Kansas City Chiefs: A tale of two Kansas City defenses

The Kansas City Chiefs destroyed the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday Night Football and they did it both on offense and on defense. Where has this defense been all season?

Heading into the 2018 season, Kansas City Chiefs fans had an inkling that this year’s defense wouldn’t be very good. After the first four games of the season, those thoughts proved to be reality, as the Chiefs defense was looking atrocious.

They gave up 541 yards against the Chargers, 475 yards against the Steelers, 406 to the 49ers, and 385 to the Broncos. While week five saw the Chiefs only allow 14 points to the Jacksonville Jaguars, they still surrendered over 400 yards through the air by Blake Bortles (of all quarterbacks).

Of course, we all saw the putrid performance of the Chiefs defense in week six in Foxboro. Tom Brady, Sony Michel, and the entire Patriots offense gashed the Chiefs in every aspect offensively and the entire nation got to witness that.

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In week seven though, the Kansas City Chiefs defense FINALLY showed up and boy did they ever… The KC defense allowed just ten points to what had been a pretty high-flying Bengals offense. On top of those ten points, Kansas City gave up a season low 239 yards to Cincinnati, who had been pretty efficient until this point.

While it’d be nice if this Chiefs defense stuck around for the duration of the season, I’m not sure I’m a believer just yet. Yes, it was an absolute DOMINANT effort by Bob Sutton’s group, but there were a lot of factors in this one.

For one, the crowd was hyped. Defenses feed off of that kind of atmosphere and Chiefs Kingdom was rocking from the start. How could a defense not play well when the Sea of Red is fully charged?

Second, the Bengals seemed off offensively. They’ve never been a good primetime team (they’re now 0-8 in Marvin Lewis‘ tenure with the Bengals) and that’s obviously gotten in their heads. They didn’t look right from the beginning.

I have to say though… It was interesting seeing the defense perform THIS well without Eric Berry and Justin Houston, two big time pieces in the Chiefs defense over the years.

It was fun watching both the Kansas City offense and the Kansas City defense play at the highest level and it’d be great if this could be a trend moving forward. If this defense shows up for the playoffs, it’d be really hard for any team to beat the Chiefs come January (and maybe even February).

What do you think, Chiefs fans? Is this defense here to stay or will we see the same defense from weeks one through six again?

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