Kansas City Chiefs: The Curious Case of Dorian O’Daniel
By Shade Piper
Why he has been unable to seize a role on defense
As previously mentioned, a lot of his inability to capture any type of defensive role stems from his being undersized and Coach Spagnuolo’s size requirements. There is also a lot that goes on behind the scenes, so it could be that he just hasn’t performed in practice, but on the surface, those appear to be the biggest factors in his lack of playing time.
Without speculating on whether Spagnuolo’s size requirements are the best way to run a defense (I mean he did just help drastically improve the defense and win a Super Bowl), it still seems odd that O’Daniel didn’t more playing time on a struggling defense in 2018 and still isn’t able to make it onto the field in sub-packages.
Maybe it does all just have to do with his lack of size or maybe he just hasn’t progressed as the Chiefs would have liked. Maybe the Chiefs were more comfortable with their more experienced linebackers or maybe this is the year!
Guessing is all that can be done at the moment, but it seems that there would have to be other factors other than his size.