Super Bowl Preview Pt II: Chiefs Defense

Steve Spagnuolo might be the most underrated defensive coordinator in football. As a defensive play caller, he’s won three Super Bowls at two different spots and has an outrageous 17-4 career playoff record. But due to his underwhelming few years as a head coach splitting up his two championship DC stops–and the fact that the Chiefs have not exactly been known for defense until this season–he never seems to get his due. 

While young up-and-coming whiz kid play callers are always going to get more fanfare, well-established coordinators (especially those on the defensive side of the ball) are often taken for granted. But the work Steve Spagnuolo has done in turning a young and unproven Kansas City defense into one of the better units in the league has been remarkable. This Chiefs team would not be here without its defense, which–regardless of your belief level in “Playoff Mahomes”--has been the better unit on this team for the entirety of the season. 

This defense is 7th in DVOA, 5th against the pass, and 27th against the run. They’re 6th in EPA/snap, 3rd in SPA/pass, and 25th in EPA/run. By all accounts, this is an excellent-to-elite defense with one glaring weakness.

CAST AND CHARACTERS

Chris Jones continues to be the best player on the Kansas City defense, and–despite the presence of two other All-Pro candidates in the secondary–its single most important. While Aaron Donald has long dominated the discussion of top defensive tackles–and rightfully so–Chris Jones is more versatile, and his ability to play inside and out–paired with his incredible instincts all along the defensive line–makes him a matchup nightmare and movable chess piece in a way that no other interior lineman in football can replicate. 

Other than Jones, the rest of the KC interior linemen are space-eater types, but they have a healthy rotation of them. Tershawn Wharton’s got a little juice as a pass rusher, but Isaiah Buggs and Derek Nnadi are throwback nose tackles. They’re there to occupy blockers and let everyone else get singles while blitzers run free. The edges are a talented group, although they’ll be missing former Niner Charles Omenihu for the Super Bowl, as he tore his ACL last week. He had 7 sacks in 11 games, which was the third-highest total on the team behind Jones (10.5) and George Karlaftis (10.5), an impressive second-year player with a nice blend of power and closing speed. Mike Danna starts opposite Karlaftis, and–with 6.5 sacks–he’s no slouch either. Again, Jones can go anywhere along the line, so there’s no real weak spot along this front.

Outside corner L’Jarius Sneed is their headliner in the secondary, even if he (surprisingly) wasn’t named to an All-Pro team this season. Given the Chiefs’ aggressive blitzing nature and their affinity for man coverage, Sneed gets put on an island more often than most, but he’s done an excellent job erasing teams’ No.1 receivers and making plays in coverage and as a tackler. Although Sneed gets the majority of the fanfare, second-year nickel corner Trent McDuffie was the Chiefs’ first-team All-Pro selection in the secondary. He’s an incredibly well-rounded player who can stick on your top slot receiver, bounce out wide, or blitz about equally well, but his versatility has won him his post-season awards more than his lockdown ability.

Part of the reason Spags’ work with this Chiefs defense has been so impressive is because this is an incredibly young defense. Of the four corners and four safeties who get the most snaps, only Justin Reid (in his sixth year) and Mike Edwards (5th year) aren’t on rookie contracts. Starting outside cornerback Joshua Williams–who has had a very strong season in his own right–reserve CB Jaylen Watson, and starting safety Bryan Cook are both second-year players. While Chamarri Conner–a talented matchup-specific safety–is a fourth round rookie. Spags loves extra DB sets so all of them play.

Drue Tranquill–owner of one of the best last names for an NFL linebacker–and Nick Bolton are their top options at linebacker, but–just like in the secondary–the Chiefs play a lot of guys. That means Leo Chenal and Willie Gay will get some run in the Super Bowl. They don’t have any stars at linebacker, but this is a well-coached group that triggers quickly and has solid athleticism across the board.

DEFENSE

Steve “Send It” Spagnuolo (no one calls him this). Spags is one of the best and most creative pressure men in the NFL, and–at his core–his defense is a four-man front that blitzes heavily from all over and likes to run man and matchup zone coverage on the back end. The Chiefs are the 5th-most blitz-heavy team in the league and run the 5th-most man coverage. Cover 2 man is probably his favorite coverage–especially on passing downs–as its shell allows for a wide array of bracket coverages tuned to specific receivers and alignments and is easily hidden within (or hides) other two-high looks such as quarters. That also meshes with his affinity for deploying dime personnel (six defensive backs), which the Chiefs ran the fourth-most in the NFL. 

Everyone who has ever played football had one idiot coach who just wanted to run man coverage and blitz every down despite only having two blitzes in their playbook. Spagnuolo is decidedly not an idiot and the best possible version of that coach. A man who loves to blitz, but also knows when to back off, has enough exotic pressure packages to make the blitz rate worthwhile, and blitzes with intent. 

Like an Instant Pot. The Chiefs finished the season No.1 in adjusted sack rate, 2nd in total sacks, and second in pressure rate (to the Lions), but they were only 20th in pass rush win rate. That’s likely a testament to two things. First off, their pressure rates are greatly aided by their blitz-happy approach, which… yeah, they’d better be or you should stop blitzing so much. Secondly, their down-the-field coverage is so good that quarterbacks are often forced to hold onto the ball longer than they’d like, generating a bunch of coverage sacks. This tracks given their talent at corner and the inherent versatility they have in bracketing top targets from running so much two-high pattern matching. Whatever way you slice it, this is an excellent team at pressuring and taking down quarterbacks so protecting Purdy and giving him a variety of outlets will be key.

Rando Roulette. As noted in the roster breakdown above, the Chiefs play a lot of players on defense. They like to mix and match both personnel and personnel groups to play to their weekly matchup, specific situations, and–of course–coverage and blitz pairings. This also gives them the inherent benefit of keeping more players mentally involved in practice and in games and preventing the defense from wearing down over long drives. I’m sure there are tells of some sort here, but that would require the kind of film study and excel sheet filling that I’m not going to partake in with this free blog. I’m sure if the tells are at all relevant, Shanahan’s staff has cataloged them.

Money on the Money Downs. This Chiefs team ranks near the bottom of the league in takeaways but they still excel at limiting points and getting their offense the ball. They’re 2nd in success rate on both third and fourth down defense (the “original” takeaway, if you will). Their ability to generate negatives via sacks and excel on crunch downs has played a major part in this Chiefs defense allowing the second-fewest points in the league.

POTENTIAL OFFENSIVE KEYS

Sweet Mother of God, Run the Ball. It’s time to talk about that one glaring weakness. Despite being a disciplined, well-coached, and sure-tackling defense, the Chiefs are 27th in DVOA against the run, 25th in EPA/run, 29th at the rate in which they allow runs of 10 or more yards, dead-last in ESPN’s run stop win rate, and dead-last in short yardage run defense. Whether it’s double tight stretch, throwback under center I-form, fly sweeps, tosses, or our standard shotgun run looks, we should run the ball early and often.

It’s important to note that Raheem Mostert’s 2019 NFC Championship Game performance really spoiled us as a fanbase. That Packers’ run defense was so bad and so unsound that the matchup became truly as simple as “run it every play.” While I’d love nothing more than to be able to do that on Sunday, there’s a reason we haven’t had that kind of success in the run game since. That season put defenses on notice. You can’t just line up and “run your stuff” against this offense. Now, at least half of the NFL runs some variation of Shanahan’s offense, which means defenses (and coordinators) across the league spend the majority of their time building strategies to combat our specific run game. Granted, we have the original, the best, and the most creative version of that run game, but it’s still built within the framework of an offense that every defensive coordinator has a strategy to combat. So while the run game will be massive in determining our offensive success, we’ll need to do several things in the run and pass game to keep that run game open all game long. But make no mistake, we need to stay committed to the run, which means we need to be creative and efficient in taking the Chiefs out of the fronts and looks that are selling out against it.

Loaded Lines and Aggro Edges (there’s a cocaine reference in here somewhere). One of the first steps that defenses often take to slowing our zone/stretch game is loading the line of scrimmage with enough players that it becomes mathematically impossible for us to generate many double teams at the point of attack. This not only takes away the double team benefit of our scheme but also attempts to hold up second-level blockers who can carve out cutback lanes while cluttering the line of scrimmage to shrink and muddy up any rushing lanes.

Given that–and how the Chiefs played the Packers and the Dolphins this year–I would expect to see a healthy dose of five- and even six-man fronts on early downs, with a variety of linebackers and defensive backs acting as rolled up edge defenders as well as heavy edge blitzes to simulate those loaded fronts.

This is a 5-2 against gun look with the back away. You can see how they’re playing outside shade everywhere on the strong side–keying the Dolphins’ heavy lean towards trying to hook defenders and break stretch runs outside. Note also that linebacker Willie Gay (#50) is a late addition to the play side, with a checked creep up and blitz due to the motion away of Tyreek Hill.

The result is a run where Gay (top arrow) blows up the point of attack, which forces Mostert to cut up field early and into the hands of the unblocked backside edge defender (bottom arrow), who has crashed hard inside.

Against the Packers, the Chiefs showed more 4-3 looks–likely because they were more afraid of Jordan Love and Green Bay’s intermediate-to-deep passing game. But they still deployed plenty of loaded fronts, they just got into them later and sneakier in hopes that they wouldn’t get exposed in the passing game through pre-snap recognition. 

However the Chiefs plan to deploy their ever-changing fronts, it’s safe to assume they’ll have a bunch of different looks aimed at trying to load the line of scrimmage and play hyper-aggressive on the edges. By selling out hard on the edges they hope to force everything inside and collapse runs from both sides before the back is able to slice through the middle of their defense. While it will be tough to diagnose and properly block all of their looks, it’s worth noting that the Chiefs HAVE to do this to stop the run because they simply aren’t stout up the middle and give up way too much ground when you run right at them. This is all window dressing and sleight of hand to disguise the fact that you can road grade them in the running game as long as you diagnose what they’re doing and have the proper restraint plays to punish them for their overaggressiveness. 

Restraints (The Fun Kind). So how do we keep the Chiefs’ aggressive edges honest and open up the run game? Let us count the ways. 

Fly Sweeps/Touch Passes - In a traditional under center run game, naked bootlegs were the primary way of punishing aggressive backside pursuit. Those are still on the table, but modern offenses have a few other options to accomplish the same goal. When the edges are playing aggressively towards the running back, making them lose contain with fly sweeps early is a good way of keeping them honest and slowing up their backside pursuit.

The Packers ran a touch pass fly sweep on their very first play from scrimmage, catching the Chiefs overpursuing on the backside and setting the tone with this nine-yard gain to Jayden Reed. 

They’d go back to fly sweeps, touch passes, and reverses throughout the day–mostly to great success–and their early and consistent commitment to the concept helped the backfield run for 104 yards on 21 carries (excluding the yardage gained from the sweeps and touch passes themselves). While that may not seem like an overwhelming number, note that Aaron Jones missed this game to injury, so the primary ballcarrier was AJ Dillon, who averaged only 3.4 ypc this season. The Packers were getting a lot of push in the run game all day.

Bubble Screens - For any spread offense people, one of the most obvious ways to do this is with the equivalent of a bubble screen, which both the Dolphins and the Bills ran plenty of in their playoff matchups.

This is a pretty traditional bubble screen set-up, but there are several ways to create this same constraint on the backside pursuit (red arrows). The aggressive alignment of a defender on the line of scrimmage and the linebacker inside that player means they’ve inherently got bad angles, and this horizontal backside stretch—in whatever way you want to call it—can often get you cheap yardage. Most importantly, if the defense has to respect it then you can pop off rushing lanes like this, where the backside pursuit is hesitating because they’ve been burned too often by the bubble screen.

Dump Offs/Swings - There are other ways to attack the weakside flat and widen the space the backside edge and linebackers have to cover. Both the Bills and the Dolphins were committed to just dumping the ball out wide and letting their receivers work in space. Often, that was accomplished with a receiver going across formation in motion.

Somehow Tua turfed this and it fell incomplete, but you can see how the linebacker—already at a disadvantage based on alignment—and hard-crashing edge both take themselves completely out of the play selling out against the run. If Tua had hit more passes like this the Dolphins run game could have had more success. After all, this is Devon Achane—one of the fastest and most elusive runners in the league—with two blockers on two DBs and the closest defender about 30 yards away.

Motion is the easiest way, but you can also just dump the ball to someone like a hot screen, or, you can get creative and send a receiver with a tight split to the other side of the formation after the snap.

It works especially well if the receiver you send over there is as fast as Tyreek Hill, but I don’t think any of us would be mad with that kind of completion going to Kittle or Deebo with this kind of room to run.

Weakside Play Action - Finally, there’s the good old fashioned play action pass. That can include—among other things—weakside leakouts from backs or chipping tight ends and shallow crossers from the opposite side of the field. 

In this case, both circled players actually got open and Jordan Love threw the deeper route, but that short route—or ones like it—sprung free multiple times on film.

If you hit the Chiefs enough times with receivers coming across formation off of play action, they may start tasking their safeties with guarding the crossers, hoping that their added speed and friendlier angle can get the job done. But this takes away the safety’s ability to help out on outside receivers, isolates them in a way that the Chiefs don’t always want, and–given how much they play man coverage–can mess with the defense’s keys and run fits.

Here you can see All-Pro Trent McDuffie has been tasked with following the wing back tight end in man coverage, so as to prevent a cross formation shallow or leak out off play action.

But with the safety in man coverage and now worried about getting outflanked by a receiver going across the formation…

…it can become difficult for him to know whether it’s pass or run until it’s too late.

Split Zone - Split zone/stretch isn’t really a way of punishing the backside edge defender for crashing hard against the run, but it is a way of blocking him when he does it. The Packers used it a bunch throughout the game (including in the clip above) to ensure they had a cutback lane to run through.

This is third-and-two. Here, the Chiefs are showing 4-3, but—possibly due to the motion or possibly just as a pre-determined call—they are creeping up Willie Gay into a 5-2 look, sending him off the edge, then sending a double dog blitz from both nickels.

Without the split zone action this play would have been boned. But instead…

It’s not the biggest hole, nor the prettiest run you’ve ever seen, but it was a four-yard gain on third-and-two against seven-man pressure with two linebackers also in support. Thus, it is beautiful.

All these plays can pick up chunks of yardage and—in some cases—even spring for big gains, but their primary purpose is to make the Chiefs play our run game honestly. Because if they have to do that, they won’t be able to stop it. Running the ball successfully will be the single most important factor towards our offensive success.

Open Hearts, Closed Formations. There are a couple of other ways to prevent the Chiefs from selling out against the run on the edges–one being the use of formations.

The Bills deployed some closed formations and a ton of tight bunches, which–while not technically closed formations–served the same purpose in the run game. 

The Chiefs would love to play someone on the line outside of this bunch formation to operate as backside pursuit, but since there’s no receiver wide of the bunch they can’t reasonably do so. Putting a corner on the line of scrimmage opposite the furthest outside receiver–especially in man–would absolutely hose the Chiefs if this was a pass. The corner would get picked, switch release pass offs would be impossible, and the second receiver would run free on a deep safety or linebacker with all of the outside available to him and leverage over everyone. So they have to play their outside corner off the line of scrimmage.

This creates numbers in the box once again and double teams on the backside of a run away, which leads to the sort of cutback seams that zone and stretch concepts are built off of. 

Runs away from this bunch alignment–or towards a traditional closed edge–worked well throughout this game, but the Chiefs did adjust by having the defensive back over the bunch’s second receiver crash into the No.2 and No.3 on every snap. They basically tasked this DB with eliminating both blockers–like a two-gapping defensive lineman–to crunch down plays and try to get penetration. That may work against Khalil Shakir and the Bills’ wideouts, but I’m not sure how well that adjustment will go against Deebo, Kittle, Juice, Jauan Jennings, and Brandon Aiyuk–the top-graded run-blocking wideout in all of football.

Tic Tac Toe. One of the tenets of the Chiefs’ defense is that they almost always have a check or two prepared for different types of motion. The thinking goes that–if the offense is going to get more information and an advantage from motion–the defense can reclaim that advantage by adjusting from the motion just before the snap. That could mean players rolling up as edges (which we saw above), rotating safeties, receivers being handed off, d-line stunts, blitzes, and everything in between. Defensive checks are great, but if the offense deciphers what checks you’re making in what situations–either during film study or the game itself–the offense can spring people open in a hurry.

Here the Chiefs are in man and have Trent McDuffie running across formation with orbit motion. In order to keep a good angle on his man he has to really book it, so–knowing this–the Bills have called a play specifically to get the motion man loose the other way. 

It will be up to Shanahan, our coaching staff, and our offensive line, to get a grasp on what checks are most likely to happen against what looks and attack them both in the passing game and the running game.

Depth or Disguise? The Chiefs’ cornerbacks are excellent and so is its pass rush. We know that. But I’m not totally convinced that their heavy rotation of players isn’t hiding some potential weaknesses as much as it is catering to players’ strengths. Willie Gay already seems a bit like a “point-and-shoot” type of player. He’s a plus athlete but I think there’s a reason he’s often rolling up on edges, blitzing, and spying quarterbacks and not reading and reacting or dropping into coverage. The other linebackers are well-coached and far from liabilities in coverage, but with all the help they get from the safeties, how well do they hold up on an island. And the safeties? Yes, they’re strong help defenders, but—like with the linebackers—there are questions about their ability when they get isolated in man coverage. Per PFF, Mike Edwards was graded as the 81st safety out of 95 and Justin Reid was 75th. Now a lot of teams have been able to target them in one-on-one coverage, but when they have those offenses have had success. Justin Reid, for example, gave up 7 catches on 9 targets for 83 yards and a tug against the Packers, who hunted him all day with motions, switch releases, and route combos that they knew would isolate one of their wideouts (usually Christian Watson) on him without help.

Shanahan is as good as anyone at finding and targeting players in one-on-one coverage with our horde of weapons. While it will be a bit harder given the Chiefs’ scheme and its aggressive blitzing nature, I’m sure there are more than a few matchups we’ll be looking to exploit that don’t involve testing those outside corners.

Chris Jones Threat Level: High. Now that we’re moving into the passing game section of things it’s worth reiterating how good Chris Jones is and how potent this pass rush can be. Jones will line up everywhere, and will for sure get some reps on the right end opposite Colton McKivitz given his struggles in pass pro. Jones isn’t only dynamic as a pass rusher but he’s as good as anyone at getting into passing lanes and batting down balls. That’s particularly useful when he’s aligned outside and the Chiefs are thinking quick game. I’m a fan of both of the Chiefs’ two defensive ends as well, but Jones (and the blitzes) are what we need to be the most aware of. Everyone knows that the non-Trent Williams section of our line is the big weakness of our offense. Schemes aside, how they stand up to the Chiefs’ front seven—especially in pass pro—could go a long way in determining what our offense can and cannot do.

Blitz Clock Brock. The past two defenses we’ve faced have dropped their linebackers directly back into the seams to prioritize taking away digs and maintain downhill angles toward any completed slants. This has led Purdy to–at times–stay too long on his deep and intermediate routes and be late getting to his checkdowns. We love Purdy’s aggressiveness in the passing game and if the linebackers are preoccupied with CMC or our short routes then by all means look for the digs behind them, but with a team as blitz-heavy as the Chiefs, Purdy will need to make sure his internal clock is dialed from the start. We’ve gotten away with slow starts the past two games. Let’s not go for a hat trick in the early deficit category. 

Shanahan and the rest of the offense can certainly help in this regard, but ultimately it will be up to Brock to get the ball out on time and to not put it in harm’s way. Big plays are great, but efficiency is key.

Brock Vick. Well, not really. But you may have noticed one of the other great ways to freeze aggressive backside edges is to run zone read. I’m not exactly suggesting we do that—at least no zone reads where we expect Purdy to pull them—but our second-year signal-caller is sneaky athletic, and with the Chiefs’ blitz-happy nature and their lean towards man and matchup zone coverages, they are one of the worst teams in the league at defending QB scrambles (yes, I know, with every passing day, the Ravens’ offensive game plan in the AFC Championship Game makes less and less sense).

We’re not going to go all Josh Allen on them, but when Purdy has an opening on the ground he should take it. I’m not saying he should get happy feet all of a sudden, but efficiency and staying on schedule are the name of the game here, regardless of how pretty it may look.

Slime Time? Deebo’s role in this game is going to be fascinating. On one hand, the Chiefs are a man- and press-heavy team with lots of safety help from guys looking to drive on slants and sure tackling all over the field. That does not play to Deebo’s strengths. Aiyuk is our man-beater, then Kittle, then probably CMC before we get to Deebo. On the other hand, L’Jarius Sneed will almost certainly be shadowing Aiyuk, and while the Chiefs were 5th in DVOA in guarding No.1 receivers, they were only 25th in guarding second wideouts. It’s also a game where we’re likely to be rewarded if we can run a lot in many creative ways, where dump-offs to motion guys and fly sweeps could be a big part of the gameplan, and where the opposition loves to blitz—thus vacating the underneath areas where Deebo excels. There’s a very real world where if we take home the Lombardi Trophy, Deebo is taking home a Super Bowl MVP.

Finally, a few notes on special teams: (1) kick the ball between the uprights, not outside of them; (2) just put that shit in the endzone on kickoffs.

There are countless narratives—about players, teams, coaches, worldwide popstars and their potential flight schedules—that make this a fascinating Super Bowl, but the chess match between the opposing coaches will be as good as it gets. The Chiefs are undoubtedly dangerous, and our playoff defense and slow starts have shaved (and continue to shave) years off of my life. But I’m keeping the faith that our body of work is a better representation of how we’ll play than the last two weeks and that our team—many hardened by the bitter loss four years ago and the many close calls since—will show up and perform their best. If that’s the case, then we’ll be Super Bowl champions. Because no one’s best is better than ours.

Always and forever,

Go Niners 🏈👍