What Are We To Make of the Pass Defense; Secondary in Particular?

[Fountain City Blues]

With the aftermath settling this week, the Kansas City Chiefs are, perhaps shockingly, #1 in pass defense at 195.7 yards a game (Kansas City Chiefs Football Clubhouse - ESPN). The Secondary was generally agreed within most of the fanbase, and blogosphere, to be the weakest unit on the defense and was a subject of substantial concern without Brandon Flowers- and yet it looks "better" without him so far, but it would also be asinine to say his departure made it better on with addition by subtraction.

Marcus Cooper was coming off of a spotty 2nd half of the season where he looked every bit like a 7th round pick, who got waived, who was new to the CB position, and couldn't quite turn his hips well- and hot damn, is it a problem for him to cover a crossing route. Pretty simple gif illustrating some rather basic problems Marcus Cooper has vs a crossing route- especially against guys like Keenan Allen.

Sean Smith is just Sean Smith- inconsistent and lacking closing speed when beat, but can look pretty good when he isn't getting beat. Abdullah was a full year removed from his trip to Mecca. Eric Berry was a top flight Strong Safety. Chris Owens essentially was signed to replace Flowers (It was actually Marcus Cooper who was playing outside for much of the season instead of Flowers last year) at nickelback. Ron Parker at this point was a man without a set position; was he a S, a CB, or even an NFL player?

So, coming into this season:

SS: Eric Berry
FS: Hussein Abdullah
CB1: Sean Smith
CB2: Marcus Cooper
Nickel: Chris Owens

Not exactly the Legion of Boom look, now is it?

Now, we all know about Tamba Hali, Poe, and Houston's impact in the front 7 in terms of rushing the passer, but as we saw last year, a secondary with substantial holes can't be hidden forever against the best QB's in the league. Safeties were too slow, or coverage was just flat blown:

Anyone care to remember this? I mean, yeah, he has a pretty clean pocket and everything, but when your coverage is that porous on TY Hilton with Andrew Luck as the QB, you may as well rack up 7 on the board every time. Justin Houston and Tamba Hali can't play Batman and Robin at OLB forever. It can be argued a fatally flawed secondary was the primary catalyst for last year's collapse, perhaps. Perhaps it helps our pass rush this year with the presence of Allen Bailey in 2014, so we don't have to bring DB's nearly as many times to generate pressure, but again, the coverage is the main problem with the defense in 2013- Allen Bailey at DE isn't fixing broken coverage that is seen in this gif.

As for this year-

The passing yards against by game look like this:

Week 1- Jake Locker

22/33 , 6.6 YPA, and 243 net passing yards; no turnovers. (Also had 6 carries for 14 yards- 2.3 YPC)

Final Result: 26-10 L

Week 2- @ Peyton "Freaking" Manning

21/26 , 9.3 YPA, 237 net passing yards; no turnovers.

Final Result: 24-17 L

Notes: Eric Berry was lost to injury midway through the game; replaced by Ron Parker for the rest of the games up until now*

Week 3- @ Ryan Tannehill

21/43, 4.8 YPA, 191 net passing yards; no turnovers. (1 rush attempt for 9 yards)

Final Result: 34-17 W

Week 4- vs Tom Brady (and Garoppolo-- spelling?)

Brady: 14/23, 6.9 YPA, 151 net passing yards; 3 turnovers- two being INT's
Garoppolo: 6/7 10.0 YPA, 64 net passing yards; no turnovers


Final Result: 41-14

Week 5- @ Kaepernick

14/26, 7.7 YPA, 186 net passing yards; no turnovers (10 carries for 18 yards)
Boldin 0/1, 0 YPA, 0 net passing yards; no turnover

Final result 22-17 L

Notes: Chris Owens sprained his LCL- misses the next two games as of now- Phillip Gaines replaces Owens as Nickel CB

Week 7- @ Rivers

17/31, 6.6 YPA, 182 net passing; 1 turnover- INT

Final result 23-20 W

Notes: Marcus Cooper was benched in favor of Flemming to start and end the game- as well as the following week

Week 8- vs Austin Davis

15/25, 6.4 YPA, 116 net passing; 1 turnover- INT (1 rush attempt- 1 yard)
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Just from watching the games, I would say the biggest difference has been the level of play from the safeties, but honestly, we're going to see more from this group even though we have seen the unit do reasonably well against the likes of Tom Brady and Phillip Rivers. Still not sure what to think of the group, definitively, but I definitely like what I see as Eric Berry nears towards his return.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

Also, as a note, I couldn't find the 3rd down conversion rate when it was merely passing, so I will try to add that in later on.

 

[NJBuckO's]

I'd hate to see them use a 1st rounder on a CB/S over WR but it may come to that. I guess it's dependent on how the board falls for Dorsey too. Parker imo is better as a backup S, and Cooper needs to start getting better for depth going forward.