Mellinger Minutes: Chiefs win (but that defense), Bills are formidable + lots of Royals
Something broke in me here, you guys.
Before this weekend, my opinion was that the Chiefs’ defense was led by a strong third-year coordinator with a proven track record, two stars as good as anyone at their position and veterans at every level.
Before this weekend, my opinion was that the Chiefs’ defense probably would not reach its ultimate ceiling this season — the “Chris Jones on the inside” experiment has been terrible so far — but that it could be opportunistic and effective enough to not hold back a wildly efficient offense.
Now? I’m not so sure.
We have some brutal numbers, if you’re into that sort of thing:
- the Chiefs rank last or next-to-last in points, yards, first downs, rushing touchdowns, rushing yards per attempt, yards-per-drive and points-per-drive given up.
- if you’re more into advanced metrics, the Chiefs are last in Football Outsiders’ DVOA, weighted DVOA, and DVOA against both the run and the pass.
- the 2018 defense has become the standard of ineptitude — so awful it was the only defense in the league that stopped Patrick Mahomes that year — and the 2021 group has given up 10 more points through four games.
Then again, the video tells the story, too, like the time the Eagles has such little respect for the Chiefs’ strength at the line of scrimmage that they ran the ball up the middle on 3rd and goal from the 7 and did this:
Watch that again, and this time pay particular attention to Chris Jones, No. 95, lined up over the right guard. Is that not a play that a superior talent should make?
I don’t come here to bury Jones. He’s not the problem, but then this is the problem: When even the stars are getting beat, it’s a good indication that there’s a lot going wrong.
They had a lot of problems against the Eagles, who punted six times last week, four the week before, and four the week before that and … zero against the Chiefs.
Mike Hughes had a nightmare of a day. He’ll want to burn the tape on this one. He was the primary defender on most of DeVonta Smith’s seven catches for 122 yards and on tight end Dallas Goedart’s touchdown here:
See the disorganization there? Alex Okafor was lined up on the wrong side of the line, and couldn’t even engage the left tackle by the time the throw was out.
Then again, that play should not have happened, because the officials — and the Chiefs’ coaches — missed this forced fumble and recovery by Ben Niemann.
It was just a really bad day for the defense. I know they’re going to talk up their red zone success, and I don’t want to completely dismiss that. Because goodness knows if they didn’t come up with those stops they may have lost, and we’d all be crushing them again.
But I also think it’s far to point out that three of six isn’t amazing — the Patriots are tied for eighth in the league with stops on 50% of red zone drives — and the Eagles helped the Chiefs with some botched field goal decisions and this missed pass to a wide-open Zach Ertz:
The Eagles had three touchdowns lost by penalties. Those are plays that better teams are going to convert.
Look, I don’t want to be all doom and gloom here. It feels weird to be this down about a two-score win on the road. The offense has been remarkable — they’re averaging more than a half-point more per drive than anyone else in the league.
But the defense just has to be better than this.
My instinct was that we were going to see a prideful performance by the Chiefs’ defense, especially with the Eagles playing without either of their starting tackles. My instinct was wrong.
I’m still stubborn enough that I believe in this group. I think they’ve earned that, and it really should not be overlooked how efficient the offense has been.
But we’re basically a quarter of the way through the season, and the 2021 defense looks much closer to 2018 than it does to competence. That’s a major problem.
This week’s reading recommendation is Steve Politi on The Predator In Plain Sight, and the eating recommendation is the shawarmah at Aladdin Cafe.
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The Chiefs are giving up points on 55.3% of drives which, I’ll just be honest, is a lot. Washington is actually and somehow slightly worse.
The problem isn’t a rough four games. That can happen, and it’s worth remembering here that the Chiefs are playing without Willie Gay Jr., Frank Clark and Charvarius Ward. I believe Juan Thornhill can add some speed and coverage to the back end, too, though I don’t have a great answer for you about why that move hasn’t been made already.
The most concerning problem to me remains that the issues are repetitive and predictable.
The Chiefs have known the red zone is a problem, they promised to fix it, and they haven’t.
The Chiefs talked last week about the Chargers’ tempo and substitutions wrecking their communication, they promised to fix it, and they didn’t.
The pass rush isn’t getting home, either. They’re 17th in hurry percentage, 22nd in knockdown percentage, and 27th in pressure percentage, according to Pro Football Reference. That’s just nearly good enough for how this roster is built, and how the coaches want to attack.
I’m at a loss, you guys.
I don’t understand why a coordinator and core in year three together are having these kinds of problems.
The Chiefs defense does not need to be better that it was last year (10th in points, 16th in yards, 22nd in DVOA) or better than 2019 (7th, 17th, and 14th).
But they can’t be worse than they were in 2018 and expect anything better than a repeat of that season’s ending.
I still believe the answers are in that room.
I just find it hard to believe that a regression this sudden would last the entire season with a core that isn’t aging out. It does not make sense.
But yet … the results continue.
The Chiefs talk a lot about “championship swagger,” and as objectively awesome as that term is, it’s also an oversimplified catchphrase.
You can’t be confident with results like the Chiefs defense is having right now. How could you?
If I was in charge — and I know this is obvious, but we should all be grateful I’m not — I’d start with the basics.
Let’s tackle.
Let’s communicate.
Let’s get in the right spots pre-snap.
Accomplish that and then you can worry about the more advanced stuff like the right blitzes at the right time to get to the quarterback, or a plan for stunts or games to help Jarran Reed get some traction.
To be clear: Gay Jr. will make a difference. Frank Clark makes a difference. Charvarius Ward’s health would give Spagnuolo a better option than hoping Jalen Hurts stops throwing at Mike Hughes on his own.
But teams deal with injuries all the time, and I don’t know how anyone could watch these games and believe a lighter injury report can fix the problems here.
The Chiefs are the most successful team in the NFL over the last three seasons. Let’s keep some perspective here.
And, toward that point, let’s recognize that they are averaging more than a half-point more than anyone else in the league, are second in points, third in yards, third in DVOA, first in DAVE, and have the kind of talent, coaching, and precision to go from winning like this when defenses play the pass (watch Trey Smith get downfield) ...
... to winning like this when they don’t play the pass correctly (Tyreek Hill just needs one false hip turn and it’s 32 yards) ...
Regardless of preseason or internal expectations, that is not a team you’d love to see in the playoffs.
So while it’s clear the team is not meeting those expectations right now, we can talk about the deficiencies without going overboard.
Safety Tyrann Mathieu might be the best free-agent signing in franchise history. Clark’s contract is a drag right now — we all understand that — but he was also a key part of a Super Bowl win. Tershawn Wharton is the kind of under-the-radar add that good teams have to make.
They completely remade the offensive line, and may have made the steal-of-the-draft in each of the last two years — L’Jarius Sneed with the 138th pick in 2020 and Trey Smith 226th in 2021.
Gay and Nick Bolton are going to be longterm starters, and the Chiefs have managed the cap in a way that’s allowed them to extend every in-house star while maintaining the flexibility to make a big offer for Trent Williams.
I’m not here to tell you that Veach is on the greatest three-year stretch of any GM in league history. The lack of pass rush is a particular problem for the front office, given how much they’ve spent there.
But I am telling you that a lot of teams would love to trade talent with the Chiefs.
This is the frustrating part. The talent is there. The coaches are accomplished. It’s just not clicking right now.
Sorensen is a fine player.
That’s it. He’s fine.
The conversation around the team has gotten to this extreme where people talk like he’s hot garbage just to make a point, and that’s not fair.
He’s a fine player, and if the Chiefs moved on from him there would be a line of teams willing to roster him.
The problem is that Juan Thornhill plays the same position and is clearly more talented. The problem is that Sorensen has missed some tackles and is often seen chasing receivers downfield and a potential fix is one spot down on the depth chart.
This is a real mystery to me. The Chiefs have smart coaches who want to win more than everyone reading this combined. So there must be an answer.
There must be a reason. Thornhill and Mathieu formed one of the league’s best pair of safeties before Thornhill’s knee injury in 2019. His recovery has not been as smooth or steady as everyone would like, but he’s declared himself “back” physically.
I do not believe that it is a total coincidence that of his 11 snaps against the Ravens, two came on Lamar Jackson’s interceptions. I believe that Thornhill can provide the kind of coverage that can force opposing quarterbacks into tight windows.
I am 100% on Team Thornhill here.
But I don’t think we do the truth any favors when Sorensen is trashed to make the point.
Well, I hadn’t thought of like that but there are certain truths I believe in and here’s one:
The difference between fans of (whatever school or team you want to put here) are (whatever school or team you want to put here) are not nearly as big as we often make them out to be.
I believe that to be especially true when you stay in the same region.
If K-State basketball was as successful as KU basketball, K-State basketball fans would be a lot like KU basketball fans.
If Mizzou football was as putrid as KU football, then Mizzou football fans would be a lot like KU football fans.
You bring up what might be the best example of all, because Chiefs fans now are only vaguely similar to Chiefs fans of 2012 — AND THEY ARE THE SAME HUMANS.
Perspectives change with circumstance, right?
And what was acceptable in 2013 — sneaking into the playoffs, and you guys probably don’t want to talk about what happened after 38-10 — is a failure now.
The Chiefs earned this standard. The expectation is that they play like the best team in the NFL.
When they don’t — and, specifically, when they don’t over and over and over again — it’s natural to point it out.
But you know what surprised me this week?
The number of Royals questions.
I was surprised that Bobby Witt Jr. was not promoted this season. The Royals took a hard look at him for the opening day roster, and then he was the best player in all of the minor leagues.
And, by the way, quick tangent here but look at how similarly Witt Jr. performed this season at Class AA and Class AAA:
Pretty wild, right?
The biggest jump in baseball has always been from Triple A to the big leagues, and that’s probably truer now than ever with teams and opportunities being contracted.
But to be 21 years old and rake like that over two levels, I mean, we can talk about a mild concern on the strikeouts and walks, but that’s as impressive as it gets.
Nobody ever told me this, but I wonder if Witt not winning the second base job in spring training combined with his struggles early at Double A shifted the front office’s thinking just a bit.
Again, this is me speculating, but I wonder if that path told the Royals that it was OK to let him play with guys closer to his peer group and have a full season of success. Plus, with Nicky Lopez’s outstanding season, a major need did not materialize.
When Dayton Moore was explaining the team’s long look at him in spring training, he said it would be hard for him to sleep at night if the Royals missed the playoffs by a game or two and kept Witt down longer than they should have.
Well, by the time Witt was promoted to Omaha the big league team was 19 games out of first place.
It’s also true that the minor league seasons stretching deep into September and rosters expanding to just 28 instead of 40 meant fewer call-ups across baseball.
So, again: broad strokes I am a bit surprised that Witt wasn’t called up at some point, because I expected that even before the season started.
But I also can understand how the circumstances worked against that.
And, all of this is even truer for Pratto: before this season, his last real professional games had him squarely on the struggle bus — .191/.278/.310.
He was an absolute star this season, and one of the great success stories in all of minor league baseball — .265/.385/.602 and he actually hit for more power after his midseason promotion — but I can understand playing it cautious and wanting him to have a full season of success.
He retains final say on personnel, which I think is what you’re asking about here.
The truth is this probably does not change the franchise day-to-day as much as HEY THE ROYALS HAVE A NEW GM would suggest.
Over the years Moore evolved into more of a delegator. When he first got to Kansas City, he was obsessive. He made every decision. Planned everything. Part of that was just getting started and learning the new job, and part of that was the Royals were a bigger mess than he expected when he signed the contract.
But over the years that started to change. Moore is the shorthand for accountability and credit, but Lonnie Goldberg has virtual autonomy on the draft, and many decisions that affect the big league club have been made by J.J. Picollo, Scott Sharp, Rene Francisco, Gene Watson, Jin Wong and others.
The title changes — Dayton is now president of baseball operations, and J.J. is the GM — are significant.
I think it’s fair to say that generally Moore will focus more on the sort of infrastructure of the organization while Picollo takes on even more with the big league club.
But it’s also true that these guys have been around each other forever. They’ve learned the game together. They’ve had virtually every baseball debate possible with each other.
They don’t all think alike — there are regular disagreements, and maybe someday I’ll tell the story about a funny one from 2015 — but they do know each other on a very deep level. And have for years.
Honestly, I think with personnel you won’t be able to tell a big difference. The Royals will continue to rely on scouting and player development while continuing to become a little more transactional.
The biggest difference, I think, is that Picollo will be charged with taking some of the same strategies that have worked so well in the minor leagues and implementing them with the big league team.
First, now that I’m looking at the initials like that, I’m realizing that JJPGM does not come off the tongue like GMDM.
But, on to the question … this is all philosophical, and reasonable minds can disagree, but in the 21st century I am going to disagree with owners making personnel decisions unless presented with a convincing counterargument.
That’s a good way to ruin culture and drive people away from your organization. The shorthand for this is “meddling.” Or: “Dan Snyder-ing.” I just don’t believe owners can make roster decisions and build a championship team, but maybe with another 25 years of trying Jerry Jones can prove me wrong.
I haven’t talked to Moore or Sherman deeply about their relationship, but just from listening and watching I think it’s clear they respect each other and believe in a lot of the same values.
I don’t know why Mike Matheny would enter the season on the hot seat, if that’s what you’re saying. The Royals hit their Vegas over-under number. The losing streaks can’t keep happening, and we can talk about bullpen management or any of the other usual debates about managers, but I’m not seeing where Matheny can’t be part of a successful future.
My sense is that the ownership’s biggest challenge in the short-term future is the act of balancing the Main Thing (winning big league baseball games) with the Generational Thing (the exploration of a downtown stadium).
There are ways to do that, and one is to trust the baseball people to handle the baseball. I think it’s clear that Sherman trusts this group, which is why the press conference a few weeks ago was about promotions for Moore and Picollo.
I can’t tell you that I know Sherman well, but he strikes me as the type to trust his baseball people while being a little more involved in day-to-day than David Glass was, at least toward the end.
Look, we all have different perspectives but from where I sit the Royals are in a pretty good place:
They met Vegas’ preseason expectation while transitioning some important pieces into the leagues, and still have a load of talent in the minor leagues ready to graduate.
That’s a pretty good place to be.
I don’t know what Starling Marte is going to get in free agency. All I know is that he reportedly turned down three years and $30 million from the Marlins, so it’s probably going to be more than that.
Marte is a strong hitter. The Royals could certainly use .308/.381/.456 with 47 steals in their lineup. But he’s also two years older than Taylor and — here’s the main part of the answer — has grade below average defensively in each of the last three seasons.
Reasonable minds can disagree on this. If you want the offense, cool, I understand. But the Royals play in the American League’s biggest ballpark and just signed the statistical best center fielder in the league to a two-year extension that’s less than one year of what the other guy will cost.
So I understand that, too.
The Royals have always valued athleticism and defense more than most. I’ve had lively conversations with some of their scouts by calling that a sort of Moneyball approach, because while it lines up with a baseline core philosophy it also happens to line up with (arguably) going after undervalued assets.
Your broader question is an interesting one, about how the new ownership might have different spending habits.
I don’t think we have that answer yet. The indications I’ve had from the front office is that they’re comfortable, and I think if they weren’t you’d see some attrition.
This is speculation stacked on top of guesswork, so take it for what it’s worth, but every franchise that’s ever opened a new stadium has wanted to time it with the best team possible.
The Giants have a top 10 payroll in baseball, so let’s pump the brakes on them as Brad Pitt’s A’s.
But it’s an interesting point you bring up, because I was having a conversation with someone recently who brought up this piece by Ken Rosenthal on the Giants’ coaching staff.
It’s a really interesting piece, and you should read it, but the gist is that the Giants have a retread manager who hired a very outside-the-box coaching staff — most of the initial hires were in their 30s, and nine of 12 never played in the big leagues.
The results were spectacular during the regular season. Everyone assumed the NL West would be won by the Dodgers or Padres. The Giants’ 107 wins are tied for the 13th most in American or National League history — in the last 30 years only the 2001 Mariners, 1998 Yankees and 2018 Red Sox have been better.
“Their players are legitimately getting better at the major-league level,” Rosenthal quotes an NL executive saying. “They’re getting more out of their players with their coaching staff than any team in baseball.”
So, yeah. That’s pretty good!
But the point made to me in this conversation is that the Giants’ approach — while more successful — is not that different than what a lot of teams are doing.
More specifically to Daniel’s question here, it’s not that different than what the Royals have been testing in the minor leagues and want to transition to the big leagues.
For years and years and years the most important qualification to be a big league manager or coach was often big league playing experience.
The culture of baseball was very much about track record. If you made it to the big leagues, you were one of them. If you didn’t, you weren’t, and if you weren’t, then how could you help those who did*?
* As an aside, this is part of what sunk Trey Hillman’s time as Royals manager before it even started. His lack of big league experience — as a player or coach — put him on the wrong side of the benefit of the doubt, and his approach to the job only made it worse.
I don’t know exactly when that started to change. The continuing emergence of advanced metrics had to have had something to do with it, and not just because a generation of players now has grown up with it, but they’ve seen it work. They’ve seen outsiders have the right answers, and they’ve seen insiders have the wrong answers.
College programs continued to push innovation. Private companies like Driveline Baseball brought results.
A major breakthrough came when JD Martinez turned himself from a fringe big-leaguer into a star and a World Series champion with more than $100 million in career earnings largely with the help of Robert Van Scoyoc, who promoted more balls in the air, and has since been hired as the Dodgers’ hitting coach.
Generally speaking, players now care less about the messenger and more about the message — that it is easily understood and helpful.
That sounds simple, right? Every teacher in every school in America wants their messages to be easily understood and helpful.
But nothing is static. The students and teachers are constantly changing. The baseball world is drastically different than it was 10 years ago.
Teams have to continue to evolve, and do so with the assumption that the baseball world will be drastically different again in 10 more years.
One fun thing about the baseball draft is that there are enough unknowns and enough examples that you can make any point you want. Watch:
In 2014, big-league teams gave three first-round picks more than $4 million to sign. But the five best players in that round signed for between $1.75 million and $3.3 million.
So will big-league teams learn anything from that, and stop putting all their draft allocation eggs in one basket?
I also think it’s worth noting that the guy a lot of Royals fans wanted with the No. 7 pick, Kumar Rocker, priced himself out of other clubs’ drafts including the Mets, who took him 10th and did not sign him. The medicals were not kind.
Nobody has the baseball draft figured out, but this philosophy makes sense to me: There are certain talents worth making the exception, but there are enough unknowns and unpredictable variables to make a sensible case that you’ll have better luck with three dimes than one quarter.
Bobby Witt Jr. is, by all accounts, a generational talent. Jim Callis might be better qualified than anyone to have an opinion on this, and he called Witt the best shortstop draft prospect since A-Rod*.
* Here’s something I’ll always wonder about, because I’m a dork. The consensus was that Witt and Oregon State catcher Adley Rutschman were head-and-shoulders better than the rest of that draft class. The Orioles took Rutschman first, and the Royals were thrilled to get Witt, but I’ll always wonder who they would have taken with the first pick.
So I can see why the same team that pays the freight on someone like Witt — that was the biggest draft bonus in Royals history — might prefer to spread the money around if they don’t see the right talent for the money.
PLEASE remember that this is all strictly philosophy. MLB limits the amount teams can spend on the draft, so it’s not like holding back on a first-round pick is about the owner or club saving money.
I have changed my mind on this.
I used to think the move would be to build a new football stadium where Kauffman is now, and then try to convert Arrowhead into something new — an outdoor drive-in theater? Some sort of shopping center with the field transformed into the world’s best mini golf course? A giant shark tank?
But now I am fully on the side of putting an outdoor event space there. Maybe you do that by renovating Kauffman, or maybe you tear it down and start over.
I do wonder if KC NWSL might want to play there, though I’ve always assumed — and nobody ever told me this, it just makes sense — that they would prefer to be downtown.
That’d be pretty sweet, right?
A sort of Sandstone for the east side of the metro?
I think Jackson County could get on board because the kinds of shows that would book an outdoor space with — just spitballing — 10,000 capacity are different than the ones that would book T-Mobile Center (19,000) or Arrowhead (basically however many they can sell).
Part of my switch here is that I don’t think you can expect to draw people there for anything less than a destination event.
We can talk about development all we want, and use examples like SoFi Stadium and the businesses around Gillette Stadium and even Arlington Live or whatever they call the P&L-chain-bar cluster by the Cowboys and Rangers Stadiums but the truth is we’ve had 50 years with the Truman Sports Complex and the only businesses that have made it are Taco Bell and that gas station.
Kansas Citians have been pretty clear that the intersection of I-70 and I-435 is convenient — and holy smokes do we Kansas Citians love convenient! — but we’re not going there for a movie or a sandwich or whatever.
But an outdoor event space? That could host everything from high school state championships to graduations to professional sports and concerts?
That’d be sweet.
You know for a while there was this trend — King of Queens stands out — where pop culture kept putting objectively doofus-looking men with objectively attractive women. Seems like that’s died down a bit, yes?
I feel like a lot of ads for kid products sit on a throne of lies. Disney doesn’t show people waiting 2 hours in line, you know? The Sunny D ads skip the part where the kids would prefer Sprite or Gatorade and anyway do you have any pizza?
Some of these SUV ads are ridiculous. Ain’t nobody driving a Nissan Armada through the desert.
Also: Subway’s sandwiches do not look like that, or taste the way they look like they’d taste on TV. If we want honesty in advertising we need to force Subway to use actual cardboard props as sandwiches.
But the thing about that Home Depot ad is that I think I could actually get behind a realistic depiction. Like, show some middle-aged guy taking a picture of the faucet at home with his phone, walking up and down the aisles for a while, buying something, bringing it back, unpacking it, trying to install it, realizing it’s the wrong size, going back to Home Depot, more walking, more buying, more bringing it back, more unpacking, more installing, but this time the wife (justifiably) thinks it’s ugly, so back to Home Depot, more walking, this time giving in and finally just asking for help, and then eventually getting back home — should probably stop at the drive-thru if we’re keeping it real — and the installation is almost right but the wife is kind enough to let it side and the husband is shameless enough to pretend he nailed it so he cracks open a Banquet and grills some burgers.
Now THAT would be a relatable ad.
This week I’m particularly grateful for a very cool and very helpful thing that one of our kids’ teachers did. I don’t want to get into specifics, but it turned our kid’s day around, and there just aren’t many people in this world better or more valuable than a good teacher.
This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.