Chiefs’ defense struggles against Bears’ backups in 27-20 loss

Before he walked into the Chiefs team meeting Friday night, Kendall Fuller got a text from his brother Kyle.

Kyle, a Chicago Bears cornerback, gave his youngest sibling a heads up: Chicago was resting its starters for Saturday’s preseason game against the Chiefs.

Even with the news that the Bears wouldn’t be matching KC’s game plan of playing the first string for three quarters, Kendall Fuller’s mentality was unchanged.

“It doesn’t matter who’s out there, we’ve got to get better ourselves, go out there and work, no matter who’s on the field,” the Chiefs cornerback said. “We’ve got to go out there and compete.”

That same sentiment echoed throughout the Chiefs’ pregame meeting once coach Andy Reid delivered the news, but it didn’t look like it completely carried over to the field in KC’s 27-20 loss Saturday afternoon.

And if it did? That might be cause for even more concern.

If Saturday’s game was supposed to be the final dress rehearsal before the regular season, the Chiefs’ defense uncovered more glaring issues to address before their season opener in Los Angeles on Sept. 9.

“You can’t let your guard down at all,” Reid said. “You’ve got to continue to challenge, you’ve got to tackle. Those are things I was looking for. We’ve got to do better on that. Our tackling wasn’t good.”

Led by backup quarterback and former Chief Chase Daniel (15 of 18, 198 yards, two TDs), the Bears torched the Chiefs from the opening drive and finished a 60-yard drive with a 13-yard touchdown by Benny Cunningham. The Chiefs’ defense only aided the Bears’ backups on that possession, picking up a face-mask penalty on the first play and missing a handful of easy tackles.

“We’ve got to wrap up and tackle as a whole, including myself,” said Chiefs inside linebacker Reggie Ragland, who made his preseason debut. “I missed an open field tackle myself. I missed a couple of them. We don’t have everybody out there either.”

With just two regular starters — a left guard and left tackle — the Bears put up 24 points and 280 offensive yards against the healthy contingent of the Chiefs’ starting defense in the first half.

The Chiefs’ biggest problem area Saturday afternoon was also the area that was missing the most starters. Missing at least three of its projected regular-season first-string defenders, including safety Eric Berry (heel) and corner Steve Nelson (concussion), the Chiefs’ secondary struggled to contain Mizzou product Daniel and the Bears’ passing game.

On the Bears’ second possession, wide receiver Kevin White used a double move to badly beat new Chiefs cornerback Orlando Scandrick to the end zone.

And on the Bears’ next drive, another cornerback got picked on and beat — twice. This time, Daniel threw at David Amerson. Receiver Javon Wims got a 54-yard gain on the first target and a touchdown on the second.

“You’ve got to tighten it up a little bit,” Reid said of Amerson. “You’ve got to do better than what we did today. He’s a willing worker, so he’ll get back and do that. I’ve seen him do better. He’s just got to pick that up. He’s one of the new guys that the more he plays and sees these thing, what he can get away with … we’re also playing man cover. That’s where he’s getting in trouble there. He’s got to learn the angles and the routes and all of that that they’re using.”

With new guys constantly rolling into the position group, the communication between the secondary players isn’t as smooth as it could be this far into the preseason.

Only added to the team six days ago, veteran Scandrick is one of those guys working to get in sync with the rest of his group. And like Amerson, he also has to learn what’s expected of him in Bob Sutton’s defense.

“It’s just learning the conceptual coverages of the defense,” Scandrick said when asked about being beaten on the double move. “I think that was one of those things where there was a little gray area in the concept of the defense.”

But inside linebacker Anthony Hitchens, who also made his preseason debut, thinks the overall problem plaguing the defense is more of a micro fix.

“I just think it’s technique,” he said. “Technique is huge. I think we got beat a couple times just from technique. It looks like it’s bad or way worse than what it is. It’s very small. It could be at the line of scrimmage. It could be leverage. Myself included. There were a couple times where I got out-leveraged. I think it’s more just technique. That’s just Day 1 basic stuff.”

Whatever it is, the Chiefs have two weeks to fix it and get their missing starters healthy. Assuming the first string doesn’t play in the final preseason game against Green Bay, the Chiefs will only have practice to make the necessary tweaks.

But to Hitchens, that’s plenty of time.

“That’s the good thing about it,” he said. “It’s not people not lining up correctly or people don’t understand the scheme. It’s just once you get lined up, just slide it outside a little bit or slide it inside a little. Just know where your help is at.

“Those things can get corrected quick. We’ve just got to all buy in and be willing to get better.”

This story was originally published August 25, 2018 at 3:01 PM.