Kansas City Chiefs: What happened to the secondary

The Kansas City Chiefs’ defense has disappeared. What used to be a tremendous force to be reckoned with has vanished before our eyes.

“What the hell just happened?” This was my thought when the game hit double zeroes. The Kansas City Chiefs went from being 5-0 looking like world beaters to being 5-2, after dropping back to back winnable games.

Thursday night felt like getting punched in the gut repeatedly. The game ended four different times and the final result was not in the Chiefs favor. It took a few days to really process what happened.

In the immediate aftermath of the game much of my anger was directed towards Andy Reid. His play calling in situations where the team needs to hold the ball is not great. That is putting it mildly.

I was born in Philly and have rooted for both the Chiefs and Eagles most of my life. This is not something that is new to Reid. Poor clock management plagued his entire tenure in Philadelphia and has already cost the Chiefs more than one game.

That being said, it is still on the players to execute. Reid can call any play he wants, but Chief defenders especially in the secondary need to execute. The fact that the Raiders had two receivers go over 100 yards, including one that went over 200 is disgusting. This is inexcusable.

Time and time again Kansas City’s corners were burnt or made piss poor tackles. The absence of Eric Berry is really starting to show up. Throughout the first five weeks of the season, the Chiefs were able to mask it, but now they are getting exposed.

This can no longer be allowed to continued, if the Chiefs have any type of Super Bowl aspirations this year.

Burnt to a Crisp

Amari Cooper did pretty much whatever he wanted to do all night. Consistently pulling the secondary’s pants down, he ended the game with 11 catches for 210 yards and two touchdowns. Jared Cook chipped in 107 yards.

Two people combined had over 300 receiving yards in one game. If that’s not an indictment of this secondary then I don’t know what is. This is the second straight game in which the defense has allowed a received to go over 150 yards. In the previous game against the Pittsburgh Steelers  Antonio Brown went off for 155 yards on just eight catches.

While the defense didn’t give up a one yard performance against the Texans two weeks ago, they did allow five touchdowns. Two of those came against the all-pro cornerback Marcus Peters. He doesn’t look like himself this season.

Well it hasn’t gotten better in recent weeks. Phillip Gaines and Terrence Mitchell have been getting torched as well. Against the Raiders, Mitchell led the team in tackles. He also leads the team in tackles for the year. It’s not a good look when that happens. That means they are consistently giving up catches.

Big Plays Will Be The Death of This Team

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The Kansas City Chiefs defense has consistently given up big games to receivers. The Chargers and Patriots both posted 100 yard receivers against this secondary. While Philly did not have a 100 yard receiver they did have two receivers get 90+ yards.

This secondary has given up a lot of big plays this year. Of the 19 TDs they have allowed this year, 13 of them have been through the air. Almost half of those (6) have been 30+ yards. The bend but don’t break defense that defensive coordinator Bob Sutton employs is a reason for this. If you look at Coach Reid’s best teams in Philly they had a nasty defense courtesy of legendary defensive coordinator Jim Johnson.

We have seen this act for the past few seasons. Give up the big play and tighten up in the red zone. Only this year it seems like a lot of those big plays are going for touchdowns. This can no longer be allowed to continued, if the Chiefs have any type of Super Bowl aspirations this year.

Hopefully with the pseudo bye week coming off a Thursday night game, into a Monday night game the team will play with renewed focus and energy. If I were Reid and Sutton, I’d spend a day in practice hammering the idea of wrapping up when you tackle as well.

Something has to change, and fast.