Kansas City Chiefs: Tanoh Kpassagnon and Breeland Speaks development
Tanoh Kpassagnon
As mentioned earlier, Tanoh was an extremely raw talent coming out of college with a very high ceiling. In the last year since joining the Chiefs, the Villanova product has already shown some major development. That doesn’t mean that he is close to becoming the next Justin Houston or Tamba Hali, but he is showing great strides in little amounts of time.
When watching Tanoh last preseason, he looked lost and uncomfortable most of the time. He was slow off the edge as he wasn’t comfortable standing up on the outside. He also struggled to keep his head up in order to keep an eye on the running backs. The biggest issue, in my opinion, was his hesitation.
He still shows some hesitation at times which will need to be worked on, but I saw even more improvement from that Week 17 game against Denver that we looked at recently. The Chiefs gave Tanoh plenty of time on the field as he logged 31 snaps which were 56 percent of the defensive snaps on the night. The first thing I noticed when I rewatched the game to get a look at these two players was that Tanoh was using a number of different moves to get after the quarterback.
Last season, the only move you would see from Tanoh was his bull rush. His bull rush move can still be effective in the NFL given his size, length, and strength, but he will need to develop more pass rushing moves if he wants to get around stronger tackles in the NFL. We saw a little bit of bend around the edge last season which has me very excited for his development.
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During the game against Houston, I saw Tanoh use the rip move several times, a push-pull move that we often see from Justin Houston, and jukes that led the tackle one way while Tanoh switched to the other direction. For example, Tanoh would take his first step to the outside making the tackle think he’s going wide and then cut back inside to penetrate the gap left by the tackle.
Seeing these moves were very impressive for me as it shows that Kpassagnon has been working hard with guys like Houston and Hali over the last year to improve at the position. Unlike Dee Ford who has been here, for now, his fifth season and has yet to develop any new pass rushing moves.
I saw Kpassagnon start out with one move and use a counter move a few times as well. He would start with a bull rush and then counter with a rip move and cut inside and under the tackles arms to get after the quarterback. Unfortunately, this didn’t result in a sack as it was a split second late on the snaps I saw him use these but it’s good to see.
We also have to remember that since the Chiefs defense was playing in off-man coverage, the ball was usually out of the quarterback’s hands in three seconds. The young pass rushers had very little time to get after the quarterback.
Kpassagnon showed several snaps of causing pressure quickly in the backfield against Houston. There were a good number of snaps where he was unable to generate pressure due to the tackle getting his hands on him first which needs some improvement, but overall I was impressed with Tanoh’s abilities to learn new moves and see him working on counters. Considering how raw he was coming out of college, I was not expecting him to be as far along as he is.
When it came to the run game, there weren’t many plays where the Texans ran to Tanoh’s side. When they did, Tanoh showed great ability to set the edge. One thing that Ford has been unable to do the last four seasons. Kansas City desperately needs someone who can set the edge opposite of Justin Houston this season.
Kpassagnon still has some work to do in the run game as well as he is sometimes slow to recognize where the play is going, but I liked what I saw from him during the first preseason game. Tanoh is still working on reading and reacting instead of overthinking on plays. Once he develops some more instincts, Tanoh has the athleticism and tools to be a dominant player on the outside.