For the first time, the Chiefs’ defense was great. They might be finding their voice
The most aggressively optimistic view of the Chiefs’ defense is embodied by safety Ron Parker leaning forward with a foot on a chair in a winning locker room as teammate Steven Nelson plays hype man in the background.
Reporter: Talk about that pick-six...
Nelson: “WHOOOO!!!”
Parker: “I was reading Andy Dalton’s eyes...”
This is a proud group, if a wounded one, and seven weeks in, this stands as their masterpiece: just 239 yards allowed and Parker’s touchdown in a 45-10 win over the Bengals at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday.
Reporter: What improvements have you seen in the last few weeks?
Parker: “We’re improving every week ... just feeding up each other, getting each other hyped...”
Nelson: “I told you we were gonna bounce back, bro!”
This group has been beaten to the point of becoming a punch line. If the franchise was run by fans for a day, the first move they’d make is to fire defensive coordinator Bob Sutton. Only then would they lower parking prices.
The Chiefs entered the week on pace to give up more yards than any NFL team, ever. Last week, their offense scored 40 points, including 31 in the second half, but the defense was so bad nobody expected it to hold up once the Patriots got the ball back at the end. Context always matters, so this win over the Bengals a cold glass of water after six weeks mostly in the desert.
Reporter: What’s the mood like after a win like this?
Parker: “Nothing but smiles on our faces...”
Nelson: “That’s a second life!”
Let’s keep this real. The Chiefs’ defense has problems. One good week can’t change that. They need more consistency at every level — the pass rush, the tackling, and the coverage, particularly against backs and tight ends. This is still a flawed roster led by a coordinator who’s been swimming against the current for more than a year.
But this matters, too, and you can make an Andy Dalton joke if you want — coincidence or not he’s been wretched in night games — but the Bengals entered the week sixth in scoring.
The Chiefs held Bengals star running back Joe Mixon to his least productive game of the season — 50 yards on 13 carries — and shut down everyone but A.J. Green. They bothered Dalton, fooled him with some blitzes, and mostly locked down in the back.
The tackling problems disappeared. The penalties were manageable, though being called for 12 men on the field twice in one possession is inexcusable.
Green said the Bengals struggled with some coverage disguises that didn’t exist on film, which is an important point when so much anger has been directed at Sutton.
Here’s something: the Chiefs gave up fewer yards against the Bengals than they had in four different halves this season.
“What did they have, 50-some rushing yards?” linebacker Reggie Ragland asked, and it was 65, but the point remains. “If we can get teams one-dimensional and let the guys in the back do what they do, we’ll have a shot at winning a lot of games. Especially with the offense we’ve got.”
That last point is an important one. The Chiefs have tried to win with defense before. That’s how we got Derrick Thomas blasting a kicker on a radio show. This isn’t that, and even as the defense should be better — and will be, assuming Justin Houston and Eric Berry indeed return — the standards are different.
NFL records are falling, all the time, the balance of power shifted so far toward offense and away from defense that the product is closer to the Arena Football League than what existed when today’s players were born.
The Broncos are next, which brings to mind the Monday night game three weeks ago. The Broncos did everything right but win, becoming extras in Patrick Mahomes’ first national moment, and after a 27-23 loss Broncos star cornerback Chris Harris shook his head.
“If you don’t put up 30 you don’t win,” Harris said. “It’s different. It’s different in this NFL.”
The Chiefs are the NFL’s best example of that, the league wide trends amplified here locally by a cartoonishly talented offense and a defense that until Sunday night claimed a game in which it gave up 502 yards as its best effort.
That remains a good example of what this defense can aspire to be. Holding a good offense to 10 points is a bit of a unicorn for this group, but the whole point of having Mahomes surrounded by so much talent is that the margin for error grows.
As long as Mahomes, Hill and Kelce remain healthy, the standard for the defense is mediocrity. Get there, and this is a Super Bowl contender.
This is a drastically different reality than the one the franchise has tried to manage before. The team that always needed to play perfectly to beat the other side’s dynamic quarterback has flipped that burden to the opponent.
The average NFL team was scoring 24.2 points per game through week six, pacing for the highest scoring season in league history. The Chiefs can win a lot of games giving up 30 if the defense avoids being trucked.
Use this as a goal: some combination of five forced turnovers and punts. The standard is low, but the Chiefs offense has had three or fewer possessions without points in all but two games. The season opener against the Chargers, when they were protecting a double-digit lead, is the only time they’ve gone over four.
Playing with a Ferrari of an offense might inflate the Chiefs’ yardage surrendered, but it also should make those game-turning opportunities more plentiful. Playing often with leads, and against teams pressing to keep up with a rocket ship, the Chiefs defense can help win a game even while giving up chunks of yardage and points.
Do that, and Nelson will have lots of opportunities to play interview hype man in winning locker rooms.
Sam Mellinger
Sam Mellinger is a Kansas City Star sports columnist.
This story was originally published October 22, 2018 at 1:04 AM.