A KC Chiefs secondary coach says this has been the defense’s biggest problem in 2021
The Chiefs have a record-setting defense for all the wrong reasons in the opening five weeks of the NFL season, the worst in football by several metrics, including its most important — points allowed. And when that’s the case, you can often point to any number of reasons why.
Well, unless you’re Chiefs defensive backs coach Dave Merritt. He has just one reason — or at least one reason that so significantly outweighs the others that it became the overwhelming focus of his first meeting with the media this season.
Eye leverage.
“If you chase two rabbits,” Merritt said, “you’re gonna miss both of them.”
The Chiefs have allowed 16 explosive passing plays this season — gains of 20-plus yards — according to Sharp Football Stats, which is the seventh most in the league. They’ve lost track of assignments, most glaringly in Sunday’s loss to the Bills when safety Dan Sorensen simply stopped covering tight end Dalton Knox in what became a 53-yard touchdown out of seemingly nothing.
After initially tracking Knox for the majority of the route, Sorensen diverted his attention to quarterback Josh Allen rolling out of the pocket.
That’s eye leverage.
“If I’m looking at you and I’m supposed to watch you, I gotta watch you,” Merritt said. “I can’t all of a sudden go watch something else. Whether you’re coaching Pop Warner, little league, your kids in basketball, if that’s your man, you teach your kids to cover that guy. You don’t look around and starting looking somewhere else — oh, there’s a bird or there’s a butterfly. That’s what I mean.”
That key — eye leverage — progressed to one of the defensive backfield’s strong suits during the last two Super Bowl runs, Merritt said. It’s gone to pasture in the first five weeks of 2021.
This all compounds itself when things aren’t going well. A lack of trust that everyone else will do their job can prompt a player to cheat off his assignment. But doing that, in turn, just shifts which player gets beat. It doesn’t solve the problem.
What does?
“Eye discipline is everything. If you can get that corrected, you’ll be able to play good football,” Merritt said, adding, “When you get guys focusing on a specific leverage point, you can shore it up real quick.”
This story was originally published October 14, 2021 at 2:02 PM.