Kansas City Chiefs: Concerns and Highlights of First Preseason Game

Bob Sutton’s playcalling

I heard plenty of callers on the radio following the game complaining about Bob Sutton not being aggressive enough and not blitzing. That is preseason everyone. Defenses are going to be very vanilla in the preseason. Sutton is not going to show his blitz packages in the preseason for teams to get an idea of what he’s doing come the regular season.

The preseason is all about the player on player matchups and how those players do without scheme helping them. With that being said, there were still concerns when it came to his playcalling.

In the first quarter, second drive, Sutton was calling prevent defenses on third and short constantly. After all offseason hearing about Sutton wanting to play press man coverage following the signing of cornerback David Amerson, we saw very little of it during the first preseason game.

The defense looked like it was in bend but don’t break mode the entire game. Instead of allowing his cornerbacks to press at the line of scrimmage and get reps going up against tough wide receivers, he continued to keep his cornerbacks ten yards off of their man. How are the cornerbacks supposed to improve and make plays when they are consistently so far off their assignment.

We saw Houston run curl routes and outside routes the entire night which made the defense look like it was as bad as last season. Sutton should have allowed his cornerbacks to practice the press man coverage despite possibilities of giving up the big play to practice what he’s been talking about all offseason and prep for the regular season.

While I agree with not blitzing religiously like mentioned above, Sutton failed to give his players a real chance in Thursday’s game. We still have to keep in mind that the defense was without both starting safeties and inside linebackers, along with starting outside linebackers after the first drive. The defense would have looked much different with those players on the field.