Time for an Uncomfortable Discussion about the Defense and Bob Sutton

[Fountain City Blues]

Defense has been bad. And on the scoreboard too. The Chiefs certainly have deficiencies, but I am not seeing an aints defense out there either. Something smells.

If this keeps up Bob Sutton may need some walking papers. It's not all on Sutton to be fair. Sutton didn't make Murray inexperienced, he didn't make Gaines tear his ACL and never seen again seemingly, Sutton didn't make Bailey move in slow-motion either. Sutton didn't make Johnson look like he's 45, he didn't make Ragland a stationary destroyer adrift at sea. But... this ain't the worst defense in the NFL on paper; but it is. Something smells, and the buck stops with Sutton at some point. And if not Sutton, Reid.

Eligwe and Kpass need to start seeing snaps. Or KPL if you're feeling adventurous. This defense is not SB caliber right now. It needs a youth injection and Steven Nelson and Hali are by no means cure-alls. Especially if we see more of the dreaded 3 man rush. It'll drain my blood sugar watching it, but my blood pressure will most assuredly rise watching such a pacifist defense.

 

[Clayton]

He has a built in excuse as long as Berry and Nelson are out.

I get a lot of Chiefs fans are taking the high road and blaming their own team but the other half of the argument is the refs.

If the refs are going to let the receivers hook the Chiefs dbs like the Raiders did then we might as well stop watching this season. That was just awful reffing and I'm not going to sit back and say it was all on the defense.

 

[Clayton]

If you look at things, the Chiefs really needed Berry. They had backups and they're good but a lot of their issues in the past 2 games are Berry related. Berry is a ballhawk who covers TEs and helps in run D like no other. The Chiefs were covering Cook with Murray as far as I could tell. I liked Murray coming out of Minnesota but he is overmatched even against brickhands Cook. Cook is an elite athlete even by NFL standards.

I havent looked at PFF or anything but in the current system, the Chiefs have one player Id say is playing at a pro bowl level: Justin Houston.

Most of the other players are playing at a 'starters' level.

A couple of players are what I would call 'sitautional' in Nunoz Roches, Pierre Louis and debatably 'the Hulk' and Dee Ford.

Gaines, Terrance Mitchell and Jenkins are all liabilities. I dont know how many snaps Jenkins gets but I know he sees some regular play. Murray is probably on that list, too.

So yeah...D is sub par and thats probably being kind.

 

[cdumler7]

He has a built in excuse as long as Berry and Nelson are out.

I get a lot of Chiefs fans are taking the high road and blaming their own team but the other half of the argument is the refs.

If the refs are going to let the receivers hook the Chiefs dbs like the Raiders did then we might as well stop watching this season. That was just awful reffing and I'm not going to sit back and say it was all on the defense.

Haha I was just pointing out this very thing to Idaho over at the Raiders board. Somehow he thinks the Refs were on the Chiefs side last night. I would say the officials helped hand the Raiders about 14 points by not calling the times the WR's just flat out shoved a defender to the side as the ball was coming their way.

 

[Clayton]

Haha I was just pointing out this very thing to Idaho over at the Raiders board. Somehow he thinks the Refs were on the Chiefs side last night. I would say the officials helped hand the Raiders about 14 points by not calling the times the WR's just flat out shoved a defender to the side as the ball was coming their way.

Its denial. By my count the Chiefs got 2 breaks from the refs. Raiders got somewhere around 17points.

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | Clutch Encounters: KC-OAK

Chiefs still had chances to seal this one away before the last sequence so I'm not sure what to make of KC and Oak at this point.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

Haha I was just pointing out this very thing to Idaho over at the Raiders board. Somehow he thinks the Refs were on the Chiefs side last night. I would say the officials helped hand the Raiders about 14 points by not calling the times the WR's just flat out shoved a defender to the side as the ball was coming their way.

Yeah, when I was rewatching this game (I was one of the silly people who actually attended a night class) I think I just about wanted to throw something at my TV. It really shouldn't have mattered, however. The Faux-Illegal Contact penalty however, that's just completely baffling to me that got called.

Regardless, the pacifista secondary needs to make a play on the ball sometime or another or coverage doesn't matter.

 

[cdumler7]

Its denial. By my count the Chiefs got 2 breaks from the refs. Raiders got somewhere around 17points.

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | Clutch Encounters: KC-OAK

Chiefs still had chances to seal this one away before the last sequence so I'm not sure what to make of KC and Oak at this point.

Yup a lot of those plays are the exact ones I was thinking of. Some big no calls or calls that went the wrong way in my opinion.

 

[Clayton]

Yup a lot of those plays are the exact ones I was thinking of. Some big no calls or calls that went the wrong way in my opinion.

Chiefs were 'unlucky' in that game but there were also some bad trends that keep happening on defense, too.

There were definitely two issues.

 

[Clayton]

Regardless, the pacifista secondary needs to make a play on the ball sometime or another or coverage doesn't matter.

You can say something similar about literally every loss ever, though.

There is always going to be bad football play that leads to a loss. It still doesnt change that football works on a time limit and things can swing drastically on a small handful of plays.

As far as Sutton is concerned, whats the scheme for 'our CB cant make plays on the football?'

 

[Fountain City Blues]

 

[Clayton]

I'd say Tamba Hali coming back might help but thats not the issue.

Allen Bailey in for 62 snaps, Bennie Logan in for 41 snaps. Thats redundancy. Jenkins in for 11 snaps is also a bit of a waste but thankfully that number wasn't higher. You're never going to get QB pressures out of any of those guys.

Kpass seems to be buried in the depth chart until next year. Eligwe might need to see some play time now that the Chiefs have a TE coverage problem but that would require scheme change to my knowledge as I think he would be replacing Murray which....why not?

Play by Play of Jared Cook attempts

2nd and 9: 24 yard pass for a first down (Murray w tackle)
1st and 10: 14 yard pass for a first down (Mitchell w tackle)
1st and 10: 15 yard pass for a first down (Sorenson w tackle)
3rd and 10: 13 yard pass for a first down (Murray w tackle)
3rd and 6: Incomplete pass (Murray on coverage. IIRC that could've been a flag if thats the play im thinking)
4th and 11: 13 yard pass for a first down (Murray w tackle)
3rd and 10: 29 yard pass to Cook at the 1. (Murray w tackle)

Then there was the Parker ticky tack PI call with 00 left.

None of these guys can guard a TE.

Without Eric Berry, the Patriots might actually be a worse matchup than even the Steelers at this rate. Jared Cook isnt very good but he can win matchups against midgets.

 

[Clayton]

Terrance Williams had 9 catches on 9 targets for 141 yards. 7 were on a highlight package on youtube

1st against Peters wasn't terrible.
The 2nd against Acker was embarassing
The 3rd against Kevin-Pierre Louis was a mismatch but a product of the Dallas offense executing.
The 4th was a busted coverage with Dak extending a play but imo thats on the scheme being bad. Dak had all day to run
The 5th was against DJ and a wild mismatch.
The 6th was against Acker and he lost a handfight IIRC and it was pretty easy pitch and catch for a huge gain
The 7th was against Acker as a screen and Acker made him cut inside but totally failed to make an impact on the play. A good player would've blown that up.

Part of me thinks there is a scheme issue but part of me thinks that the scheme is bad because they have to account for bad CB play

 

[Clayton]

According to Football Outsiders, only the Redskins have played better offenses than the Chiefs this year so maybe the schedule might make the D look a little better.

Maybe.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

As much as I liked some of these adjustments made against Dallas (mostly removing Sorenson) the defense still got whooped (albeit by a very good offense in Dallas) but it's nonetheless distressing this is not a defense that can go toe to toe with the top offenses come playoff time. Ragland may be salvageable as a two down thumper type with more experience, maybe Murray with some more experience. Outside of that, I am not all that confident things are going to get much better unless I am surprised by Kpassagnon or something weird like that. Yeah, the defense might take down some average/sub-par offenses as the schedule loosens up, but should that really be the goal?

Vote of no confidence for the depth on this defense.

 

[Clayton]

A guy on Arrowheadpride put PFFs opinion of the Chiefs defense last year. The number in the middle is the percentage of snaps they played:

Actually, the Chiefs did the right thing in keeping Bob Sutton

Chris Jones 62% High Quality
Justin Houston 86% High Quality
Marcus Peters 88% High Quality

Steven Terrell 6% Above Average

Derrick Johnson 77% Average
Allen Bailey 57% Average
Justin Hamilton 4% Average
Roy Miller 7% Average
Terrance Smith 6% Average
Reggie Ragland 29% Average
Steven Nelson 47% Average
Eric Berry 6% Average
Leon McQuay 4% Average

Jarvis Jenkins 20% Below Average
Cam Thomas 1% Below Average
Bennie Logan 52% Below Average

Rakeem Nunez-Roches 36% Poor
Tanoh Kpassagnon 14% Poor
Frank Zombo 53% Poor
Dee Ford 29% Poor
Tamba Hali 9% Poor
Kevin Pierre-Louis 23% Poor
Ramik Wilson 11% Poor
Ukeme Eligwe 6% Poor
Kenneth Acker 19% Poor
Keith Reaser 5% Poor
Darrelle Revis 17% Poor
Terrance Mitchell 64% Poor
Phillip Gaines 38% Poor
Daniel Sorensen 90% Poor
Eric Murray 40% Poor
Ron Parker 94% Poor

6,028 snaps from "poor" players, and 6,081 from all other groups. Pretty awful. The Chiefs D last year played well against Jay Cutler, Eli Manning, Tyrod Taylor and Phillip Rivers. Outside of the turnover prone Rivers, thats not a great list.

Sometimes advanced stats are a reflection of coaching but for the most part the Chiefs have to factor in a bad roster. I know a lot of Chiefs fans with grey hair remember when they brought in Gunther Cunningham to fix Dick Vermeil's defense thinking that a coach could come in and get things done but you need to have 'bullets' in your gun or else there is no point. The Chiefs need to work some draft magic on defense.

Seeing those high snap counts for Sorensen, Mitchell and Zombo are things that shouldn't happen next year. Certainly its hard to imagine Phillip Gaines on the roster. I'd expect a lot of turnover.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

I see the LB coach, Gibbs, has been fired.

 

[Clayton]

In the case of defense vs Bob Sutton, Bob Sutton won.

DJ (77% of snaps) gone
Peters gone (88% of snaps)
Ron Parker (94% of snaps) on the way out

Revis came and went
Hali is probably gone
Dee Ford? Who knows


turn and face the strange

 

[Fountain City Blues]

In the case of defense vs Bob Sutton, Bob Sutton won.

DJ (77% of snaps) gone
Peters gone (88% of snaps)
Ron Parker (94% of snaps) on the way out

Revis came and went
Hali is probably gone
Dee Ford? Who knows


turn and face the strange

Looks like Dee Ford is sticking around. But this has been quite the endorsement for Sutton that it was the players' fault.

 

[cdumler7]

This is where I was shocked that the Chiefs went and used their new found cap space on a WR. The defense has holes throughout and the only big addition was an average Off ball Linebacker.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

This is where I was shocked that the Chiefs went and used their new found cap space on a WR. The defense has holes throughout and the only big addition was an average Off ball Linebacker.

It's odd. I can live with swinging big on Watkins as I think he's very good when on the field, and Hitchens I can't say I love as a cover guy which also will make me meh on his value, but his run defense by all appearances looks pretty good. Ragland and Hitchens has the makings of a nice run D duo and a bad cover duo. Maybe they think Eligwe can cover more than I think or something? Just weird. Just reeks of desperation at ILB. I don't mind Hitchens, even like him. I don't like the 9M AAV.

Watkins just looks like a plain ole' "we're going to outscore you and what are you going to do about it" move. Greatest Show on Grass jokes aside, that's a big contract for Watkins. Watkins is very good on the field (Goff's rapport and deep accuracy looked awful in LA) don't get me wrong, his history just doesn't justify the contract however. Yeah it was an inflated WR market, but that only goes so far. Consider they tried trading for both of these guys before the season, it looks like the GM just never quite going from point A to B for my tastes. Even weirder, they structured the moves to give enough room to sign a safety. Allbright seemed to think they were in on Mathieu reading the tealeaves so I am kind of expecting a safety signing to come in here still.

Pretty grating given Dorsey was just fired supposedly because he sucked at the cap. I am pretty sure the D will be better than last year all in all after the draft, but they have chosen a pretty inefficient way to go about it. Could be so much easier if they didn't hand away Peters for peanuts.