What inspired the Chiefs’ defense? A classic video featuring hoops icon Kobe Bryant
Chiefs players and coaches said all the right things in the days leading into Sunday’s contest against the winless New York Jets at Arrowhead Stadium.
The Jets play good defense ... Quarterback Sam Darnold could get hot ... The Jets are pros, just like the Chiefs.
But just in case, there was an additional offer of motivation on the defensive side for the Chiefs, provided by coordinator Steve Spagnuolo ... and it helped ensure the Chiefs’ heads were in the right place.
Safety Tyrann Mathieu said after the Chiefs’ 35-9 victory Sunday the KC defensive unit watched a Kobe Bryant video Saturday night. Mathieu didn’t specifiy which one — there are many from the former Los Angeles Lakers star who died in a helicopter crash earlier this year — but it examined how Bryant approached improvement.
“The most important thing to me was to leave no stone unturned,” Bryant says in one clip. “Get better every single day. If I live that way, then over time I’ve have something that was beautiful. That was my philosophy and it seems like a pretty simple one.”
It was a message that resonates, and it inspired Mathieu, who finished the game with five tackles and helped keep the Jets out of the end zone.
“All Kobe Bryant talked about was getting better,” Mathieu said. “So that’s really the mindset of us as a defense, is to really pick apart the film, find what it is we can get better at and continue to move forward.”
On a day when superstar Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes pitched a masterpiece with five touchdown passes, the hosts’ ability to succeed in all phases was a tribute to their preparedness.
And it’s worth noting that the Chiefs’ defense has gotten progressively better over the past month since the debacle against the Las Vegas Raiders in a 40-32 loss at Arrowhead.
The Chiefs surrendered 490 yards that day. But two of their three opponents since then have finished with less than 300.
Mathieu turned in one of the highlight plays Sunday, dropping Jets wide receiver Braxton Berrios for a 6-yard loss on an end-around.
A couple of Mathieu’s teammates combined for the game’s only takeaway. A hard hit by safety Dan Sorensen on New York tight end Chris Herndon jarred the ball loose and cornerback Bashaud Breeland made the recovery.
Early on, the Jets were close to executing their game plan of maintaining possession on offense to drain the clock and keep Mahomes off the field. But they wound up settling for field goals on their first three possessions and continued to fall behind.
The Chiefs’ defense, meanwhile, got stronger throughout the game and shut out the Jets in the second half.
“Our guys took it seriously the whole way through,” Mathieu said. “There are things we can clean up from the first half. But it’s all about us, whether we’re going to show up with the right kind of attitude.”
With the assistance of a motivational clip from one of the great basketball players of all-time, the Chiefs did exactly that on Sunday.
This story was originally published November 1, 2020 at 4:41 PM.