This Chiefs player served his 2-game suspension. He could be a difference-maker Monday
Chiefs defensive tackle Mike Pennel didn’t have time to ponder his two-game suspension to start the regular season.
While he admits to yearning for the camaraderie of teammates, Pennel kept himself busy watching games, especially upcoming opponents, to ensure he remained in a football frame of mind.
“The workouts and not being around the guys is the main thing I missed,” Pennel said Saturday. “But it was still all football.”
His business-like approach projects to serve the Chiefs well against a formidable foe in Week 3.
Pennel, who missed games against the Houston Texans and Los Angeles Chargers, returns in time to contribute against the Baltimore Ravens. And don’t worry about Pennel having to shake off any lingering rust from not being around the team facility.
In his first week of practice since coming off the suspension, the veteran defensive tackle impressed coach Andy Reid.
“I thought he did a nice job,” Reid said. “He moved around well and he didn’t look like he lost anything there, so he’ll be ready to go.”
Getting Pennel back in the rotation will help a Chiefs defense that is already down second-year defensive tackle Khalen Saunders, another key contributor in the rotation.
With Saunders landing on injured reserve with an elbow injury after the season opener, the Chiefs wrapped up the first two games ranked a dismal 27th against the run, allowing 150.5 yards per game.
It takes more than one player, of course, and Pennel isn’t a starter. But there’s no doubting the value that the 6-foot-4, 330-pound Pennel provides inside with his ability to command double teams, which frees up the Chiefs’ linebackers and safeties to flow to the ball.
Before Pennel arrived as a free-agent signing halfway through the 2019 season, the Chiefs’ run defense was one of the league’s worst and allowed an average of 148.9 yards per game from Weeks 1 to 7. With Pennel entrenched as a member of the interior rotation alongside Saunders, Chris Jones and Derrick Nnadi, the Chiefs turned that around by allowing a stingy average of 95.4 yards rushing per game from Weeks 13-17.
“Mike gives us a big presence in there,” defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo said. “As the season went last year, certainly when we got Mike – we were fortunate enough to get him – it helped us. I’m hoping it does the same thing.”
Spagnuolo could look to utilize Pennel’s skill-set immediately against Baltimore’s punishing ground game, which ranks fourth in the league (170.5 yards per game). Spearheaded by quarterback Lamar Jackson, who’s coming off an MVP season in which he rushed for 1,206 yards, the Ravens boast an effective three-headed backfield consisting of Mark Ingram, Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins.
Pennel knows stopping the Ravens’ desire to run the football is no small task, but it’s a challenge he embraces in the trenches alongside his teammates.
“They’re a real well-rounded group, a playoff group,” he said. “We all know who their quarterback is. I just think we got to meet them head-on. They do a lot of power-running game, so we know it’s going to a physical game and I think we’re prepared for that.”
And after serving his two-game suspension, the opportunity to see action against one of the NFL’s elite teams on ESPN’s Monday Night Football is icing on the cake.
“I get up for every game, but this is a prime-time game, it’s a power-running team,” Pennel said. “I mean, this is what I live for. (I’m a) run stopper first, so it’s definitely something I’m looking forward to.”
