TE Gerald Everett.
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Gay was in the passing lane and disrupted the Herbert pass and close to a sack of the LAC QB — Watson was in a perfect position to defend against the pass, but the play turned into the INT!
By the time Watson stepped in front of Herbert’s pass, he has only yielded an admirable 3.42 yards per target plus only being targeted 12% of the opponent’s aerial attack. What I love about Watson’s stepping in for McDuffie was he fully utilized his skill-set and was an exemplification of “the next man up” capability of the young Chiefs “new-look” defense.
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Don’t get me wrong, I want McDuffie back ASAP. but we have another CB who is emerging as a solid defender. This tells us the story of the work that CB Coach Dave Merritt has been doing with the young Chiefs Cornerbacks. Having Watson be NFL proofed is excellent for DC Steve Spagnuolo’s defense. The Youth Movement is being tested and, thus far, has met the challenge. Andy Reid’s observation about Jaylen tells the story:
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“He had a good camp–You saw him progressively get better through camp. He played at a high level in college, so he’s played against good competition. (He has) Good size (and he) can run — you saw that after the interception — that was beautiful.”
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Reid elaborated, stating that he was a current year draft pick and it doesn’t matter now.
You’ve got to give Watson a tip-o-the-hat: He is playing solid defense, including support of the defense against the run, but also has broken up pass plays, and now he has a pick-six TD to add to his bona fides. The Fab Five may be the Fab Six (McDuffie, Karlaftis, Moore, Cook, Pacheco, Watson).
I had hoped that Darian Kinnard would also achieve the Fab status, but he has fallen short… so far. I thought he might win the ROT role. We still have not seen enough of CB Joshua Williams to denote such success. With his speed and length though, Williams may still emerge as a contributor in 2022.
DE George Karlaftis
I admit it, while I don’t know who I would have substituted with Pick 30 in the draft this year: George Karlaftis was not my focus as a first-round draft pick, and it wasn’t Laddie’s either. However, I followed him throughout training camp and changed my mind, and so did Laddie. He was worthy of the selection and has proved it across the season’s first two games.
GK plays relentless football. He has a constant motor and learns and adapts as he goes along, play-by-play. Thus far in 2 games, I am surprised he hasn’t gotten home for a sack. He has had QB hits and nine pressures thus far. As far as that goes, he matches Aiden Hutchison (selected 2nd overall in this year’s NFL draft) in that category though Hutchison now has three sacks (all against the Washington Commanders). After week one, Karlaftis was among the top three NFL players ranked for hurries and what’s interesting is that the two in front of him were also Kansas City Chiefs players.
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There was a good article written by Jacob Milham for ArrowheadAddict.com following week one, called: “Fast and Furious: George Karlaftis lives up to the hype for Chiefs.” It’s a good article, take a peek. Milham says of Karlaftis:
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“Kansas City Chiefs defensive end George Karlaftis had expectations exceeding his rookie status. His Week 1 performance quickly showed how promising his future may be…. Karlaftis had the second-most defensive snaps for the Chiefs against the Cardinals, trailing only cornerback L’Jarius Sneed. That showed something more important than any statistic, opinion, or analytic grade. That showed Karlaftis has the coaches’ trust.”
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In the game vs. the Cardinals, Karlaftis has a batted pass on Kyler Murray. See the video of that effort by GK here:
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Note: The Cardinals were interested in drafting Karlaftis and had him in for a top-30 visit, as observed by NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero.
In his brief press conference appearance, GK noted that his role starts with stopping the run. When the Chiefs face the Colts, Jonathan Taylor will need a lot of attention. Containing their hard-running speedy RB won’t be easy.
With Willie Gay out and Darius Harris substituting in Gay’s absence, a task that will be tough to handle by the Chiefs LBs. This is going to require focus on the gaps and making solid contact tackling Taylor, with good below-the-belt wrap-ups. As Laddie mentioned in his article “Chiefs Headlines” on Friday, I too felt that Harris had a lot of promise, especially after watching him in preseason games in 2019. I also think Leo Chenal will get time on the field, and with Spagnuolo’s use of CBs in the box, Bryan Cook will likely see additional duty.
Last Note: The Chiefs Offensive Line
Seth Keysor did a game analysis on Friday, focusing on what went right and wrong with the QB play of Patrick Mahomes. His bottom line addressed the pass rush that few other teams can mount: such as the Chargers. It was a tough test, and Keysor observed that this was Mahomes worst game as a Chief.
The OL did give up two sacks, but did a credible job otherwise against what may be the top pass-rush Defensive Lines in the NFL. They are still ranked among the tier one OL units by PFN. Here is their Tier One List:
OL Rankings: Tier 1
Philadelphia Eagles, Kansas City Chiefs, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, New England Patriots, Los Angeles Chargers, Washington Commanders
I still like our OL players, and the good thing is they are now in year two of stability, even though Lucas Niang is still rehabbing. Andrew Wylie struggled in the first quarter of the game versus the Chargers, but then settled down and played well.
Previously, I covered the Colts and my outlook for the upcoming contest. I do not think this will be a “Trap” game. JuJu Smith Schuster sums up the Chiefs attitude going into this game, he said this week:
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“Honestly, I don;t even know who we have next. Every team is really, really good. We jsut take it week by week. I just focus on this week alone. The Colts and Indy, are on our schedule this week, and once you get past there, boom, then we’re on to the next.”
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However, I do believe that the Colts will show improvement over how they played in their first two games. I gave the score 36-21, and I still think that is about the right margin. If the Chiefs defense focuses on stopping RB Jonathan Taylor and the Chiefs get a lead, the Colts will need to adapt and use the aerial game. That is not the forte of Matt Ryan: to come from behind and try to win that way. He will have his WR Pittman back, who has missed the first two games with a quad injury.
Week three is going to be fun for the Chiefs fans and players. They are a team on a mission that won’t falter in week three. After the Colts, they then face one of their old nemesis: Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. They embarrassed the Chiefs in Superbowl LV. That game is followed by the Raiders, Bills, 49ers, and then the BYE Week. We have known that the Chiefs schedule was the toughest in the NFL. Getting this win on the road in Indy is the first step.
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David Bell — ArrowheadOne
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